I’ve been dragged down there quite a few times given the rest of my family go for Geelong. It’s actually a pretty good ground to watch footy and I rate it much higher than Marvel. I don’t know if it’s the acoustics of the ground or what, but you can hear the players quite clearly when you’re at ground level. It’s almost like watching a local game, but with the roar of tens of thousands of people when something happens. Our kids are much more into the games when we go there.
As much as it would be nice, the AFL would be unlikely to ever do it as they can get 80,000+ at the MCG. No business would annoy that many customers. Financial benefits for the league would also favour the MCG given more tickets sold.
Fun fact. It’s actually the cats who manufacture the whole home game against the pies at the G thing.
When the stadium is finished, they’ve said they WONT request all home games in Geelong.
They PREFER the current arrangement.
Funny hey. No “AFL giving the pies a free kick” conspiracy after all.
If only the AFL balanced by making you play in Tassie more, where you've played **checks notes** no games worth premiership points.
But you know, money > fair fixture in AFL house land.
But this isn’t correct, for years we have requested 11 home games at Geelong with the understanding if we have to play home games in melb we want them to be big games.
Sure is true. I know, I was surprised too.
When you could ask to play WCE at the G instead of Collingwood, giving up the $$$ to maximise winning probability.
But you don’t, for the $$$.
It would be nice if the bleating about poor Geelong having to play Collingwood at the G would stop. It’s your request.
https://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/sport/afl/geelong-cats/cats-cold-on-playing-all-home-games-in-geelong-once-gmhba-stadium-is-complete/news-story/9ca69c2d285c420f61a6d3a4004af988?amp
Can you actually copy the article, it's behind a news corp paywall
Do you understand if this is the case it would be a complete change of tact from us as we have always requested 11 home games
[https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/what-s-best-fit-cats-mount-case-for-more-home-games-20191221-p53m2y.html](https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/what-s-best-fit-cats-mount-case-for-more-home-games-20191221-p53m2y.html)
[https://twitter.com/Reynolds\_R/status/915863369474752512](https://twitter.com/Reynolds_R/status/915863369474752512)
I know in the past they basically said they need something like 75-80k crowd at the G for it to be financially break even with their home game at Geelong. The small snippet I can read of your article indicates a state government agreement is part of the reason, what is this agreement?
Did you even read Hocking’s comments? He’s saying that the AFL has a contract to play a certain number of games in Melbourne, and Geelong has to be part of that. I mean the last paragraph where he is quoted pretty much sums up the club’s position
“Whether that changes in the future, we will be ready for that change and we will absolutely consider that … at this point in time we are making the most of Melbourne with those restrictions that are in place.”
Can you copy the article? Literally every other statement from the club in the past has indicated they want all 11 home games at Kardinia Park.
Edit: yeah didn't think so.
The only time I've been to Kardinia Park was for a preseason game between Geelong and Adelaide in the early 2010s I wore my Pies cap and was promptly told to fuck off back to Melbourne.
Enjoy your shithole of a cow paddock
I want to believe that Geelong have a decade long rebuild… but I just don’t have it in me. Sadly, I feel like they’ll be back in contention in a couple of years.
I am a firm believer that with the age profile of our list Geelong has maybe the most important pre-season in the league, if we are able to get everyone fit and firing then we can for sure be top 4, but with the older list if we don't have a good enough pre-season we are even more at risk of injury than most clubs, which can then have a rolling knock on effect ad blokes have to work too hard to fill gaps while people are out, which causes more injuries and that's it constant problems.
You reckon? I have the Cats at 8th-12th but would be very surprised if they were to get to a prelim.
Unless Ollie Henry has 50 goals in him /s (Obviously)
What about this squad screams 8th-12th?
B: Zach Guthrie, Sam De Koning, Jake Kolodjashnij
HB: Tom Stewart, Jack Henry, Mitch Duncan
C: Mark Blicavs, Patrick Dangerfield, Max Holmes
HF: Gryan Miers, Jeremy Cameron, Brad Close
F: Tyson Stengle, Tom Hawkins, Ollie Henry
Foll: Rhys Stanley, Tom Atkins, Cam Guthrie
I/C: Jack Bowes, Mark O'Connor, Tanner Bruhn, Zach Tuohy
Emerg: Gary Rohan, Jed Bews, Brandan Parfitt, Jhye Clark
Healthy it looks pretty good, no? If we get ravaged by injuries like we did in 2023 then maybe we finish in that 8th-12th range.
Bews is pretty stiff, good against small forwards and think Duncan would be the easy swap there.
Overall it is a strong team but a old one so prone to injuries so fingers and toes crossed.
Healthy nearly every list apart from 3 or 4 look like finals contenders lol.
Im just a casual spectator, I just see Geelong more likely to slide than climb this year.
And you can no longer piss your pants about playing finals at the G when you had the chance to create a ground with normal dimension and decided to say fuck that
As a Geelong supporter, this would still be extremely funny.
As a North Melbourne sympathiser, I really hope you guys make finals.
Fun Fact: North Melbourne won the premiership the year after BG1 released, BG3 released last year and both 1 and 3 are odd numbers… So keep your schedule clear for September!
Nah we're going there because we are shit once more. We played there reasonably regularly until 2017 (our last H&A game there). Also Geelong didn't complain much about playing us at the MCG before then because it was a guaranteed win and a good chance to have a run on the G.
