Knights Stadium: More than just a home ground

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Knights Stadium is one of the most iconic venues in Australian football – for many it is more than just a stadium.

The ground was built in 1989 with storied history. Melbourne Knights, formerly known as Melbourne Croatia SC, were two-time National Soccer League (NSL) champions and four-time minor premiers at the ground during the 1990s.

The Mark Viduka Stand can seat up to 3,000 people, while another 12,000 can stand around the pitch. The ground represents the largest football-only sporting ground in the state of Victoria – testament to the history and strength of Melbourne Knights FC.

Knights Stadium in 2002 with the Mark Viduka Stand.

Former Melbourne Knights president Andelko Cimera says he was part of the club while Knights Stadium was becoming a reality.

“We were playing at the old number two pitch at Olympic Park, where the dog track was, and that was virtually our home. We were looking for alternatives and a couple of properties came up – a drive-in in Altona and a drive-in at North Sunshine,” he said.

“We settled on Sunshine because it was a little bit cheaper. I think we paid $180,000 at that time in 1984. 12 months later we started developing the stadium.”

Melbourne Croatia at the time tried to secure the rights to play at Heidelberg United’s home ground Olympic Park and several other venues, before a decade-long donation drive allowed them to raise the money to purchase the land and develop a facility at the current site of Somers Street.

94/95 NSL champions

Melbourne Knights FC President Pave Jusup says that much of his childhood was spent at Knights Stadium.

“We only saw the stadium for games. We would always strive to go there, and sometimes the juniors would have an important game that’d let us on the second ground, even the main ground,” he said.

“If you walked into the wrong part of the ground the groundskeeper would grab you and make you be a ball boy, and you’d get a hotdog and drink after the game. It was a whole childhood for a lot of us.”

Jusup adds that Melbourne Knights and the stadium serve as a key pillar within the Croatian community.

“There are a lot of memories that have been created there. A lot of people are tied to the physical place and it is a hub of the Croatian community along with the Croatian club in Footscray and the original Croatian church in Clifton Hill. We are the three constant and long-term fixtures in the community,” he said.

Cimera explains that there were both positives and negatives towards the stadium being community ran and operated.

“There were advantages and disadvantages. It was our property, it was our ground. It was up to us whether it was Sunday night, Saturday afternoon, or Friday night game. It was always available to us,” he said.

“The disadvantages were that everything was up to us. The maintenance of the ground was up to us. The facility became a burden to the Croatian community, which involved all our payments, all our rates which were paid for by the community.”


Both Jusup and Cimera agree that the biggest games were always against South Melbourne.

“It became a fortress for us in the 90s. It was difficult to take points away from our ground for teams,” Cimera said.

“I think our record crowd was when Hadjuk Split was here, that was close to 15,000. I remember when we played South Melbourne we had 12,000 people. The games between South Melbourne and us were always the biggest crowds.”

During the 2000 National Soccer League season, over 11,000 people descended upon Knights Stadium to watch Melbourne Croatia vs South Melbourne Hellas.

“Around 2001, they were top of the table and unbeaten, while we were mid to low-end of the table. We beat them 4-0. That is one game that sticks out in my mind,” Jusup said.

For both Cimera and Jusup, they acknowledge that the supporters and members of Melbourne Knights want to see Knights Stadium and the club feature in a second division.

“It’s not only the Melbourne Knights. It’s the juniors too because they can have a career path. Right now they can’t see a career path. Without promotion and relegation, it makes it very difficult,” Cimera said.

“We’ve got a lot of latent fans who are disappointed in the situation we find ourselves in. There are a lot of people who would put their hands up and into their pockets to help propel the club if given the opportunity. We’ve gone through a period of consolidation, but there’s a new generation of people who want to propel the club into the limelight as their parents and grandparents did,” Jusup said.

If the opportunity to join a second division does arise for Melbourne Knights, then their home ground won’t look out of place on the national stage.

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Football West’s Female Football Week draws record engagement from Metropolitan Perth to Remote Kunurra

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Image Credit: Football West

Football West has wrapped up its 2026 Female Football Week with activations spanning metropolitan Perth, regional Western Australia and national online platforms, as participation data from the state’s most remote football association underlined the scale of demand for women’s and girls’ football beyond the city.

Kununurra Soccer Association, situated in the East Kimberley more than 3,000 kilometres from Perth, recorded 47 new female registrations aged 7 to 12 across the first two terms of 2026 through Football West’s Junior Girls United program, representing a 30 percent increase in female membership that coaches Hannah Grominsky and Evie Marchetti described as overwhelming.

“The support from the community has been simply awesome,” Grominsky said. “We’re up to nearly 50 registered girls now. The majority of them have never played before or aren’t part of our association, so it’s great to give them a positive football experience in a comfortable environment.”

The program, supported by the Federal Government’s Play Our Way grant, now runs every Wednesday and has extended football activity into the cooler months of the Kimberley calendar, a season when the association would not traditionally operate. The result is a cohort of players new to the game, in a region where access to organised sport has historically been constrained by geography, infrastructure and seasonality.

Recognition across the state

Back in Perth, Female Football Week’s centrepiece event was the Women in Football Celebrate You Breakfast at the Sam Kerr Football Centre, featuring two panel discussions covering officiating pathways, coaching development and advocacy for women in football.

Subiaco AFC NPL Women’s head coach Christine Coppin, who is one of few women coaching at her level in the region, said events like the breakfast were critical to making the pathway visible for others.

