Preston City Oval

Preston City Oval
Location	Preston, Victoria
Coordinates	37°44′28″S 145°00′04″E / 37.741°S 145.001°E
Capacity	5,000 (500 seated)
Surface	Grass
Tenants
	Northern Bullants; Preston Cricket Club; Northern Knights; Preston Bullants Junior Football Club;

Preston City Oval (PCO), also known by naming rights sponsorship as Genis Steel Oval (GSO) and sometimes mistakenly as Genis Street Oval, is an Australian rules football stadium in Cramer Street in Preston, a suburb of Melbourne. It has a main grandstand and the ground is capable of holding around 5,000 spectators.^[2]^[3]

History

The ground was the home of the Preston Football Club in the Victorian Football League, and has remained one of its two primary home grounds in the club's recent incarnations as the Northern Blues, and since 2021, the Northern Bullants. It is also the home of the Northern Knights TAC Cup side and the Preston Bullants Junior Football Club. It was also the venue for the Victorian Women's Football League Grand Final in 2007, where a new VWFL crowd record was set.

In the 1960s, the then-VFL's Fitzroy Football Club was interested in moving its base from the Brunswick Street Oval to Preston, owing to a poor relationship with the Fitzroy Cricket Club, and in 1962 it made a request to the Preston Council for a 40-year lease of the venue; but, the council decided that the lease could be granted only if the Fitzroy and Preston football clubs came to agreeable terms, which they did not.^[4]

In summer the ground is used by the Preston Cricket Club, who play in the VSDCA as their home ground. The PCC uses the ground for their 1st and 2nd XI as well as the Under 15 RM Hatch Team.

Redevelopment

In the summer of 2009/10 the ground was redeveloped. Drought tolerant couch grass has been in the summer so that the ground was ready for football season.

References

^ "Preston City Oval". austadiums.com. Austadiums. Retrieved 25 September 2015.
^ "Stream your team: Watch VFL, VFLW, SANFL and WAFL games LIVE and FREE". AFL.com.au. 11 May 2024. Archived from the original on 18 July 2024. Retrieved 21 July 2024. Northern Bullants v Collingwood, Genis Street Oval, 2.05pm AEST
^ El-Houli, Zakariya (5 July 2024). "VFL Tigers set for Bullants battle". Richmond Football Club. Archived from the original on 5 July 2024. Retrieved 21 July 2024. Richmond VFL's line-up is confirmed to take on the Northern Bullants at Genis Street Oval on Sunday afternoon.
^ "Grounds row widens". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne, VIC. 20 March 1962. p. 40.