listening to Having a Gas with harry buckle interview
Dec 15, 2017 22:15:37 GMT
irishrover likes this
Post by The Concept on Dec 15, 2017 22:15:37 GMT
Well we do know that Association Football (Soccer) was played at the SCG, it's just that I don't think Rovers played there in '74.
As already mentioned, Harry Bamford played football on the ground in '51; and also, in 1964, a crowd of 51,566 was there to see New South Wales take on Everton.
The drop-in pitch theory isn't really a consideration, as lots of other sports shared the SCG over the years: Tennis; Rugby Union; Aussie Rules, and Baseball among them.
I think football would have phased out at the SCG by the '70s, and I can't imagine they would have played Rovers there, with a crowd of 4,481.
I do think it would be quite easy to confuse grounds in Australia though. In the 1970s there wouldn't have been many purpose built football grounds. To us they would appear larger than a rugby or a football pitch. Most Australian sports grounds would have been large ovals to accommodate Cricket and Aussie Rules.
But I think it's pretty unlikely Rovers would have played a game at the SCG in the 70's for the reasons mentioned above. It's also true that until fairly recently Aussie stadiums were really a bit run down and run on quite an amateur basis. It wasn't really until the 80's they started properly modernising and upgrading their stadiums. Up to that point most of them relied heavily on big grass banks for people to sit on.
Much bigger capacity there.
1998 play-off v Iran at MCG (98,000)
2002 play-off v Uruguay at MCG (84,656)