Whitten Oval
From The UCSC Wikipedia Trust Project
Whitten Oval is a stadium in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is the home base of Australian Football League side Western Bulldogs.
Formerly known as the "Western Oval", it was renamed in honour of former Footscray champion Ted Whitten. A statue of Mr Football was later erected at the ground to further honour the great man.
The ground seats 25,000. It is currently not used for league matches, but is undergoing a redevelopment, and it has been hinted that it could soon be up to AFL standard. This redevelopment has started with the old scoreboard and the stand on the outer wing (The E.J Smith stand) recently being demolished. [1]
The ground is known famously for being particularly long and narrow as opposed to many other grounds, with deep squarish pockets, and for the wild wind which bellowed over the ground, particularly at the Geelong Road end of the ground. These reasons, most specifically the wind, meant that the Western Oval was the site of many abnormally low scoring games, inaccurate scoring tallies, and games where more than 80% of all scoring was kicked to one end. The ground developed a demographic of the "ground visiting sides hated to play at", with passionate Bulldog supporters and unique playing conditions making it an arduous task to leave with a win.
The venue held its last competitive football match in 1997 against the West Coast Eagles, a match known distinctively for a before the game fight between Michael Gardiner of West Coast and several Footscray players.
Windy Days at the Western Oval
In a game typical of the worst that the Western Oval wind could offer, Footscray beat Fitzroy in a close game by the score of 14.9.93 vs 13.7.85. in Round 10, 1964. Of the total of 178 points scored in the game, only 7 were scored against the wind. When Footscray met Fitzroy in Round 17, 1927, only 6 of 173 points were kicked against the wind. In 1948's Footscray vs Geelong game, only 2 of the 58 scoring shots were made into the wind. While these are extreme examples, it was common to see no more than two or three goals kicked into the wind, while fourteen or fifteen would be scored at the other ends.
Post VFL/AFL
Also played at the ground is a local Rec Footy competition and hosted the VWFL Grand Finals in recent years.
