NRLandMore wrote:I live in the area & had the privilege of attending the opening of the stadium. It was definitely built for the AFL with cricket jumping into the planning late as they saw an opportunity. It was also built in mind of being GWS' home ground and to be used more than it has been used.
It was built originally as a joint venture between the AFL and Cricket Australia - both of which committed funding to it. The original idea probably came from the AFL, although bear in mind that the ground was planned before GWS came about. And in any case, cricket has rights to the ground for half the year - if it was meant to be GWS home ground, what were they going to do in summer? That's where AUR's argument completely falls to pieces.
Fair dinkum, you only have to have a look at it to know that the ground was never intended to be any sort of major stadium. It could be compared with Tony Ireland stadium in Townsville - i'm surprised AUR hasn't had a rant about that as well.
[QOUTE]
I believe, can't be 100%, that funds were taken away from the ground about halfway through its progress when it became apparent that GWS weren't committed to "their" community.[/quote]
Complete rubbish. I've never seen any plans for the ground greater than what was built. There was talk that the ground could be developed to host regular AFL games but nothing ever went beyond that, let alone funding granted for it to be removed.
I'm really not sure where you and AUR are going with this. Are you suggesting this ground is somehow underutilised?