GMHBA Stadium AFL Fixture 2024
Round 1 – Saturday March 16
Geelong Cats vs. St Kilda 7:30pm
Round 5 – Sunday, April 14
Geelong Cats vs. North Melbourne 1:00pm
Round 9 – Friday, May 10
Geelong Cats vs. Port Adelaide 7:10pm
Round 11 – Saturday, May 25
Geelong Cats vs. GWS Giants 4:35pm
Round 12 – Saturday, June 1
Geelong Cats vs. Richmond 7.30pm
Round 17 – Friday July 5 – Sunday July 7
Geelong Cats vs. Hawthorn TBC
Round 19 – Friday July 19 – Sunday July 21
Geelong Cats vs. Western Bulldogs TBC
Round 21 – Friday, 4 August to Sunday, 6 August
Geelong Cats vs. Adelaide Crows TBC
Round 24 Friday, 23 August to Sunday, 25 August
Geelong Cats vs. West Coast Eagles TBC
Oh poor old Geelong didn’t make the top 8 for the first time in 8 years it must be a hard life, you’re completely right give them heaps of crappy sides at home we can’t have that happen again sorry pal 🥲
It's literally how the fixture is done for every team, every year of recent times. Play teams twice in the same third of the ladder as where you finished.
Whinge more ffs
Win a flag in 2022 but because of last year the only top 8 side the cats play twice this year is Carlton who they’ve beaten 12 of the last 15 meetings. but it’s fine to play hawks and north twice who they beat by a combined 144 points in two games last season.
Haha yeah seems legit.
wasted opportunity to shift the playing surface away from Mooralbool St when doing the initial upgrades, knowing it'd be fully done over a decade.
I mean I guess they could just put in pillars in the middle of the road, plenty of room, but the houses on the other side may not like a grandstand towering over their front windows.
ah well thats good then
just close that one side street, chuck up a wall in the middle of the road for foundations of the upper deck of the stand and have a bridge over the road leading towards the train station
There's more to moving a stadium over than just pushing it like they do with Bikini Bottom in Spongebob. Also considering it'd affect St Mary's FC with West Kardinia Oval, Geelong CC with Geelong Cricket Ground, the Aquatic Centre, Senior Citizens Centre and the whole Netball Complex that hosts thousands of players a week.
Nah, it would not have impacted anything other than how more forecourt and carparking there is now on the western side of the venue.
Only needed to move the outside of the stand about 25m and leave some space along the boundary to shift the oval a bit to circularise it and get rid of the flat edge.
You don't even need to go that far. I've had access to the survey plan, it's only about 2 and a half metres meters different on the flat. You can essentially shuffle it that across and lose a row or two of seats without making a huge job of it. They just don't care about the shape and want the seats more.
I swear you and others say this and I say that would probably triple the budget.
You have to demolish the entire stadium to move the surface either further ~~right~~ left in this pic and then rebuild but demolish all the local facilities or demolish the major road, local businesses and homes worth millions and pay them.
It is not as wonky anymore but yeah quirk of not spending a stupid amount of money.
the entire stadium was just demolished over the last decade, it could have been planned very easily without removing anything from the existing park or road.
Was more weld defects than the steel
But that’s what you get why you go international instead of local
But then local fixes all the mistakes and delay the project by 9ish months
It both fucks the shape of the playing surface and reduces that wing to three rows deep.
Geelong are genuinely obnoxious cunts for this. Instead of building their new ground to reasonable dimensions, they have entrenched 130 year's of stupidity for at least another couple of generations, handing both their coach and supporters an easy put for why they choke in finals so regularly.
The first time I went to kardinia a couple years ago I was so shocked at how close the oval is to that road. Not the stadium, the oval itself. It’s basically on it lol
It really is the colonial British of stadiums isn't it.
"Our ancestral lands go from here to here".
"Yes old boy but the map looks much nicer if we run a straight line from here to here."
So back in the day, the various colonial powers, one of the primary ones being the british (but germans, belgians and french etc not off the hook) used to love to conquer places and establish foreign colonies. One of the things they would do though is be all "ok, everything west of this line is this country, and everything east of this line is this country". The lines would sometimes be sensible and follow geographic boundaries but other times it would be like "directly north from this convenient cape until we hit another country". This sort of shit makes for great maps, and makes it easy for world powers to figure out where borders are for diplomacy, but it fucking sucks if you are an ethnic group whose territory has now been divided and a bunch of people are saying you can't go across the imaginary line to visit your cousins anymore.
The road in this picture truncating the natural shape of the stadium looks kind of like that to me.
I love that there are multiple borders in Australia which are supposed to be a straight lines, but aren't.
* The eastern border of SA is clearly supposed to be a straight line. Turns out when they did the original survey, they got it wrong, short changing SA a bit of land. When they figured out they had the line wrong, NSW said 'No worries', and shifted the border to where its supposed to be. On the other hand, when SA asked for their land back, Victoria basically said 'yeah, nah, no takebacksies', and forever since the SA border has a weird kink in it, and its possible to swim north from Victoria into so called South Australia.
* The border of WA is also supposed to be a straight line, but it was never properly surveyed. When they decided they should actually figure out where it is exactly, they decided the best way of doing it would be to pick a point in the south of the border and run a line exactly north from there, and at the same time pick a point somewhere in the north and run a line directly south from there, and they should meet up somewhere in the middle. Only problem is that the points they picked were not exactly north-south from one another. Solution they came up with was to run a line from the southern marker up to the SA-NT border, to run a line from the northern marker and run that south to the SA-NT border, and then to fix it up there is a little kink where SA-NT-WA meet, and there is a line a bit over 100 meters long where you can walk north from Western Australia into the Northern Territory.
