Waverley Park

Waverley Park formerly known as VFL park, It was a VFL/AFL stadium and was home ground to St Kilda and Hawthorn it was replaced by the docklands stadium in 2000, in December 2002 the entire stadium was demolished except for the members stand and the members stand mural, it now servers as Hawthorn's headquarters.

Construction

although the plans had been conceived in 1959 and the land was acquired in 1962 work did not official begin until the 5th of january 1966 when the VFL President Sir Kenneth Luke turned the first sod and the foundations for the K.G. Luke stand were laid in 1969

on 18 April 1970, Fitzroy and Geelong played the first game at Waverley Park to a crowd of 25,887, but still the ground was far from completion.

The Public Reserve Stands encircling the rest of the stadium were finished at a cost of $4.5 million in 1974 and the car parking was extended to fit a total of 25,000 cars. Lighting was added in May 1977, at a cost of $1.2 million, for the first of the 1977 night series televised matches.

In 1982 a monochrome video matrix scoreboard was in operation at Waverley Park for the first time in VFL history, displaying instant replay highlights.

Lights Out at Waverley

In 1996 the lights went out at the stadium in a night game between Essendon and St Kilda, during the third quarter. After declaring the match finished for the evening the AFL commission thumb|305px|right held an emergency meeting to decide what should happen as there was no provision in the official rules for an event like this. They decided to continue the match three days later.

The 1991 Grand Final In 1991 the MCG had been going under renevations to bring it up to standard, so the AFL/VFL decided to move the Grand Final to Waverley Park, this was to be the only Grand Final played at Waverley Park and it was to be the most remembered Grand Final between Hawthorn and Geelong.

The End of an Era

in 2000 Waverley Park closed and the new docklands stadium took over from it's position. In 2002 Anticipating complete demolition, the National Trust of Victoria moved quickly to nominate the members stand for heritage listing on the basis that the stadium was the first major stadium purpose built for Australian rules football. the entire stadium was demolished except for the members stand and the members stand mural.

Still Loved?

After having made such memories in Waverley Park Hawthorn decided to take up residence in the old Stadium for Administration and Training purposes, In a way prehaps Waverley assisted by helping Hawthorn achieve Premiership Success in 2008 and maybe still has a lot more to offer.

Waverley Park Records

in its history, 732 AFL/VFL matches have been played at Waverley Park, 70 of which were finals and one grand final.
 * Highest score: Fitzroy: 36.22 (238) v Melbourne : 6.12 (48) in round 17, 1979
 * Largest crowd: 92,935, Queen's Birthday 1981, Hawthorn v Collingwood
 * Most goals scored in one game: Jason Dunstall, 17 goals , Round 7, 1992

Special Events
 * Rock concerts: Rod Stewart (1979), KISS (1980), David Bowie (1983), U2 (1998) and Simon and Garfunkel (1983).
 * Cricket: World Series Cricket games between 1977 and 1979.
 * International Rules Football: Matches between Australia and Ireland.
 * Baseball: Home of the Waverley Reds from 1989 until 1994.