Your views: Footy Park memories
Our eulogy for Football Park – which hosts its last big-time game on Sunday – has sparked memories for readers. Here are a few of them.
MARIA VICARIO: Yes I still remember the 1976 Grand Final. Our family were full blood Sturt supporters. We pestered and pestered until we got our Dad to take us to Footy Park to see our beloved Sturt play the Grand Final.
So there we were, Dad and his daughters, streaming into the Oval only to be told there were no more seats and you will have to go around the boundary line.
Great – I could see everything really close, maybe too close! The scream came out from the umpires: “Move these people. It is not safe.”
On the steps we went and got the best view. I will never forget that experience. It was the day the Blues shone beating the mighty PORT.
It was then another 26 years before we saw them again win the SANFL flag in 2002 outshining the Bulldogs.
These are fantastic memories and the only ones we want to remember.
PHIL HARRISON: The Old Man (Dad) took me to the first game, Centrals and North. As a Centrals supporter I was pretty happy about being taken to a footy game not at Elizabeth. Dad only ventured within the Salisbury/Elizabeth domain so it was always with a degree of wonder why we went that day. He did once take me to Alberton Oval for a Centrals and Port game and I remember being bundled into a cab out the back of the Brien’s Family Alberton Hotel that was doing little drop-off runs around to the Alberton Oval for a few bob.
At the first game at West Lakes I remember Dad smoking these new darts (cigarettes) [he was a “stuvys” man] called Polo which he only took two drags out of and they were at the tip filter ready to be extinguished. I remember the vast concrete and the difference between Elizabeth Oval and Football Park. I still don’t really know why Dad took me there that day – maybe he did have a sense of history. Maybe it was because one of his old mates from the mid north, Doug Butterfield, was the curator. I tell people the story and always get a laugh as I animate the way Dad used to drag the bejesus out of those tiny tailor-made Polos. Oh and I also add that at that time Dad was hanging around with a bloke called Barry Hearl who played for North. Dad played for West Torrens, barracked for Port Adelaide and had a son who still worships Central Districts. That’s footy though… it’s about the game.
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Farewell Football Park. Thanks for all the memories, especially when it comes to my late and great Dad.
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