W.A.C.A. ground an ideal venue for sports events

Press, 12 April 1989, Page 36

W.A.C.A. ground an ideal venue for sports events

By

JOHN COFFEY,

who last

week travelled on Air New Zealand’s inaugural non-stop flight between Christchurch and Perth.

It was easy to spot the Lancaster Park regular in the press room at the W.A.C.A. last week. He was the one who arrived lugging a bag brimming with the equipment needed to survive a cricket match in Christchurch.

But jersey, jacket, cap and cushion were not required for the day-night fixture between New Zealand and Western Australia at the thoroughly impressive Perth stadium. The spectators, news media, guests and officials are all handsomely catered for within the confines of the W.A.C.A. ground.

There is no hint of the concrete chill of Lancaster Park, which unfortunately typifies the inadequacies of this country’s main sports venues.

The welfare of the people who pay at the gate has been very much in the thoughts of Australian administrators for years. Australia has left behind the era of the warm meat pie and the cold comfort of barren terraces.

Overlooked by the towering floodlights, the W.A.C.A. has multistoreyed and modern grandstands at each end of the pitch. There is seating at various levels for about 30,000 spectators, and even grassed areas for those who pre-

fer to take their cricket lying down. Its oval shape makes the W.A.C.A. ideal not only for cricket but also Australian Rules. And the W.A.C.A. can be adapted for other attractions. Last month 24,000 people watched a Panasonic ■ Cup rugby league match between the Sydney clubs, Balmain and Parramatta, in a costly but highly successful venture into Rules territory. On the Friday evening before New Zealand’s cricket appearance the W.A.C.A. was' filled with 26,000 fans as the West Coast Eagles started their Australian Rules season by losing to the Melbourne club, Essendon. Sure, Rules rules in Perth from April till spring. Maybe the rugby league had novelty value, and provided an opportunity for expatriate eastern Australians and New Zealanders to see a more familiar style of “footy.”

But the W.A.C.A. can be rated as a drawcard in itself. The cricket attracted about 6000 people on a working day, providing a useful bonus for the Western Australian association. Many were in support of the visiting side, including the New Zealand women’s underwater hockey squad.

Air New Zealand also achieved something of a

coup by gaining approval for the koru insignia to be incorporated on the national team’s playing gear.

Lucrative sponsorship — of a size not readily available in this country — was available to those who had the imagination to turn the once modest W.A.C.A. into a showpiece. In comparison, the Lancaster Park authorities spent hard-earned gate receipts to replace the old embankment before it was condemned. Those who watch their cricket and rugby union from the terraces still have no seats, and they and their pies will get wet if it rains.

Only at the Basin Reserve is it possible to actually see cricket from the comfort of a glassedin snack and beverage bar. But entry is restricted to a privileged few.

One of the public grandstands in Perth even had steward service.

Corporate hospitality boxes have been installed at Lancaster Park (sideon to the cricket pitches) and Eden Park (where they are also much better situated for rugby union).

The trust boards of both of those grounds rejected applications from the New Zealand Rugby League to play test matches against the world champion Australians in July. Last Octo-

ber Eden Park authorities reaped more than $160,000 from the rugby league World Cup final.

Their Australian counterparts do not suffer from such prejudices. For example, it is the fault of the New South Wales Rugby Union that it struggles along at its own Concord Oval rather than join rugby league and soccer at the new Sydney Football Stadium.

The W.A.C.A. is not perfect, nor is it finished. It has not yet an electronic scoreboard to match those of Sydney or Melbourne. Replays can instead be viewed on television monitors within the grandstands.

If the Western Australians are ever of a mind to bring the Air New Zealand-Western Underwriters Cup to Christchurch any accompanying journalists would gain the impression that Lancaster Park was a third world sporting facility. They would sit among the spectators. In recent years media representatives have been charged for their meals (last summer the $l6 fee prompted a virtual boycott by incumbents of the press benches). Telecom New Zealand sometimes muffs the timing of its telephone installations.

The Perth ’paper men were aghast when architects designed the grand-

stand, named after Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh, so that their view of the scoreboard was blocked. No matter — a television camera is trained upon it and monitored in the press and radio rooms. The current gripe is an outside ramp used by cameramen which obscures a few metres along one boundary. Such “essentials” as air conditioning, television set and monitors, a bubbling urn, sumptuous meals and scorers are taken for granted.

A stroll across the road to Gloucester Park, where the recent Inter-Dominion harness racing championship was held, emphasised the differences between the two countries.

Grandstands are glassed in, the restaurants and snack bars are tiered and situated to attract spectators. Addington might have the finest track in Australasia but not many punters have an urge to run around it.

Similarly, Russell Wylie and his ground staff do wonders with the Lancaster Park playing surface. The participants at least are not paupers in comparison to their counterparts in the state where some number plates still bear the slogan “W.A. — home of the America’s Cup.”