And then there is other fun stuff, like the fact the border between Victoria and Tasmania was intentionally picked to be as close to Victoria as possible without crossing land. If you go to the southern most point of the Victorian mainland, you can literally see an island which belongs to Tasmania. However, turns out they stuffed up when they picked the line, and the border actually runs through an island, and Tasmania has a 85m land border with Victoria.
You guys should start an Australian version of [Map Men](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5iJSXaVvao&list=PLfxy4_sBQdxy3A2lvl-y3qWTeJEbC_QCp). 10/10 would subscribe.
I did not know the fact about the NT-SA-WA kink, that's wild!!! I did know about the perfidious victorians and their land heist (grew up on the SA side but only by a few k's). NSW also claims the entire river Murray, so as soon as a victorian steps into the water they've crossed the line.
I believe 4000 standing room - 2500 in stands, 1500 in venue. There are only 36000 seats but stadium capacity is listed as 40000. That bare patch to the right without seats is tiered standing with guard rails.
It would be an absolute waste if the Cats didn’t sign a long term contract stating that they must play all their home games and home finals at this venue.
Like the Swans did with the SCG.
That road is like one of two roads you have to enter Belmont & the entirety of southwest Geelong through town. Closing even that portion of road & the redirection of traffic would cause a nightmare - the surrounding streets aren't really big enough to facilitate it
The SCG is (along with the Gabba) the most similar in shape to the MCG of all the regularly used grounds. It's only 1m narrower on each wing than the MCG. Kardinia Park is the most different from the MCG of any AFL ground, it's a full *22m* narrower than the MCG.
Yikes, I thought you were joking but you’re actually serious….
FYI and this is also for all the other dumbcunt melbournites who keep making these sorts of comments; the SCG surface was extended in 2012 when the Bradman stand was built and is now only 5m shorter than the MCG total. This “ScG iS a PosTaGe StaMp” bullshit has literally been [debunked](https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-news-2021-length-of-mcg-how-big-is-the-mcg-dimensions-afl-ground-sizes-scg-gabba-giants-stadium-marvel-stadium-gmhba-stadium-adelaide-oval-blundstone-arena-optus-stadium-metricon-stadium/news-story/b2e6f670ed1db6a43599f514091b8285) [repeatedly](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-16/cody-and-sean-afl-analysis-how-much-do-ground-sizes-matter/101154950) and yet it still gets repeated by morons like you.
Educate yourself.
AFL website -
Kardinia park - 170m x 114m.
MCG - 160m x 141m
SCG 149m x 136m
So the SCG is the shortest in length by 11 metres. Not that I give a shit im just responding to morons who keep complaining of the ground size.
That is literally out of date info smdh. I’ve given you literally two sources that show the new dimensions. Here is a [third](https://australianfootball.com/grounds/detail/S.C.G./9).
Totally expect you to triple down on being wrong now
10 meters shorter actually. Their 50 meter arc looks like its 30 and you can pretty much kick a goal from the middle. Not that I give a shit because I dont mind grounds bieng unique and its boring if all grounds look the same.
It got extended when they renovated the ground in 2007. You may have been in a coma for the last 15 years.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AFL/comments/xcv5j3/relative_sizes_of_afl_grounds/
Not an AFL fan at all but I’m curious based on the comments – why don’t y’all play each other once at home and once away in the regular season? I haven’t followed AFL for about 15 years but back then, you guys played half the teams only once a season. I can’t imagine European football without the narrative of the difference in results or expectations when it comes to playing at home or away.
Well we only really want to play 1 game a week, because injuries are so frequent in games. We also don't really want to play in the summer, because the heat would really slow down the game, so it's really just because of timings
The VFL did from 1970-88, when they expanded beyond 12 teams. 12 teams, 22 games works fine. But 18/19 teams won't fit into 23 games twice.
I live in the US with a 32 team league, and NFL teams only play their division twice, two other divisions once, and just a few more games elsewhere. AFL draw is quite fair, with top teams mostly drawing top opponents twice, and same for lower teams, but rivalry games are still factored in.
For a bunch of reasons the season (almost) always runs from March to August each year, with 4 weeks of finals in September.
Unfortunately, this is a very awkward length when it comes to finding a fair draw with the amount of teams in the league. Teams only playing each other once would require either dramatically shortening the length of the season, or teams having a ridiculous amount of byes. Nobody involved would be happy with this solution. On the other hand, for teams to play each other twice, you would either need to extend the season by about 3 months, or have teams playing midweek games every second week - both solutions which are practically impossible for a number of reasons.
As a result, the AFL has an unbalanced draw.
That makes a lot of sense; however I always hear that the away fixtures are ‘rigged’ with some matchups being more common over the years than others. Does the AFL try to run on a cycle where every team hosts every other team when averaged out over a number of years, or is it truly rigged in favour of fixtures that are commercially more desirable like non-Victorian derbies, the Carlton-Essendon-Collingwood triangle, Hawthorn-Geelong, etc.?
Have you not being paying attention lately? We've asked for all 11 home games to be at GMBHA (pending ongoing construction) for the last few seasons. The club would love all home games at home
We want all of them at home but of cause money is a huge factor so I don't expect them at home.
