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From Inside Football
Reported by Paul Amy
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THE VFL will have a new venue in 2010, with confirmation the Coburg Tigers will play matches at Craigieburn. The question, a curly one for Coburg officials, is how many. While its alignment partner, Richmond, is keen for as many games as possible to be fixtured at the ground, taking advantage of what should be a tip-top surface, Coburg is mindful of the balance between spreading its wings in the region and maintaining links at its traditional home, City Oval.

It’s fair to say the Moreland Council is not the most sports-minded municipality in Melbourne. The VFL community has noted its lack of vigour in reinstating the City Oval grandstand after a fire in early 2004. The council has supplied office accommodation for club officials since the fire. But an AFL Victoria audit rates the City Oval ground and facilities as the worst in the VFL and the second worst in the TAC Cup. And a council report earlier this year stated: “The future of the City Oval precinct cannot be guaranteed beyond the adoption of a spatial master plan currently being prepared for the central Coburg precinct as part of the Coburg Initiative.”

The initiative is described on its website as a “$1 billion plan for jobs, homes and a new heart for Coburg”. But when it became apparent last year that Coburg Tigers would be playing games at Craigieburn, one councillor climbed on a high horse and said Moreland had done “everything possible to keep the Tigers in Coburg”.

AFL Victoria and the AFL both contributed $250,000 to the Craigieburn development, which is in the Highland Estate and is to be the summer training base for Richmond. But AFL Victoria CEO Peter Schwab said football also needed to keep an elite presence in Coburg.

“It’s a delicate one, between making sure we don’t lose that footprint on the City Oval and the fact that we’ve put a lot of money into a new facility and we’d like a VFL presence there,” he said. He said TAC Cup games involving the Calder Cannons would be fixtured at Craigieburn, which is expected to open next February.

Coburg general manager Ryan O’Connor said he was in constant discussions with Richmond, AFL Victoria and the Moreland and Hume councils about 2010. “We will play games there but at this stage we don’t know how many,” he said.