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As the beleaguered Parramatta Eels farewelled their home ground with a brilliant 30-18 win over the Dragons last night, the game also farewelled Monday night football.
The demolishers move in shortly to erase Pirtek Stadium in preparation for a new state-of-the-art 30,000-seater stadium that will be ready for the opening round of the 2019 season.
There’s been a long history at the ground that started as Cumberland Oval in the 19th century.
The Cumberland Club played grade cricket there starting in 1862, rugby was first played there in 1879, and rugby league in 1909.
After Parramatta won its first NRL premiership in 1981, fans burned down the shambles of a grandstand, and all the wooden bench seating inside the fence.
In 1985 the new grandstands were finished and the grass planted, and by the second round of the 1986 season, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth had opened the new Parramatta Stadium.
Parramatta celebrated their new home by beating the Dragons 36-6 with Neil Hunt scoring two tries, and one each to Steve Sharp, Stanley Plunkett Jurd, Brett Kenny, Brian Jackson, and skipper Ray Price, while Hunt converted four of them to Michael O’Connor’s try and conversion.
Peter Sterling was man of the match, with Kevin Roberts the referee, and the crowd was 26,870.
Many rugby league legends have worn the Parramatta jersey like Brian Hambly, Ron Lynch, Ken Thornett, Dick Thornett, Bob O’Reilly, Ray Price, Mick Cronin, Peter Sterling, Brett Kenny, Steve Ella, Eric Grothe, Peter Wynn, Steve Edge and Bob Lindner to name a few.
I have my own memories of Cumberland Oval playing first grade cricket against Richie Benaud, Doug Walters, and John Benaud.
John was one of the hardest hitters of a cricket ball I ever played against or ever saw batting.
The pitch at Cumberland Oval was as dilapidated as the grandstand, so trying to keep John Benaud quiet was no easy job.
I kept bowling fractionally wider and wider outside off stump, until the sixth delivery when John planted his foot towards gully as I delivered and smashed me over midwicket.
The ball not only cleared the fence, but the outer fence as well, landing in the municipal swimming pool next door – a huge hit.
Ten minutes later the ball was returned that was more like an ice cube. Needless to say John Benaud cracked a ton in a hurry.
The other memory was early in Laurie Daley’s Canberra Raiders career in 1987.
It was Parramatta Stadium when I was the sideline eye for 2KY callers Geoff Prenter and Roy Masters.
Midway through the first half Daley made a break short of halfway and was racing down the touchline.
The burly Parramatta winger Eric Grothe came from nowhere, picked Daley up like a rag doll, and threw him over touch right into my lap.
I was sitting in a plastic modular chair that disintegrated into a million bits with Laurie on top of me.
“Hi, I’m Laurie Daley” said as he shook my hand which was covered in plastic shrapnel.
“Hi. I’m David Lord”
As Laurie disentangled himself he added, “Nice to meet you”, and ran back into the action.
Eric Grothe was almost wetting himself he was laughing so much as Parramatta went on to beat the Raiders 30-22.
So a fourth chapter is about to be written about Cumberland Oval, Parramatta Stadium, and Pirtek Stadium.
How the State Government treats the Parramatta rugby league legends in the new complex is sure to make a lot of Eels fans ropeable.
League will have to share the stadium with soccer.