One-Sided Contest In Weird Cyber Cauldron Fails To Attract Crowd

Errol Parker

Cricket enthusiasts around the country have been quick to chastise the people of our nation's prosperous West this morning as many of them failed to attend the first Test match in Perth.

Those who enjoy watching cricket in person with their own eyes couldn’t believe them, as Optus Stadium looked largely empty during each day's play. Naysayers have suggested that perhaps the nation is over watching Test cricket because the Australian team has become so good at crushing opponents at home. Others have thrown out the idea that younger, sportier formats of God’s summer sport are the only ones that people come out for anymore these days.

Crowds at Optus Stadium were lacklustre. Largely because it’s a shithole. PHOTO: AAP/RICHARD WAINWRIGHT

Neither of them has taken into account that Optus Stadium is a soulless and largely uncomfortable cyber cauldron that’s just not a good place to watch a one-sided contest in the blazing sunshine.

It’s not that it’s a bad place to watch a game of anything; it’s just not Test cricket. It has no quirks, no charm, no character. It’s just a place in Perth.

While the Gabba is similar, it has one key difference in that it’s old as hell and there’s still a sense of chaos about it. They put a pool in it sometimes. There’s a singular office block that looks into it. You walk out of it and into a Bavarian beer hall - and not the garish franchise version you see in places like Darling Harbour and Brisbane’s Riverside. It’s the German Club. An institution that’s been there since German people became our friends again. It’s opposite the stadium. Anyone can stand at Gate 5 and throw a cricket ball into someone’s backyard. People live that close. Nowhere else in the country you can do that. Maybe in Sydney from the football stadium, Ricky Ponting could throw a ball from Gate 1 through some fat barrister’s terrace house window. Speaking of the old Sydney Football Stadium in Sydney. There was still a sense that going to a match there would involve some level of discomfort. Fans knew if you wanted to have a piss and get another tray of flat Tooheys New, you’d need to leave about five minutes before halftime. If you didn’t, you’d only have time to do one before the action started again. Call me what you want, but that kind of spoke to me as a human being.

Watching sport in a place like Optus Stadium is too easy. Yes, it’s more accessible, and yes, it’s easier to empty yourself at the trough, but to me, it’s just not appealing.

Illustration by Fisher Classics www.fisherclassics.com

The MCG is ugly as hell but it’s always full. You could take all the seats out of the stadium and throw them into the Yarra like a Lime scooter, and you’d still get a hundred thousand toothless Victorians in there yelling their heads off. There’s a culture of getting out of your hovel in Melbourne that’s unseen anywhere else in the country. The stadium is also in the thick of it, something that Optus Stadium is not. You can pour out of the MCG and into the city of Melbourne.

In Sydney, that’s true to a certain extent. You pour out into a strange park and either set out across it toward the city like Moses in the desert or you get ushered onto some perverted version of a tram or a bus to somewhere. But the SCG is pound-for-pound one of the prettiest places to enjoy a game of Test cricket on this island. I recall sitting on the upper deck of the Doug Walters Stand a number of years ago and watching a grown man finish a plastic schooner at one end and release it at the other - into the same schooner. While that stand is gone and progress has removed others, it remains a character-filled sporting venue. If you’ve ever found yourself in the SCG Members Stand, it’s not a great place to watch the game from but it’s the best place to experience it. Especially from the atrium bar, looking out at the bottom of the roof and half the ground through a forest of support pillars that hold up the roof. The stand is a rabbit warren of staircases, locked doors, men in bootcut chinos, guts pushing against the buttons of an upmarket but casual shirt and sunburn. Players still hit balls out of the SCG. Where else can you do that? Adelaide at a pinch but probably not anymore. At Optus Stadium, a well-struck ball might go up on the second tier. In Sydney, it could bounce off the roof of the Ladies Stand and onto the head of some filthy smoker out on Driver Avenue.

The aspect from the general admission stands is a postcard. While exclusive and off-limits, the Members and Ladies are monuments. Like the Adelaide Oval scoreboard. A quirk of South Australia’s premier sporting facility is that you can stand under a tree and watch a game of international Test cricket. One end of the stadium is just a hill with some grass on it. Aside from the criminally-under-utilised Bellerive Oval, you can’t stand or sit on a grassy knoll and watch cricket. It’s a treat, it’s rare. It’s what makes the experience of going to watch the cricket there unique.

Optus Stadium doesn’t have any of that. It’s a corporate monolith. That’s its point of difference to every other venue on the international Test circuit. It’s boring and devoid of what makes experiencing Test cricket in this country something cultural. Stadiums had a reputation that kids grew up learning. The WACA was a fast deck that bounces a lot. It was hard to say what pitch they dropped in this time around. A road that deteriorated like a dead duck on an anthill? Who knows what would’ve happened if Pakistan had won the toss? Sydney turned, Brisbane had a section of the Bruce Highway plonked in the middle. Melbourne had a bit of everything. Adelaide has short boundaries. There was always something that set it apart. What is Optus Stadium? It’s like going to Hillsong.

It’s beside the point. If cricketing enthusiasts are going to throw stones at the people of Perth for not turning up to watch the game at Optus Stadium, they need to understand that the Perthanese punter has been robbed of the experience. Optus Stadium, from a cricketing perspective, is like paying for domestic business class. It’s decadent and largely unnecessary. I’m sure it’s a stunning place to watch Victorian Leg Tennis. I’ll concede that.

If crowds are to return to Optus Stadium in the future, they need to tear down one end of it and replace it with a grassy hill with a few of Western Australia’s famous “donga” style huts dotted along the ridge. Maybe even forget the grass, just have a section of crushed ore for people to stand on. Leave the pitch in all year and make those top-flight Dockers and Eagles get tackled on it. Brick the walls up to a few of the toilets and bars, forcing people to head out on some dreadful but rewarding odyssey to find a place to urinate and rehydrate. Get Michael Diamond over to shoot out some of the high-definition speakers. Nobody needs to hear Careless Whisper at 105dB between overs of afternoon session finger spin. Moving the stadium off that barren bend in the Swan and into town makes sense. Mueller Park or move it to Fremantle. Think of all the swans that stadium displaced and killed.

I only hope that the new Gabba doesn’t end up some weird cyber cauldron, too.