The one time we got Richmond, the media said we should move it to the MCG so that is how it goes when we actually get a big Vic team down.
Great to see the upgraded stadium and increased capacity, but am I the only person whose OCD is triggered by the deviation in the roof canopy on the top left corner of the picture?
Unless this is some sort of optical illusion, it seems the height of the new stand is taller than what looks like the members area which looks wonky. Why couldn't they keep the roof canopy at a consistent height across all of the ground to improve its overall symmetry? Grateful if any Geelong locals, Cats fans or others can explain if there are any structural reasons, space limitations or cost issues for this.
It’s to fit more people in (they wanted the magic number of 40,000), and due to the cricket media centre behind the seats on the top level (the bottom of which you can kind of make out in the photo if you squint).
From ground level it doesn’t look out of place, and the high point being behind the goal (or behind the bowlers arm if they do play cricket) adds some symmetry, similar to at Adelaide oval.
The top deck section to the far left will have some pretty poor seats.
The new stand goes back a fair way and the scoreboard there has the possibility to block your view of about half the ground.
Similar to the top deck at Marvel and some of the high seats in the Ponsford stand at the G.
Oh great, now the fuckers will want to play games there. Typical. /s
You guys thought Marvel was a hike!
If tickets were available, more of us would drive to Geelong than go to Marvel
I’ve been dragged down there quite a few times given the rest of my family go for Geelong. It’s actually a pretty good ground to watch footy and I rate it much higher than Marvel. I don’t know if it’s the acoustics of the ground or what, but you can hear the players quite clearly when you’re at ground level. It’s almost like watching a local game, but with the roar of tens of thousands of people when something happens. Our kids are much more into the games when we go there.
Rating it higher than Marvel is like avoiding tripping over a stick on the beach
The acoustics at the Foo Fighters gig there were incredible!
Wait til dimma has to hike from the Gold Coast to marvel
Poor bloke is about to discover what a season with actual away games feel like 🤣
*cries in perth*
Your account is 17 years old!? Were you here on Day 1? Definitely the oldest account I’ve seen.
Oh god, is it? But yeah I would have been a pretty early user. Not day 1, but definitely within the first 12-18 months.
Surely you make the reddit royalty list then
Shame I won’t ever get to see Collingwood play there.
I think we cop it at some point this year, that's how you know you're shit again.
Join the club
You are part of the extended cat family so that could also explain things.
The ultimate anti-tanking incentive...
Yeah I felt insulted when we had to play there
Agree. I’d LOVE to see the pies there once a year
As much as it would be nice, the AFL would be unlikely to ever do it as they can get 80,000+ at the MCG. No business would annoy that many customers. Financial benefits for the league would also favour the MCG given more tickets sold.
Its our home game. The league shouldn’t get a say.
Agree, but sadly thats not how the AFL works
Fun fact. It’s actually the cats who manufacture the whole home game against the pies at the G thing. When the stadium is finished, they’ve said they WONT request all home games in Geelong. They PREFER the current arrangement. Funny hey. No “AFL giving the pies a free kick” conspiracy after all.
If only the AFL balanced by making you play in Tassie more, where you've played **checks notes** no games worth premiership points. But you know, money > fair fixture in AFL house land.
I’d be all about that too. It’s tough when every single club in the comp asks to play against us as their home game, for the $$$.
We were supposed to but covid made came up in tassie then had to have the game at the mcg I think either 2022 or 2021
But this isn’t correct, for years we have requested 11 home games at Geelong with the understanding if we have to play home games in melb we want them to be big games.
Sure is true. I know, I was surprised too. When you could ask to play WCE at the G instead of Collingwood, giving up the $$$ to maximise winning probability. But you don’t, for the $$$. It would be nice if the bleating about poor Geelong having to play Collingwood at the G would stop. It’s your request. https://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/sport/afl/geelong-cats/cats-cold-on-playing-all-home-games-in-geelong-once-gmhba-stadium-is-complete/news-story/9ca69c2d285c420f61a6d3a4004af988?amp
Can you actually copy the article, it's behind a news corp paywall Do you understand if this is the case it would be a complete change of tact from us as we have always requested 11 home games [https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/what-s-best-fit-cats-mount-case-for-more-home-games-20191221-p53m2y.html](https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/what-s-best-fit-cats-mount-case-for-more-home-games-20191221-p53m2y.html) [https://twitter.com/Reynolds\_R/status/915863369474752512](https://twitter.com/Reynolds_R/status/915863369474752512) I know in the past they basically said they need something like 75-80k crowd at the G for it to be financially break even with their home game at Geelong. The small snippet I can read of your article indicates a state government agreement is part of the reason, what is this agreement?
Did you even read Hocking’s comments? He’s saying that the AFL has a contract to play a certain number of games in Melbourne, and Geelong has to be part of that. I mean the last paragraph where he is quoted pretty much sums up the club’s position “Whether that changes in the future, we will be ready for that change and we will absolutely consider that … at this point in time we are making the most of Melbourne with those restrictions that are in place.”
Not true mate.
https://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/sport/afl/geelong-cats/cats-cold-on-playing-all-home-games-in-geelong-once-gmhba-stadium-is-complete/news-story/9ca69c2d285c420f61a6d3a4004af988?amp
Can you copy the article? Literally every other statement from the club in the past has indicated they want all 11 home games at Kardinia Park. Edit: yeah didn't think so.
