Stadium and Attendances
Melbourne have played the vast majority of their home matches at the city's Olympic Park Stadium, affectionately coined "The Graveyard" by fans due to the incredible 77.2% winning percentage there. It was here that the club played their inaugural home match in the fourth round of the 1998 season on 3 April 1998, having come off the back of three successive away victories. In front of what remains the club's record Olympic Park attendance of 20,522, the team recorded a 26–16 victory over the North Sydney Bears.
The team remained at the ground until the end of the 2000 season. In the 2000 season they attracted an average home attendance of 14,622, which remained their largest average attendance ever until the 2010 season which drew an average on 14,670. They played at Melbourne Cricket Ground for two games in 2000, and they won both times including the 70–10 thrashing of St George Illawarra Dragons in the Grand Final rematch from the previous year. Following steady attendance increases over the three years, it was decided to move home games to the much larger Docklands Stadium for the following year However, with the team ending up missing the finals, crowd numbers declined and it was decided to move the team back to Olympic Park. Attendances bottomed out to an average of 8,886 per home game in 2004, but they have steadily risen each year back to an average of 14,670 per home game for the 2010 season, their highest yearly average ever. A home attendance record of 33,427 was set in 2007 for the Preliminary Final against Parramatta, at the Docklands Stadium. Their highest regular season attendance of 25,480 was set in 2010 against St George-Illawarra also at Docklands.
The Storm played their last game at Olympic Park in round 25, 29 August 2009, with a 36–4 thrashing of the Sydney Roosters. For the 2010 NRL Premiership season, the Storm's first three home games (rounds four, six and seven) were played at Docklands Stadium, before moving into their new home ground, AAMI Park in round nine (9 May 2010) against the Brisbane Broncos. The club had anticipated playing its first game at the new ground in round four against the St George Illawarra Dragons, however, a delay in construction required the opening to be pushed back several weeks.
Read more about this topic: Melbourne Storm
Famous quotes containing the word stadium:
“It’s no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the Yankee Stadium of ancient times.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)