Western Oval
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| Former names | Western Oval |
|---|---|
| Location | Footscray, Victoria |
| Coordinates | 37°47′57″S 144°53′12″E / 37.799166°S 144.886748°ECoordinates: 37°47′57″S 144°53′12″E / 37.799166°S 144.886748°E |
| Capacity | 12,000 |
| Surface | Grass |
| Tenants | |
| Western Bulldogs (admin + training) (VFL/AFL) | |
Whitten Oval (currently also known as Victoria University Whitten Oval) is a stadium in the inner-western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located at 417 Barkly Street, Footscray. It is the training and administrative headquarters of the Western Bulldogs Football Club, which competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the home ground of its reserves team which competes in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Formerly known as the Western Oval, it was renamed in honour of Ted Whitten, a former player, captain and coach for the club. A statue of Whitten was also erected at the entrance of the oval.
The Whitten Oval is the centrepiece of a reserve that, from 1860, was a stone quarry used by the railways. In 1866, the quarry was turned into a reserve that included botanical gardens. Other former quarries within the City of Footscray that were turned into public gardens in this era include the Yarraville Reserve, which is the site of the current Yarraville Oval, off Williamstown Road; the Yarraville Gardens, off Hyde Street; and Footscray Park, which fronts the Maribyrnong River.
In 1879, after moving from ground to ground, the local council granted the local football club permission to use the Western Reserve as their home ground. In 1883, the Footscray Football Club was formed. A year later, the club began hosting games in the botanical gardens. While the gardens became known as the David Spurling Reserve, the oval within the gardens became the Western Oval.
Footscray used Western Oval as its home ground almost continuously until 1997. It was absent from the ground only in 1942, when it was commandeered by military personnel during World War II; during that season, Footscray played its home games at the nearby Yarraville Oval, which was vacant because the VFA, in which the regular tenant Yarraville Football Club competed, was in recess. In 1943, the club returned to Western Oval.
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