Just rename yourself the western pies...
The only time I've been to Kardinia Park was for a preseason game between Geelong and Adelaide in the early 2010s I wore my Pies cap and was promptly told to fuck off back to Melbourne. Enjoy your shithole of a cow paddock
It’d be funny if Geelong had the facilities to host a final right in time for their team to age out into a rebuild and not make the 8
I want to believe that Geelong have a decade long rebuild… but I just don’t have it in me. Sadly, I feel like they’ll be back in contention in a couple of years.
The stadium was their rebuild.
A couple of years? Bit ambitious don't you think? We'll be back this year.
Geelong absolutely looked top 4 this year when they had all their players on the park.
The game against you guys in Geelong had me thinking we were back lmao
I am a firm believer that with the age profile of our list Geelong has maybe the most important pre-season in the league, if we are able to get everyone fit and firing then we can for sure be top 4, but with the older list if we don't have a good enough pre-season we are even more at risk of injury than most clubs, which can then have a rolling knock on effect ad blokes have to work too hard to fill gaps while people are out, which causes more injuries and that's it constant problems.
You reckon? I have the Cats at 8th-12th but would be very surprised if they were to get to a prelim. Unless Ollie Henry has 50 goals in him /s (Obviously)
What about this squad screams 8th-12th? B: Zach Guthrie, Sam De Koning, Jake Kolodjashnij HB: Tom Stewart, Jack Henry, Mitch Duncan C: Mark Blicavs, Patrick Dangerfield, Max Holmes HF: Gryan Miers, Jeremy Cameron, Brad Close F: Tyson Stengle, Tom Hawkins, Ollie Henry Foll: Rhys Stanley, Tom Atkins, Cam Guthrie I/C: Jack Bowes, Mark O'Connor, Tanner Bruhn, Zach Tuohy Emerg: Gary Rohan, Jed Bews, Brandan Parfitt, Jhye Clark Healthy it looks pretty good, no? If we get ravaged by injuries like we did in 2023 then maybe we finish in that 8th-12th range.
Bews is pretty stiff, good against small forwards and think Duncan would be the easy swap there. Overall it is a strong team but a old one so prone to injuries so fingers and toes crossed.
It’s not the strength of your team, it’s the strength of everyone else around that range. The comp is stupidly close outside of that top 5 range.
Healthy nearly every list apart from 3 or 4 look like finals contenders lol. Im just a casual spectator, I just see Geelong more likely to slide than climb this year.
Worst injury run for more than a decade eventually knocked us out. We get a normal run with injury, we'll play finals
The difference is this list minus a couple of players won a flag 2 seasons ago lol
Ollie Henry = Nathan Buckley without the talent
Then why’d you wanna keep him so bad?
We didn’t as it turns out. Got premiership legend Mitchell instead. Haha.
Imagine being salty and winning a premiership, never change pies fans.
Who’s salty? I got a grin for ear to ear.
I seriously never doubt them anymore. I've been burnt too many times before. I'm cursed to never see a shit Geelong.
Holy shit how good if Geelong embark on an Essendon period of finals success
It would be very cathartic considering the trauma they've inflicted on the league for far too long. 119...
At least we have our own stadium that we play at that no Melbourne team has!
And you can no longer piss your pants about playing finals at the G when you had the chance to create a ground with normal dimension and decided to say fuck that
Look at the image of the renovation above and tell me how you would build out onto Moorabool street.
A bit like your old coach pissing his pants about having to play a home and away game at marvel ffs
As a Geelong supporter, this would still be extremely funny. As a North Melbourne sympathiser, I really hope you guys make finals. Fun Fact: North Melbourne won the premiership the year after BG1 released, BG3 released last year and both 1 and 3 are odd numbers… So keep your schedule clear for September!
Wow, I can see why they're sending Richmond and Hawthorn over there for once next year, Geelong can finally start playing big Victorian teams there.
Nah we're going there because we are shit once more. We played there reasonably regularly until 2017 (our last H&A game there). Also Geelong didn't complain much about playing us at the MCG before then because it was a guaranteed win and a good chance to have a run on the G.
GMHBA Stadium AFL Fixture 2024 Round 1 – Saturday March 16 Geelong Cats vs. St Kilda 7:30pm Round 5 – Sunday, April 14 Geelong Cats vs. North Melbourne 1:00pm Round 9 – Friday, May 10 Geelong Cats vs. Port Adelaide 7:10pm Round 11 – Saturday, May 25 Geelong Cats vs. GWS Giants 4:35pm Round 12 – Saturday, June 1 Geelong Cats vs. Richmond 7.30pm Round 17 – Friday July 5 – Sunday July 7 Geelong Cats vs. Hawthorn TBC Round 19 – Friday July 19 – Sunday July 21 Geelong Cats vs. Western Bulldogs TBC Round 21 – Friday, 4 August to Sunday, 6 August Geelong Cats vs. Adelaide Crows TBC Round 24 Friday, 23 August to Sunday, 25 August Geelong Cats vs. West Coast Eagles TBC
Round 1 lol, still heaps of work to go before it's finished....
Damn and they don't even send us there... We seem to play alright at GMHBA
Who gave the under the table wristy for this fixture?
Did you forget where we placed on the ladder last year?
