Casey Fields is a $30 million, 70 hectare multi-

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

complex in the City of Casey at Cranbourne East a southeastern suburb of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. The complex is home to Australian rules football,

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

netball Netball is a ball sport played on a court by two teams of seven players. It is among a rare number of sports which have been created exclusively for female competitors. The sport is played on indoor and outdoor netball courts and is specifical ...

, soccer,

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

cycling Cycling, also, when on a two-wheeled bicycle, called bicycling or biking, is the use of cycles for transport, recreation, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bicyclists", or "bikers". Apart from t ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

, and

rugby football Rugby football is the collective name for the team sports of rugby union and rugby league. Canadian football and, to a lesser extent, American football were once considered forms of rugby football, but are seldom now referred to as such. The ...

. A prominent arena within the complex is the VFL Oval, an Australian rules football oval which serves as the home of the Casey Demons in the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

. The Australian Football League's Melbourne Football Club has a training base and plays

AFL Women's AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules football league for women's Australian rules football, female players. The 2017 AFL Women's season, first season of the league ...

games at the complex. The

Casey-South Melbourne Cricket Club The Casey-South Melbourne Cricket Club is a cricket club located in the outer south-eastern Melbourne suburb of Cranbourne East, which plays in the Victorian Premier Cricket competition. Founded in 1862 as South Melbourne, it has produced nine Aust ...

in the

Victorian Premier Cricket Victorian Premier Cricket is a club cricket competition in the state of Victoria administered by Cricket Victoria. Each club fields four teams (firsts through to fourths) of adult players and usually play on weekends and public holidays. Match ...

competition is also based at Casey Fields. It is also an alternate venue for A-League Men’s side

Melbourne City FC Melbourne City Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in the south–eastern Melbourne suburb of Cranbourne East, that plays in the A-League, the top level of Australian soccer, under licence from Australian Professio ...

, with the club hosting Australia Cup football matches on the oval.

VFL Oval

The first stage of the Casey Fields development cost $4.2 million and opened on 29 April 2006. The facility consists of five grassed ovals: the main and northernmost oval is known as the VFL Oval, and is used exclusively for Australian rules football. In 2005, the VFL's Springvale Football Club had been struggling financially and was hindered by the rundown condition of its home ground in Newcomen Rd, Springvale. To attempt to financially secure its future, the club and the City of Casey came to an arrangement for club to move to Casey Fields. The club moved there in 2006, changed its name to the Casey Scorpions (and in 2016 to the Casey Demons), and played its first match on the oval against Box Hill on 29 April 2006. In 2009, the Melbourne Football Club and the City of Casey entered a 30-year partnership. The partnership which saw Melbourne establish a training centre at Casey Fields on the VFL Oval and its pavilion, which was expanded for the partnership. The two parties established a number of community-based programs together, However, The Melbourne Football Club moved its training and administrative facilitates to the AAMI park in 2010, and train at their nearby outdoor training ground at Gosch's Paddock. Melbourne also entered a reserves affiliation with the Casey Scorpions from that season. The Oval has been the primary home ground of Melbourne's AFL Women's team since 2017. In addition to VFL matches, the VFL Oval has hosted NAB Cup pre-season regional challenge matches. The record crowd of 10,099 set in 2007 in a match between Hawthorn and Essendon. The ground also hosted many of the games played during the

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and 2009 AFL Under 18 Championships. The VFL Oval has a seating capacity for only a few hundred spectators, with terraces and hills around the ground providing the rest of its capacity.

Other facilities

In addition to the VFL Oval, Casey Fields has four other ovals which are used for Australian rules football in winter and cricket in summer. Ovals No. 4 and 5 and their adjoining pavilion serve as the home ground of the

, which competes in the

competition. The South Melbourne Cricket Club moved to Casey Fields and changed its name to Casey-South Melbourne prior to the 2006–07 season. Local Cranbourne football and cricket clubs also use these four ovals. Since redevelopments were completed in 2019, the complex also boasts four floodlit, full-sized association football (soccer) pitches and an administration building. In December 2020

announced it would move its training and administration base to the facility in 2021. Further redevelopment will take place, with an elite training tablet pitch, a two-story indoor training and administration building, and space for a potential title 4000-capacity boutique stadium, all to be added to existing facilities. The facility will be known as the Etihad City Football Academy and will be completed in 2022. Casey Fields includes a criterium cycling track, which is often used by cyclists and is the location of two different rounds of the Victorian HPV Series every year. The complex also has an athletics centre, netball courts, tennis courts, rugby fields, a golf practice cage, and fishing lake. Since the 1990s it has been proposed that a Cranbourne East railway station be built adjacent to the complex, on a short extension from the current Cranbourne terminus of the former

South Gippsland railway line The South Gippsland railway line is a partially closed railway line in Victoria, Australia. It was first opened in 1892, branching from the Orbost line at Dandenong, and extending to Port Albert. Much of it (the section up to Leongatha) remaine ...

. This has not yet eventuated. The only current alternative is the "Train Link" bus from Cranbourne station to New Holland Drive, and then a 15-minute walk to the complex.

References

External links

Council site
{{AFL Women's Victorian Football League grounds AFL Women's grounds American football venues in Australia Sport in the City of Casey Buildings and structures in the City of Casey