Melbourne Cricket Ground - Melbourne Ground Guide

The Melbourne Cricket Ground is located in Yarra Park Melbourne, Victoria, an area known to hold the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct. This stadium is locally known as ‘The G’. It was founded and is now managed by Melbourne Cricket Club. Melbourne Cricket Ground is the 11th largest cricket ground globally and is only 2nd behind the Motera Stadium in terms of having the largest cricket ground by capacity. Its reputation as a landmark and shop window of Melbourne to the rest of the world, was recognised in 2005 with its addition to the Australian National Heritage List in 2005. Melbourne Cricket Ground is well connected to the rest of the city; it’s within walking distance of the city centre and is connected to the Richmond and Jolimont railway stations, as well as the route 70 tram.

Throughout its life, Melbourne Cricket Ground has been deemed a high-profile and exquisite stadium. Originally built in 1853, it has undergone many renovations to keep up with this profile status. It was the centrepiece in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the 2006 Commonwealth Games hosted by the city, as well as the two Cricket World Cups in 1992 and 2015. Melbourne Cricket Ground hosted the first One Day International Cricket Match between Australia and England in 1877 and again in 1977, paying respect to its huge role in helping to develop international cricket. Matches between these two huge cricket nations began as early as 1861 when, on Christmas Eve Heathfield Stephenson arrived with his English team, to a parade and spectated game of more than 3000 people.

Development of the capacity of Melbourne Cricket Ground was halted by occupational health and safety legislation. The Melbourne Cricket Ground can hold a maximum of 95,000 seated spectators and another 5,000 standing. Before this legislation, Melbourne Cricket Ground recorded 143,750 attendees of a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade in 1959. Well before Melbourne Cricket Ground reached this capacity, its first telephone was installed 1881, as well as the wicket orientation being changed from east to west, to north to south. 1 year later, a basic scoreboard was installed. These redevelopments signified the start of major changes to the ground to allow a better experience for more spectators. Melbourne Cricket Ground’s latest modification included the $400 million (and more!) redevelopment of the 1982 Members stand, the 1956 Olympic stand and the 1968 Ponsford stand between 2003 and 2005. These stands are still there today, with more recent developments focusing on scoreboards, LED floodlights, ticket outlets and entrance gates.

Melbourne Cricket Ground has more sporting connections than just cricket. It became the home of Australian Rules Football since the sport’s birth in 1859 and is the venue that hosts the Australian Football League (AFL), including the AFL Grand Final – the world’s highest attending league championship event. Furthermore, Melbourne Cricket Ground has hosted international football matches between Australia and Ireland, international rugby matches, State of Origin (Australian rugby league) matches and FIFA World Cup qualifying games.

Below is a seating plan of Melbourne's Melbourne Cricket Ground:

Melbourne has 4 stands: The Great Southern Stand, Olympic Stand, MCC Members Reserve and the Ponsford Stand.

Click the thumbnails above to enlarge an image of each stand and to read a more detailed description of each part of the Ground.

Melbourne Club Shop

Melbourne Cricket Ground has got a fantastic club shop as you’d imagine. It’s located inside Gate 3, right behind Bay M51. But if you can’t make it to the physical location they also have an online shop here.

Although you need to visit the MCG on game day to really soak up the atmosphere, you need to have a tour to really see what makes the ground tick. Luckily MCG offers tours of the ground regularly between 10am and 3pm, apart from certain holidays and Matchdays. Visit the website for official information and opening times here.

My personal favourite parts of tours are going into the changing rooms and imagining the cricket greats, like Shane Ward, getting into the zone there.

The official ticket seller for the Melbourne Cricket Ground is Ticketek. You can phone +61 132 849 or visit ticketek.com.au.

If you are looking for a more premium experience at the ground, then you can check out the premium hospitality for the ground here to see about private suites.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground sits right at the southern tip of Australia, in the Victoria region.

The address for your satnav is VIC 3002. The MCG operates a grass car park named the Yarra Park, and charge $10 (Price true in 2020). However since it’s grass any heavy rain usually results in the closing of the car park to save on the grass, but this is pretty rare during the cricket season.

There are of course other car parks around Melbourne which are fairly near the ground should the main car park get closed off on Exhibition Street, Flinders Street, Federation Square and Flinders Lane.

MCG has two train stations fairly close. The closest is Jolimont which is just a 3 minute walk from the ground. The other, Richmond, is only a 5 minute walk away, so either option is pretty good.

Melbourne features some Trams which are a really fun way of travelling to a game. The 75, 48 and 70 will all get you to the ground from different locations.

The closest Airport to the Ground is Melbourne Airport. It can take just over an hour to get to the ground from the airport using public transport (via the train station) or about 25 minutes in a car.