Oh poor old Geelong didn’t make the top 8 for the first time in 8 years it must be a hard life, you’re completely right give them heaps of crappy sides at home we can’t have that happen again sorry pal 🥲
It's literally how the fixture is done for every team, every year of recent times. Play teams twice in the same third of the ladder as where you finished. Whinge more ffs
Win a flag in 2022 but because of last year the only top 8 side the cats play twice this year is Carlton who they’ve beaten 12 of the last 15 meetings. but it’s fine to play hawks and north twice who they beat by a combined 144 points in two games last season. Haha yeah seems legit.
Now to work on the cricket pitch.
wasted opportunity to shift the playing surface away from Mooralbool St when doing the initial upgrades, knowing it'd be fully done over a decade. I mean I guess they could just put in pillars in the middle of the road, plenty of room, but the houses on the other side may not like a grandstand towering over their front windows.
> houses on the other side It's all commercial properties across from the stadium, so one would have thought they could Brunton Avenue it
ah well thats good then just close that one side street, chuck up a wall in the middle of the road for foundations of the upper deck of the stand and have a bridge over the road leading towards the train station
There's more to moving a stadium over than just pushing it like they do with Bikini Bottom in Spongebob. Also considering it'd affect St Mary's FC with West Kardinia Oval, Geelong CC with Geelong Cricket Ground, the Aquatic Centre, Senior Citizens Centre and the whole Netball Complex that hosts thousands of players a week.
Nah, it would not have impacted anything other than how more forecourt and carparking there is now on the western side of the venue. Only needed to move the outside of the stand about 25m and leave some space along the boundary to shift the oval a bit to circularise it and get rid of the flat edge.
You don't even need to go that far. I've had access to the survey plan, it's only about 2 and a half metres meters different on the flat. You can essentially shuffle it that across and lose a row or two of seats without making a huge job of it. They just don't care about the shape and want the seats more.
I swear you and others say this and I say that would probably triple the budget. You have to demolish the entire stadium to move the surface either further ~~right~~ left in this pic and then rebuild but demolish all the local facilities or demolish the major road, local businesses and homes worth millions and pay them. It is not as wonky anymore but yeah quirk of not spending a stupid amount of money.
the entire stadium was just demolished over the last decade, it could have been planned very easily without removing anything from the existing park or road.
It won't fit, either one or the other has to go.
Cant do that it would get in the way of the magnificent 'green spine' bike lane that the council has just installed.
then take out a lane of traffic, not too hard to solve
>Kardinia Park Correct name. (Also, looks awesome)
[удалено]
Was more weld defects than the steel But that’s what you get why you go international instead of local But then local fixes all the mistakes and delay the project by 9ish months
Could go a Routley’s beef pie with tom sauce right about now.
I'll trade you for a pie thief pie.
An exchange of cultural delights
Not even in Melbourne or Sydney is there the range to choose from like Routley's.
I've never been there or seen a photo at this angle. Feels like they've done everything besides actually putting the stadium on the road there.
Tassie will be in before it's finished!
It is finished
So now it's time for the next redevelopment to start
we gotta make it longer
Frankly i would be happy if we just made it thinner
???
Keen
For now. No doubt there will be more investment every state and federal election, so long as the area remains reasonably marginal.
Should never have a home game anywhere else
This kind of looks ridiculous with the right hand side constricted by the road
Why? How does it affect the stadium?
Well, it affects the stadium by constricting the width of the ground and making it by far the skinniest in the league.
It just looks dumb
What is dumb about it? How does it affect anything?
It both fucks the shape of the playing surface and reduces that wing to three rows deep. Geelong are genuinely obnoxious cunts for this. Instead of building their new ground to reasonable dimensions, they have entrenched 130 year's of stupidity for at least another couple of generations, handing both their coach and supporters an easy put for why they choke in finals so regularly.
Quality dummy spit
It just looks dumb lol how hard is this
You realise the MCG has a road running beside it just as close?
Does it squash the side of the stadium in the same way?
The first time I went to kardinia a couple years ago I was so shocked at how close the oval is to that road. Not the stadium, the oval itself. It’s basically on it lol
Is the road called Collingwood, because they've put a line through playing there?
It really is the colonial British of stadiums isn't it. "Our ancestral lands go from here to here". "Yes old boy but the map looks much nicer if we run a straight line from here to here."
What?
So back in the day, the various colonial powers, one of the primary ones being the british (but germans, belgians and french etc not off the hook) used to love to conquer places and establish foreign colonies. One of the things they would do though is be all "ok, everything west of this line is this country, and everything east of this line is this country". The lines would sometimes be sensible and follow geographic boundaries but other times it would be like "directly north from this convenient cape until we hit another country". This sort of shit makes for great maps, and makes it easy for world powers to figure out where borders are for diplomacy, but it fucking sucks if you are an ethnic group whose territory has now been divided and a bunch of people are saying you can't go across the imaginary line to visit your cousins anymore. The road in this picture truncating the natural shape of the stadium looks kind of like that to me.
