Brian Matthews’ reflection on the Melbourne Cricket Ground is published at a time when the ground itself is at a crossroads, a fact immediately perceptible to anyone who has laid eyes on it in recent months. On the third day of the Boxing Day Test, I sat in the modestly named Great Southern Stand and looked across at the old Members Pavilion as it stood half-demolished, teetering on the edge of collapse. With the construction site visually inescapable, the thought of the eclectic collection of stands from several generations giving way to a new monolithic structure was mirrored by the thought of Steve Waugh playing in his last Boxing Day Test.
And this is precisely what Matthews’ text so vividly brings to light: the critical importance of the present, tempered by the knowledge that it will fade into the past. Sport at the MCG plots the seasonal life of Melbourne, as the winter to summer progression of football to cricket is punctuated by the events which mark the unique nature of each season: the memorable matches, moments and characters, and the special events, such as the Olympic Games and concerts.
However, Matthews does not offer a history that can be easily defined and categorised. It is not a standard textual analysis of a site in the way that a jaded reader of high school history may expect, nor does it offer the daily drama that a reader may expect from a text which proclaims itself a ‘life and times’ document. It does not offer a chronological explication of events, either of the ground’s formation and construction, or of the sporting and other fixtures it has housed. Nor is it a standard sporting history. It does not provide tables of statistics, or detailed listings of great achievements, high scores or career totals. Nor is it simply a series of autobiographical experiences, though of course these play an important role.
A reader expecting such a text may be, at first, sadly disappointed, but then, perhaps, charmed by the unusual and unexpected mode of presentation. The first clue that such an innovative approach has been taken is the sparse yet striking black and white illustrative photos. Rather than plundering newspaper archives for shots of famous faces and events, Matthews has chosen a series of shots depicting crowds, stands and curators. Particularly striking are the photos by Megan Ponsford, which comprise around half of the