Princes Park (stadium)

Stadium in Melbourne, Australia

Princes Park (also known as Ikon Park under naming rights) is an Australian rules football ground located inside the Princes Park precinct in the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton North. Officially the Carlton Recreation Ground, it is a historic venue, having been Carlton Football Club's VFL/AFL home ground from 1897. At its highest usage, the ground had a nominal capacity of 35,000, making it the third largest Australian rules football venue in Melbourne after the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Docklands Stadium. Princes Park hosted three grand finals during World War II, with a record attendance of 62,986 at the 1945 VFL Grand Final between Carlton and After 2005, when the ground hosted its last Australian Football League (AFL) game, two stands were removed and replaced with an indoor training facility and administration building, reducing the capacity. The venue reached capacity (24,500) for the inaugural AFL Women's match between and in 2017. Subsequent renovations and modernisation of the ground and surrounding precinct have reduced Ikon Park's capacity to approximately 13,000. In the 1880s football and cricket were played on separate grounds and as early as 1885 the Carlton Cricket Club (CCC) which played elsewhere in Princes Park fought for exclusive access to it. In 1886, the CFC built its home ground, Princes Oval, specifically for football though it lacked facilities for spectators of other football club grounds. In response to the construction of the football ground, the Carlton Cricket Club which had a separate oval within the park lobbied the Minister of Lands to remove the football ground from the park. The cricket club, unsuccessful in seeking to access the oval, began to look elsewhere for a permanent venue and the football ground was however retained in situ. However the dispute between the two clubs over occupancy of the park and the legitimacy of the football ground would continue for years. Permissive occupancy of Princes Park was granted to CFC and CCC simultaneously in 1889. It was Carlton Football Club's home ground during the inaugural season of the VFL/AFL in 1897. The club went on to win 673 of its 962 VFL/AFL games at the venue. The Alderman Gardiner Stand was designed in 1903 and completed in stages between 1909 and 1913, as a mostly iron stand with original cast iron columns still in place. The Robert Heatley Stand was officially opened by Alderman Sir William Brunton on Saturday, 7 May 1932. During World War II, Princes Park hosted three VFL grand finals – in 1942, 1943, and 1945. (The 1944 match was played at the Junction Oval.) The 1945 grand final, between Carlton and , attracted a record crowd of 62,986. Three weeks earlier, the semi final between Carlton and had attracted 54,846 people. Those were the only two crowds of over 50,000 in the venue's history. The record home and away (i. e., non finals) crowd was set in 1963, when 47,514 attended a match between Carlton and Geelong. In 1952, Princes Park was originally selected to be the main stadium for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, which would have resulted in a major redevelopment to accommodate up to 100,000 spectators. It was also expected that VFL finals would be transferred to the ground after the upgrade. However, in early 1953 after a change of government, the Olympic Organising Committee changed its decision, instead redeveloping the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the Olympics. Princes Park was the venue for the second Ashes test of the 1992 Great Britain Lions tour, in which the visitors defeated Australia 33–10. In 1994, the Balmain Tigers played two New South Wales Rugby League premiership games at Princes Park. Work on the Legends Stand began in 1995 and was completed for opening on 25 April 1997. The roof, with its curved modern structure, ensured that the oval was now enclosed with a roof all the way around its circumference. In 2005, it was decided to discontinue the use of the ground for AFL home and away games. A farewell AFL game was played at Princes Park on Saturday 21 May 2005. The game was contested between Carlton and Melbourne. It was the last of the suburban grounds in Melbourne to be used in the AFL. The result was an 18 point win to Melbourne. Also in the same year, the ground hosted matches from the Australian Football Multicultural Cup as well as finals for the 2005 Australian Football International Cup. In January 2006, Graham Smorgon, then president of the Carlton Football Club, announced a redevelopment proposal involving the demolition of most of the stands, returning much of the ground to parkland and the establishment of club training facilities and community centre. On 7 June 2006 it was announced that the stadium would receive a redevelopment to provide the Carlton with elite training and administration facilities. The proposed redevelopment incorporated a gymnasium, weights and stretch areas, a 4 lane, 25 metre indoor heated pool, medical offices and rehabilitation/treatment spaces, football administration offices, lecture theatre and meeting rooms and additional changing room facilities. The redevelopment of the $18 million training facility at Ikon Park was completed in 2010 on the collaboration of working closely with federal, state and local governments, along with the AFL, to deliver a world class training and administration facility.

The inaugural match of the AFL Women's competition was held at the ground in February 2017. The game, featuring Carlton and Collingwood, attracted a capacity crowd of 24,568. The success of the AFL Women's competition resulted in both state and federal governments allocating funding towards enhancement of the stadium's facilities, to enable it to become the home of women's football in Victoria. The Victorian Government committed $20 million in April 2018 to cater for the growth of women's football, which was followed the next year by $15 million from the Federal Government. The joint funding allows the venue to host a high performance women's training facility, with an upgraded oval, women's coaching education hub, sports injury prevention and research centre and allied health centre. The training and administration building was refurbished, the Pratt Stand was demolished to make way for a match day pavilion containing changing rooms, high performance areas, an indoor training field measuring 25m x 50m, broadcast quality lighting, expanded retail facilities, a new café and function and events centre. The 2023 AFL Women's Grand Final was held at Ikon Park on 3 December 2023, which saw Brisbane defeat North Melbourne 44 to 27 in front of a crowd of 12,616.

Public transport to the venue is primarily by tram along Royal Parade directly adjoining the ground, or along Lygon St 700m east of the ground. It was served by North Carlton railway station, 700m north of the ground, until that station's closure in 1948; and by Royal Park railway station 1.1 km to the west thereafter.

The ground became known as Optus Oval in November 1993 due to a naming rights deal with telecommunications company Optus. In April 2006, it was announced that the naming rights for the stadium had once again been awarded, this time for a two year term, during which the stadium was known as MC Labour Park. It was later re named Visy Park. Since 2015, the ground has been commercially been known as Ikon Park.

The venue's most notable alternative use was as a cricket ground. The ground has hosted seven first class cricket matches, including three Sheffield Shield games, and two List A matches. Until 2000, the ground was the home of the Carlton Cricket Club in the Victorian Premier/District Cricket competition; in 2000, the club moved to the No. 1 Oval in the wider Princes Park area to enable the football club unlimited access to the venue for year round training. The Balmain Tigers took two games away from their traditional home Leichhardt Oval to Princes Park in the 1994 Winfield Cup. The higher crowd Balmain got was 14,762, when the Brisbane Broncos beat Balmain 36–14 in round 7 with Steve Renouf scoring 4 tries. From the 2006 NRL season onwards, the venue became the administrative headquarters for the Melbourne Storm rugby league club; the club relocated to the temporary home while plans were being made for the construction of a new purpose built rectangular stadium next to the then current Melbourne Storm home ground, Olympic Park Stadium. The stadium was the home ground for now defunct Association football club Carlton SC. In December 2023, A League club Melbourne City hosted Chinese Super League club Zhejiang in the AFC Champions League due to scheduling conflicts at its usual home ground. Other sports, boxing and rugby, have also been played there. The ground was also host to a production of the opera Aida.