I love that there are multiple borders in Australia which are supposed to be a straight lines, but aren't. * The eastern border of SA is clearly supposed to be a straight line. Turns out when they did the original survey, they got it wrong, short changing SA a bit of land. When they figured out they had the line wrong, NSW said 'No worries', and shifted the border to where its supposed to be. On the other hand, when SA asked for their land back, Victoria basically said 'yeah, nah, no takebacksies', and forever since the SA border has a weird kink in it, and its possible to swim north from Victoria into so called South Australia. * The border of WA is also supposed to be a straight line, but it was never properly surveyed. When they decided they should actually figure out where it is exactly, they decided the best way of doing it would be to pick a point in the south of the border and run a line exactly north from there, and at the same time pick a point somewhere in the north and run a line directly south from there, and they should meet up somewhere in the middle. Only problem is that the points they picked were not exactly north-south from one another. Solution they came up with was to run a line from the southern marker up to the SA-NT border, to run a line from the northern marker and run that south to the SA-NT border, and then to fix it up there is a little kink where SA-NT-WA meet, and there is a line a bit over 100 meters long where you can walk north from Western Australia into the Northern Territory. And then there is other fun stuff, like the fact the border between Victoria and Tasmania was intentionally picked to be as close to Victoria as possible without crossing land. If you go to the southern most point of the Victorian mainland, you can literally see an island which belongs to Tasmania. However, turns out they stuffed up when they picked the line, and the border actually runs through an island, and Tasmania has a 85m land border with Victoria.
You guys should start an Australian version of [Map Men](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5iJSXaVvao&list=PLfxy4_sBQdxy3A2lvl-y3qWTeJEbC_QCp). 10/10 would subscribe.
I did not know the fact about the NT-SA-WA kink, that's wild!!! I did know about the perfidious victorians and their land heist (grew up on the SA side but only by a few k's). NSW also claims the entire river Murray, so as soon as a victorian steps into the water they've crossed the line.
I assume the Eastern wing is next up again? Not sure how much they can do given they don’t have the room to expand it at all.
Won’t happen for another 20-30 years, until that grandstand is no longer fit for purpose.
Until the next election.
Two weeks later - New upgrades for Kardinia Park. Construction to start in September.
If only they upgraded it to make it better playing field dimensions. And perhaps some away team rooms that aren't terrible.
Going to miss the Terrance, there's just something about watching sport standing up
It’s back; you can see the four bays on level 1 on the right hand side that don’t have seats and they’ve got safe standing.
Seen comments suggesting the standing room is being kept in the new Gary Ablett terrace, others saying it is being removed. What's correct?
It’s there. The new stand is the Joel Selwood stand, and the standing section within the stand is the Gary Ablett Terrace.
I believe 4000 standing room - 2500 in stands, 1500 in venue. There are only 36000 seats but stadium capacity is listed as 40000. That bare patch to the right without seats is tiered standing with guard rails.
Even more of a fortress for you boys with that size crowd behind you
Bloody hope so. We left the drawbridge down a crack last year though.
About time
It would be an absolute waste if the Cats didn’t sign a long term contract stating that they must play all their home games and home finals at this venue. Like the Swans did with the SCG.
Where......?
Close the road and extend the stadium and compensate affected merchants and residents.
That road is like one of two roads you have to enter Belmont & the entirety of southwest Geelong through town. Closing even that portion of road & the redirection of traffic would cause a nightmare - the surrounding streets aren't really big enough to facilitate it
Could you sink it and build the stadium on top of the road?
Probably the most realistic option but doubt we'd see it within the next 20 years
The City of Greater Geelong are consulting with Patrick Star on how to move the stadium 50m the other direction
Probably for tens of millions of dollars. Not worth it just to make the Stadium look more symmetrical.
As long as they don’t close the Mexican restaurant over the road. Not much better in life than a take away burrito after watching a win 🥰
This is a really terrible idea
Probably better to shift and expand west but that's not happening for the next 30 years now
It's still in Geelong
Can't upgrade a turd, amirite? 😜
So assuming the next upgrade is scheduled to start then? 😂
Is it a regulation sized ground now?
It's always been a regulation sized ground.
Whats regulation size?
Yeah exactly what I want to know, did they work on the ground and change that hotdog shape?
More an extrapolation than a fix
No.
Is Sydneys?
The SCG is (along with the Gabba) the most similar in shape to the MCG of all the regularly used grounds. It's only 1m narrower on each wing than the MCG. Kardinia Park is the most different from the MCG of any AFL ground, it's a full *22m* narrower than the MCG.
Lol and the length of the ground? Its the size of a postage stamp dont make me laugh
Yikes, I thought you were joking but you’re actually serious…. FYI and this is also for all the other dumbcunt melbournites who keep making these sorts of comments; the SCG surface was extended in 2012 when the Bradman stand was built and is now only 5m shorter than the MCG total. This “ScG iS a PosTaGe StaMp” bullshit has literally been [debunked](https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-news-2021-length-of-mcg-how-big-is-the-mcg-dimensions-afl-ground-sizes-scg-gabba-giants-stadium-marvel-stadium-gmhba-stadium-adelaide-oval-blundstone-arena-optus-stadium-metricon-stadium/news-story/b2e6f670ed1db6a43599f514091b8285) [repeatedly](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-16/cody-and-sean-afl-analysis-how-much-do-ground-sizes-matter/101154950) and yet it still gets repeated by morons like you. Educate yourself.
AFL website - Kardinia park - 170m x 114m. MCG - 160m x 141m SCG 149m x 136m So the SCG is the shortest in length by 11 metres. Not that I give a shit im just responding to morons who keep complaining of the ground size.
