Glenferrie Oval 4.4

Glenferrie Oval is an Australian rules football stadium located in Hawthorn, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.It is the historic home of, and is synonymous with, the Hawthorn Football Club, who played there from 1903 and as a VFL/AFL club from 1925–1973, and retained the ground as an administrative and training base until 2006. Hawthorn Football Club moved to a redeveloped Waverley Park early in 2006 in preparation for the 2006 AFL Season.HistoryPrior to adopting Glenferrie Oval as the club's traditional home, the Hawthorn Football Club had a nomadic history, playing home games at whatever the most suitable obtainable ground was for that season. Their first home ground was the Hawthorn C.G. (West Hawthorn Reserve), which was abandoned after just 1 season due to conditions imposed by the Hawthorn Cricket Club, with the Hawks playing at John Wren's Richmond Racecourse in 1903 (which was off Bridge Road between Stawell Street and Westbank Terrace – where Tudor Street with 5 no through streets branches of are now located), before moving to the Richmond Cricket Ground in 1904.The Hawk's merger with Boroondara in 1905 had them move to Boroondara's ground, which at the time was the East Melbourne Cricket Ground. Hawthorn dropped their colours of blue and red (similar to Melbourne's guernsey at the time) and adopted Boroondara's colours, which was a black guernsey with red sash but retained the name Hawthorn FC. When the Hawthorn council opened Glenferrie Oval, then known as the Hawthorn City Sports Ground in October 1905, they endeavored to get a senior club to represent the district to be the main tenant during the next football season. The Hawthorn FC, competing in the Metropolitan Junior Football Association (now known as the VAFA), and Hawthorn Rovers (a popular club in the Eastern Suburbs Association) merged to form the Hawthorn City Football Club and made Glenferrie their home ground (the word City was later dropped and the club was just known as the Hawthorn Football Club when it entered the VFA in 1914).