“I’d love to see more women coaches putting their hat in the ring, both at junior and senior levels, realising that there’s more to football than just playing,” Coppin said. “They can stay involved in the sport as they get older in different ways.”

A regional Women in Football Breakfast in Albany drew more than 30 attendees, while a Girls Day Out event in the same city attracted more than 50 participants aged 6 to 16 for a come-and-try introduction to the game, extending the week’s reach into the Great Southern and reinforcing Football West’s stated commitment to building women’s football outside metropolitan areas.

Recognising those who make it happen

The week’s awards, nominated by the WA public, recognised five individuals whose contributions to female football across the state were judged most significant over the past year. Cassandra Paxman of Albany Rovers FC was named Coach of the Year, Georgia Whitelaw of Great Southern JSA and Albany JSA took Referee of the Year, Karen Harris of Carramar Shamrock Rovers FC was named Volunteer of the Year, Georgia Aiesi of Mandurah City FC received the Player of the Year award, and Melissa Spillman of Football Futures Foundations was named Community Champion of the Year— a recognition she also received at the national level.

Football West Female Football and Advocacy Manager Sarah Carroll said the week had reinforced both the momentum and the responsibility facing the sport.

“Female Football Week continues to showcase the incredible passion and growing appetite for the women’s game,” Carroll said. “It’s a reminder of how important it is that we keep working together to drive the game forward.”

The contrast between a packed breakfast at the Sam Kerr Football Centre and a Wednesday afternoon program in Kununurra working around wet season schedules captures something essential about where women’s football in Western Australia actually lives. The growth is real, and it is happening in places the cameras do not always reach.

Tasmania’s State Budget Commits $350,000 to Football Facility Planning as $80 million Home of Football Moves Closer to Reality

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Image Credit: Football Tasmania

The Tasmanian State Government has committed $350,000 in seed funding for the next stage of planning for Football Tasmania‘s proposed Home of Football, moving the state’s most significant football infrastructure project closer to construction and signalling political recognition that demand for rectangular facilities in Tasmania has outgrown what currently exists.

The funding, confirmed in the 2026-27 State Budget handed down last week, sits within an almost $200 million investment in sport and recreation across the budget and forward estimates: a package the government describes as designed to improve access and participation for Tasmanians of all ages. The football allocation is listed alongside a $25 million community sporting infrastructure commitment at Kingborough, $12.5 million for new multipurpose indoor sporting courts at New Town Bay, and $8 million for the Domain Tennis Centre redevelopment.

Football Tasmania CEO Tony Pignata OAM welcomed the commitment as an acknowledgement of the structural gap between participation numbers and available infrastructure, particularly in the state’s south.

“The State Government’s delivery on this commitment shows us that they understand that demand outstrips supply for rectangular facilities in the state,” Pignata said. “If we are to continue to grow and develop future Matildas and Socceroos, we need to invest in the infrastructure our game so desperately needs.”

The proposed $80 million facility would include six full-sized pitches, three synthetic and three turf, alongside four five-a-side pitches, modern changerooms for both men and women, and dedicated training facilities. The design is intended to serve every level of the game simultaneously, from grassroots junior competitions through to national-level tournaments.

From grassroots to A-League ambitions

Football Tasmania has framed the facility’s purpose across a deliberately wide range of uses. At the community end, it would provide a permanent home for junior games and regional tournaments that currently compete for limited rectangular ground availability across the state. At the elite end, it would create the capacity to host national competitions including the Emerging Matildas and Emerging Socceroos Championships, flagship state competitions such as the Statewide Cup finals, and potentially, in time, an A-League team.

That last ambition is the most significant and the most distant. Pignata was measured but direct in raising it, situating a Tasmanian A-League club alongside the NBL’s Jackjumpers, the WNBL’s Jewels and the AFL’s Devils as part of the state’s emerging identity as a home for national sporting competition.

“One day down the track, we anticipate this would become home to our very own A-League team, so that we take our rightful place in the nation’s elite competition,” he said.

The pathway from planning funding to A-League admission is long and would require sustained political and commercial support well beyond the current commitment. But the logic is consistent with how football infrastructure investment has worked elsewhere in Australia. The facility comes first, and the competitive pathway follows. Without a purpose-built ground that meets the standards required for elite competition, the conversation about an A-League team cannot begin in earnest.

The equity dimension

The inclusion of modern women’s and men’s changerooms in the facility’s design carries more weight than it might appear. Community and semi-professional football facilities across Australia have historically been built to male standards, with women’s changerooms added as afterthoughts or not included at all. That inadequacy has been consistently identified as a barrier to female participation and to the hosting of women’s competitions at venues that cannot accommodate them properly.

A purpose-built facility that treats women’s infrastructure as a design requirement rather than a retrofit positions the Home of Football to serve the growth of women’s football in Tasmania in a way that existing facilities cannot. The state recorded 41,395 registered football participants in 2025, a number that has been growing and that the current rectangular facility stock was not built to support at this scale.

Additionally, the government’s Ticket to Play program, which provides eligible children with two vouchers worth up to $100 each for sporting participation, and the Ticket to Wellbeing program offering $100 vouchers to eligible seniors, represent indirect but meaningful support for football participation across the state’s communities.

Pignata also acknowledged outgoing Football Tasmania President Bob Gordon, who he said had dedicated almost a decade to the organisation and had been instrumental in lobbying for this and other facilities across the state.

The $350,000 planning commitment is a beginning. The $80 million facility it is intended to progress remains subject to further government investment and development approval.

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