So you are a well travelled spectator; played at any of those venues in anything meaningful? A bucket list should be about doing things as well as watching things.

Well when I knew him he was still with Simone, Liz wasn't on the scene at all, so........

Well you got me there John Newcombe. Best I can do is a charity cricket game on the SCG + a few indoor cricket tournaments at Lords.

Newc before my time. Mr and Mrs OzT spent a nice day sitting with Mr and Mrs Ken Rosewall centre court at Wimbledon though. Keep watching things and judging venues by 'your atmosphere criteria'.

er um yeah. That's right. Most mere mortals sit in the cheap seats like you did for the World Cup Cricket final

Such is the drawing capacity of the MCG that when my pal tried to get a block of 6 tickets together for the match 4 months before the WC that is all which was available.

Incidentally I watched Crows vs Kangaroos live from the Adelaide Oval and it is obvious that the ground is now half a mini MCG with the multi-tiered stands they've added. They've retained the quaint scoreboard and some areas without stands but in time they'll be redeveloped.

No just the World Cup mate. The Sydney semi had the same problem. Even worse the general public invaded the members. I know you want to believe it was an MCG thing but its not unfortunately.

If the SCG was a 90,000 seater, I don't think 90,000 would turn up for most things. The MCG hosted a match during the WC with nearly full attendance and Australia not playing. Melbourne is undeniably one of the sporting capitals of the world and clearly knocks spots off Sydney etc. 700,000 at Melbourne Park for the tennis, 180,000 for Australia's 2 WC games, 160,000 at Tigers and Hawks home games last few days........ there's AAMI Park and Etihad for Victory, City, Storm, Rebels, other AFL teams. Who has the tennis Grand Prix, the WC final, the AFL final, the F1 ......?

You are trying to change the topic. Back to the MCG, a 90000 crowd for cricket is too far from the sweet spot. Because of the nature of the pitch you are too far away from the action. The only place it works is in the rectugular scenario. Twickenham or the Camp Nou where regulations are different or ignored. Now recall I've been to 2 boxing day tests. I forgot the other..... probably because it left such little impression. The size of it is the same problem we suffer in Sydney with the Olympic stadium. Its too big, the seating does slope fast enough, and for most of the year its not sold out. Unless you break all the stair building codes you can't have a stadium that large that slopes steep enough to retain the atmosphere. It just leaks. That's why Sydney, with its historical stands, its size, and the slope of the stands is ideal and why it has the best atmosphere in Australia for cricket. You need to check it out or just ask one of your famous cricketing mates where they prefer to play. Start with Victoria's favourite son Warney.

A packed out 20,000 crowd in a local ground with people right up close to the pitch will always beat a packed out 90,000 crowd in a corporate modern stadium (MCG, ANZ, Wembley, etc). In any sport.

Same thing with gigs. Small venues rule.

Absolutely. Unfortunately those local grounds in Oz are being done away with slowly. The NRL are trying to drive the ANZ stadium thing and the stadium are throwing money at the clubs to play there, but there's plenty of reason for the NRL to retain the small ground - people will turn up. No one wants to go to ANZ Stadium, they want to go to their local 20,000 person ground, be close to the action, be part of the action, bogans like to be part of something. If the NRL looked at the mistakes of the AFL and thought long term, driving local membership and local support, the local ground might be the best revenue driver of all.

Couldn't agree more

A ground should be part of the clubs identity and soul. There is too much short term money grabbing thinking currently.

The quaint grounds began pre motor car etc; by definition a soccer ground will be compact because of it's size; rugby similar - footy ovals can be up to 190/200 yds long in old money and they were used for cricket as well so they have all round usage. What happens to Lords and Twickers in the winter/summer? The MCG and all the surrounding facilities (Melbourne Park, AAMI Park) are council owned and therefore have multi-sport and continual usage all year round. Most other grounds are privately/committee owned and have a different imperative.

The only reason the topic changed is that it went from Australia winning the WC to the atmosphere of the MCG.

Lords and Twickers do nothing other than have some maintainence for next season. As a spectator that's a good thing.

Melbourne's sporting addiction is a bad thing for the rugby codes. These codes feel compelled to travel their sports. Rugby at that indoor thing in Melbourne ....... yawn.... no atmosphere. State of Origin is going to the MCG this year .... yawn again. They've tried in the past, it failed. Melbourne just doesn't get it.

Geez, get what; other than far and away the biggest sporting attendances? Frankly, rugby is long down the list of major sports in Australia, particularly Melbourne. Something over 90,000 watched Liverpool at the MCG and friends who were at it said the atmosphere was unbelievably electric.

Lords and Twickers unused for a good part of the year makes sense, hmm. Lords isn't even flat I ask you - would have been lasered levelled long ago if they had any modern sense. I chuckle every time I hear commentators say so and so is bowling up the slope.