Essendon: Population, history, sights, sport, schools and crime
It’s been the launch pad for many famous fashion brands and the scene of horrific plane crashes and one of Melbourne’s most infamous gangland murders. It’s also home to one of the AFL’s most loved and loathed clubs. Here’s a look at postcode 3040.
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It’s where AFL superstars went to school, grizzly gangland executions were carried out in broad daylight and a recent aviation disaster killed five people.
Essendon’s rich history sits atop the pile of Melbourne’s northern suburbs.
But before Dane Swan and Matthew Lloyd went to school at St Bernards, before Jason Moran was gunned down at Auskick, and before Kevin Sheedy and James Hird held the premiership cup aloft at Windy Hill, the foundations of Essendon were laid.
The suburb of 3040 got its name from the village of Essendon in Hertfordshire, England in the late 1850s and around the same time the gold rush opened up the district with miners travelling along Mount Alexander Road to Castlemaine.
Fast-forward 170 years and some of Melbourne’s most memorable moments took place in 3040.
WINDY HILL and ESSENDON FOOTBALL CLUB
Originally known as the Essendon Recreation Reserve, Windy Hill has seen some of the great Essendon teams play and train on it.
It became the primary multipurpose sports reserve in Essendon in the 1880s when the Essendon Cricket Club was the manager of the ground and primary tenant.
But in 1921 when the East Melbourne Cricket Ground closed and Essendon Football Club was in need of another ground, the Victorian Government made a decision that would tie the Bombers to Windy Hill for the next 100 years.
Essendon wanted to move to Arden Street Oval in North Melbourne, but after a protest the move was blocked and Windy Hill became the Bombers’ home ground for the next 70 years.
The ‘Dons won 10 VFL/AFL premierships during those 70 years, and continued to train at the ground through to October 2013.
The Windy Hill name was coined by Lou Richards in the 1950s when writing for the The Sun News-Pictorial.
Today the club’s VFL side calls Windy Hill home.
FAMOUS CRIMINAL INCIDENT
On a cold June morning in 2003 35-year-old Jason Moran and his minder Pasquale Barbaro sat in a blue van outside an Auskick clinic.
Moran, who was linked to Melbourne’s underworld and a significant player in its gangland wars between 1995 and 2003, was watching his young kids play football at the clinic.
After the clinic, and in front of five children including Moran’s six-year-old twin boy and girl, a gunman executed Moran and Barbaro as they sat in the van.
In 2007 Carl Williams, who Moran was reported to have shot in the stomach at Gladstone Park in 1995, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of Victoria to the murder of Moran.
Despite Williams not carrying out the shooting himself, he had organised the hit and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Williams was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum of 35 years.
He was later murdered while incarcerated at Barwon prison on April 19, 2010.
ESSENDON AIRPORT
The home of Kylie Minogue’s debut music video for her song Locomotion, Essendon Airport was once Melbourne’s only international airport.
In February 1950 it became Australia’s Second International airport and was renamed Melbourne Airport and a year later the first international commercial flight arrived from New Zealand.
But because of surrounding housing, expansion became impossible and larger jets such as the Boeing 707 couldn’t land at the smaller airfield.
Soon construction began in Tullamarine for what is now known as Melbourne Airport and by 1971 commercial international and domestic flights had been transferred to the much bigger airport.
The Essendon Airport faced challenges in the late noughties to remain open, but to this day is used by executive, corporate and privately owned aircraft along with charter, freight and regional Victorian airlines.
Sadly in February 2017 a Beechcraft B200 King Air bound for King Island crashed into the Direct Factory Outlets (DFO) shopping centre in the airport grounds at 8.59am shortly after taking off, killing all five people on board.
The pilot made two mayday calls before the aircraft clipped the roof of DFO, crashing into the ground and going up in flames.
Four of the passengers on the plane were American tourists on their way to King Island to play golf.
FAMOUS SCHOOL ALUMNI
Between St Bernard’s College and Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School alumni you’d have one of the best AFL teams to ever play.
St Bernard’s boasts Brownlow medallist and Collingwood champion Dane Swan, three-time Coleman medallist and Essendon premiership hero Matthew Lloyd and current players like Noah Balta and Joe Daniher.
Many consider the school to be the best producer of AFL talent in Australia.
Just down the road at PEGS they’d have something to say about that, with current Richmond captain and Brownlow medallist Trent Cotchin a product of one of the best football programs in Australia.
All Australian and dual premiership winner Dustin Fletcher, along with number one pick and current Lions excitement machine Cam Rayner have also worn the navy, maroon and pale blue on their way to the AFL.
But PEGS hasn’t just produced AFL stars.
Movie star and one of the most popular Aussies to ever hit the Hollywood big screen Eric Bana went to PEGS, as did celebrity chefs Shannon Bennett and Curtis Stone.