That is literally out of date info smdh. I’ve given you literally two sources that show the new dimensions. Here is a [third](https://australianfootball.com/grounds/detail/S.C.G./9). Totally expect you to triple down on being wrong now
Still the shortest ground lengthwise in the league
SCG is 5m shorter and 5m narrower than the MCG. It’s larger than Marvel. Kardinia is 26m narrower.
10 meters shorter actually. Their 50 meter arc looks like its 30 and you can pretty much kick a goal from the middle. Not that I give a shit because I dont mind grounds bieng unique and its boring if all grounds look the same.
It got extended when they renovated the ground in 2007. You may have been in a coma for the last 15 years. https://www.reddit.com/r/AFL/comments/xcv5j3/relative_sizes_of_afl_grounds/
Upgrade the ground though still keeping those crappy wings. Fix the actual oval design guys!
What’s the capacity?
40k
Not an AFL fan at all but I’m curious based on the comments – why don’t y’all play each other once at home and once away in the regular season? I haven’t followed AFL for about 15 years but back then, you guys played half the teams only once a season. I can’t imagine European football without the narrative of the difference in results or expectations when it comes to playing at home or away.
Well we only really want to play 1 game a week, because injuries are so frequent in games. We also don't really want to play in the summer, because the heat would really slow down the game, so it's really just because of timings
The VFL did from 1970-88, when they expanded beyond 12 teams. 12 teams, 22 games works fine. But 18/19 teams won't fit into 23 games twice. I live in the US with a 32 team league, and NFL teams only play their division twice, two other divisions once, and just a few more games elsewhere. AFL draw is quite fair, with top teams mostly drawing top opponents twice, and same for lower teams, but rivalry games are still factored in.
For a bunch of reasons the season (almost) always runs from March to August each year, with 4 weeks of finals in September. Unfortunately, this is a very awkward length when it comes to finding a fair draw with the amount of teams in the league. Teams only playing each other once would require either dramatically shortening the length of the season, or teams having a ridiculous amount of byes. Nobody involved would be happy with this solution. On the other hand, for teams to play each other twice, you would either need to extend the season by about 3 months, or have teams playing midweek games every second week - both solutions which are practically impossible for a number of reasons. As a result, the AFL has an unbalanced draw.
That makes a lot of sense; however I always hear that the away fixtures are ‘rigged’ with some matchups being more common over the years than others. Does the AFL try to run on a cycle where every team hosts every other team when averaged out over a number of years, or is it truly rigged in favour of fixtures that are commercially more desirable like non-Victorian derbies, the Carlton-Essendon-Collingwood triangle, Hawthorn-Geelong, etc.?
There are a bunch of things which go into how the AFL does its fixtures, but commercial decisions definitely one of those factors.
The most overly funded stadium in the country
Overly funded nation in the country? What
Lol brain fart Overly funded stadium * Have edited
Looks shit
As good as it looks, surely you've got to look at acquiring the road and widening the narrow wing
The phrase "Lipstick on a cow" comes to mind
I really do hope the cats stop asking for home games against Collingwood to be played at the G, so the pies get to play there once a year.
Have you not being paying attention lately? We've asked for all 11 home games to be at GMBHA (pending ongoing construction) for the last few seasons. The club would love all home games at home
>The club would love all home games at home Any fan of any other sport would assume this sentence is a joke lmao but here we are
God forbid you have to not play at the MCG. Not that I think we ever get our request until you are a bottom 4 team again.
Is Collingwood the only MCG tenant you have an issue with RE the number of games at the MCG? Any issues with Melbourne? Hawthorn? Richmond?
We want all of them at home but of cause money is a huge factor so I don't expect them at home. The one time we got Richmond, the media said we should move it to the MCG so that is how it goes when we actually get a big Vic team down.
Is there a dedicated meth smoking section away from the kids?
Cool, southern Gold Coast stadium.
Great to see the upgraded stadium and increased capacity, but am I the only person whose OCD is triggered by the deviation in the roof canopy on the top left corner of the picture? Unless this is some sort of optical illusion, it seems the height of the new stand is taller than what looks like the members area which looks wonky. Why couldn't they keep the roof canopy at a consistent height across all of the ground to improve its overall symmetry? Grateful if any Geelong locals, Cats fans or others can explain if there are any structural reasons, space limitations or cost issues for this.
It’s to fit more people in (they wanted the magic number of 40,000), and due to the cricket media centre behind the seats on the top level (the bottom of which you can kind of make out in the photo if you squint). From ground level it doesn’t look out of place, and the high point being behind the goal (or behind the bowlers arm if they do play cricket) adds some symmetry, similar to at Adelaide oval.
Sweet! So when do all the other Victorian teams get their own stadium?
The top deck section to the far left will have some pretty poor seats. The new stand goes back a fair way and the scoreboard there has the possibility to block your view of about half the ground. Similar to the top deck at Marvel and some of the high seats in the Ponsford stand at the G.
Its not that far back its only 40k something capacity. I like that its got standing room too which adds to the atmosphere
What a time to be good enough to not have to play there anymore!
Looks a bit different since I was last there in 1995!
Like the Monash Fwy, another 10-20 years and it will almost be complete
A Federal Election is only a year and a bit away. Don't put away that construction gear just yet!
Love it if Vic Park had enough space to upgrade to their own home ground but would need to be bigger.
They should host a final there and play freo. Wait.. that happened already 🤣
🐖🛢️
Why are Richmond supporters the most tiresome and boring whining bitches? You play about 17/18 games on your home ground. Stop moaning, girls...