Non-MCG Games
Last week the Geelong Football Club made a claim that seems hard to believe.
Last weekend the Geelong Football Club wore a special “retro” jumper to mark the 100th anniversary of Edward Goderich “Carji” Greeves Jr winning the inaugural Brownlow Medal in 1924.
Greeves finished second in the Brownlow count in 1925, 1926, and 1929, making him one of the more dominant players in the league during this period.
As part of the pre-match coverage, Channel 7 ran a package where current players talked about the history of the club, and there was one particular statistic that caught my attention.
One Geelong player claimed that the club had played more games at Corio Oval – their former home ground – than at the MCG.
I found this somewhat hard to believe, given the MCG has been used for football for many decades, and Geelong have had successful periods where they would have played several finals at that particular ground.
So, I turned to the history books to see what I could learn.
Geelong played their first VFL game at Corio Oval in the opening round of the 1897 season, and then played their fist game at the MCG a week later.
The Cats played 371 games at Corio Oval between 1897 and 1940, before moving to their current home ground (Kardinia Park) in 1941.
They have played 364 games at the MCG since 1897, with their most recent game being against Collingwood earlier this month.
So, it turns out Geelong were telling the truth.
But it got me thinking about if this was the same for other clubs and their traditional home grounds.
Here’s the data.
Geelong have also played nearly twice as many games at their new home, Kardinia Park, than the MCG (716).
Despite all clubs playing at the MCG in the first season they joined the V/AFL (apart from Hawthorn, who didn’t play a game at the ‘G until their second season in 1926), only one club – Richmond – has played more games at the home of football than their traditional home ground.
(Technically Hawthorn has also played more games at the MCG than at Waverley, one of their traditional home grounds – albeit only for three decades – so I feel this shouldn’t count.)
What I find interesting about this statistic is that most teams haven’t played at their traditional home ground for at least 20 years – if not significantly longer.
For example, Essendon played 628 games at Windy Hill over a 70-odd year period. But the Bombers have only played 505 games at the MCG since 1897.
Likewise, the Western Bulldogs played 643 games at the Whitten (Western) Oval between 1925 and 1997 – yet they’ve only played 219 games at the MCG between over the last century.
There are certainly many reasons that explain these discrepancies, but it’s still an interesting observation.
The timeframe of this stat is limited based on what data are freely/easily available and/or accessible. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you spot any errors in what I have presented.