Mt.Barker, a farming city of about 21,000 people 33km south-east from the heart of Adelaide, this week will become the 27^th different AFL venue to host the Brisbane Football Club.

The Lions will play North Melbourne at Mt.Barker’s Summit Sport & Recreation Park on Saturday afternoon in the AFL’s first ‘Gather Round’, when all nine games in Round 5 of the AFL season will be played in a festival of football in and around Adelaide.

The $23million venue, an open field until December 2019, is the headquarters of the Hills Football League, a 19-club competition formed in 1967.

Boasting two synthetic soccer pitches in addition to the football/cricket ground, with a pavilion, a function room and undercover seating for 270, it opened in April 2021 and will have a temporary capacity on Saturday of about 7000.

The match was sold out within hours of tickets going on sale, with locals arranging two ‘live’ sites in town for locals who cannot attend the biggest thing to hit Mt.Barker in years.

It will make Mt.Barker the 49^th venue to host an official AFL match since Round 1 1897 was played at the Melbourne suburban grounds of Victoria Park (Collingwood), Brunswick Street (Fitzroy) and Lake Oval (South Melbourne), and nearby Corio Oval (Geelong).

Can you recall the 26 grounds that have previously hosted the Bears/Lions since the flagship team of Queensland football joined the then VFL in 1987?

In season one the club visited nine venues – MCG, Kardinia Park (Geelong), Moorabbin Oval (St.Kilda), Carrara, Victoria Park, the WACA in Perth, Whitten Oval (Western Bulldogs), Princes Park (Carlton) and Windy Hill (Essendon).

One new destination was added to the travel schedule in each of the next five years – SCG (1988), Waverley in Melbourne (1989), Subiaco Oval in Perth (1990), the Gabba (1991) and Football Park in Adelaide (1992).

In order, the 12 grounds to host the club this century have been Marvel Stadium (2000), Sydney’s Olympic Stadium (2003), Launceston’s York Park (2008), Darwin’s Marrara Stadium (2013), Adelaide Oval (2014), Wellington Stadium in New Zealand (2014), Sydney Showgrounds (2015), Perth Stadium (2018), Ballarat Stadium (2019), Cazaly’s Stadium in Cairns (2020), Bellerive Oval in Hobart (2021) and Manuka Oval in Canberra (2022).  

Records for most games for the club at each venue where they’ve played a minimum three games are dominated by Simon Black and Marcus Ashcroft with five apiece.

Black has played most games at the Gabba (170), Marvel Stadium (45) and the SCG (12), and shares the record at Football Park (27) with Nigel Lappin and at Subiaco (18) with Michael Voss.

Ashcroft is No.1 at Waverley, where he played in every one of the club’s 15 games, the MCG (38) and Princes Park (22), and shares with Roger Merrett the record at Victoria Park (4) and Whitten Oval (8).

Brad Hardie, the club’s first 100-gamer club, is the outright leader at Carrara (45) and Windy Hill (3).

Daniel Rich is outright leader at York Park in Launceston (8), equal leader at the Sydney Showgrounds (5) with Dayne Zorko, Harris Andrews and Ryan Lester, and equal leader at Perth Stadium (4) with Zorko, Hugh McCluggage and Oscar McInerney.

Zorko and Andrews share the record at Adelaide Oval (10), Matthew Campbell, the last of the ‘original’ Bears, played most games at Moorabbin (5), while the record at the Olympic Stadium (3) is a six-way split between Voss, Luke Power, Tim Notting, Mal Michael, Chris Johnson and Daniel Bradshaw.

Brisbane have played North 58 times for a 25-1-32 record but have won their last five and at their last meeting in Round 3 last year at the Gabba hammered the Roos by 108 points, when Lincoln McCarthy kicked a career-best five goals, Zac Bailey four goals and the Brownlow votes went to Jarryd Lyons, Dayne Zorko and McCarthy.

Jonathan Brown holds the goals record against North, having kicked eight at the Gabba in 2009, while Lachie Neale’s 43 possessions at Marvel Stadium in 2019 is the possessions record.

Equivalent marks for North are John Longmire’s eight goals at Waverley in 1991, the MCG in 1993 and the Gabba in 1993, and Brent Harvey’s 39 possessions at Marvel in 2014.

Michael Voss, five times best afield against North and in the votes nine times, has most Brownlow votes in games between the clubs at 20, while Brown polled 16 and Simon Black 15. Best for North is Drew Petrie (12), Harvey (9) and Brett Allison (8).