Saw this article on BF. Serves the Pies right for selling out their traditional home
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Pies out in the cold
Lyndal Cairns
The Leader
12Jul06
COLLINGWOOD Football Club has accused Yarra Council of shutting it out of its spiritual home of 114 years.
The Magpies want to return to train at Victoria Park - and are willing to pay $200 an hour - but the council are refusing the club's request to share it with the AFL Umpires Association and the Fitzroy Reds.
Magpies chief operating officer Eugene Arocca said Yarra should spend the money required to fix Victoria Park's surface so it would cope with a more rigorous schedule.
``We've been told we can't train on the oval because of its condition,'' he said. ``If the oval's not up to it, it needs to be upgraded.''
Mr Arocca said the club hoped to train there once a week.
The Pies are looking for new training pastures because its current ground, Edwin Flack Field in the Olympic Park precinct renamed Bob Rose Oval is set to become a 20,000-seat rugby and soccer stadium.
Yarra Mayor Jackie Fristacky said Collingwood had no special rights because it was based outside the municipality, at the Lexus Centre.
``They have withdrawn from Collingwood and we had a settlement,'' she said. ``I can't imagine we'd give Collingwood Football Club preferential treatment over the Fitzroy Reds that are based here.'' Collingwood is also at loggerheads with Melbourne Council over the club's plan to install advertising at Gosch's Paddock, in the Olympic Park precinct.
A council report seen by the Leader opposes a proposal to surround the oval set to become the club's permanent training site with 1m-high signs, a decision ultimately for the State Government.
Planning committee chairman Cr Fraser Brindley said it would destroy the open look of the ground and commercialise a public park.
``It is completely against the feel of the paddock as it is,'' he said. ``It is a sign of Collingwood's arrogance.''
Greens upper house candidate Greg Barber warned it was the first step in a plan to ``lock up'' green space.
``Anyone who thinks those areas are public open space for the future will be in for a rude shock,'' he said.