Joel Giblin has spent the last decade of his career meticulously caring for every inch of Leichhardt Oval: measuring the length of the grass, inspecting the ground before big games, and sitting inside the iconic scoreboard box on the top of the venue’s famous hill.
There’s no place this is better shown than in the tiny metres-long box that sits in the middle of the Wayne Pearce Hill, named in honour of the former Balmain Tigers captain and first West Tigers coach.The scoreboard, sitting on top of the outdoor bar, is one of only a few remaining manual scoreboards in Sydney.
Walking past noticeboards full of historical newspaper clippings and team photos, all players, coaches and referees enter desperately small rooms with a row of benches on either side of the cement walls. There are no lockers. The change room for the away team is separated from the main area by a curtain.
“ are getting changed in a shed,” Giblin says. “When the Matildas are playing in Sydney, they’ll ring us up and say, ‘We need somewhere to train’. And we say, ‘This is what we’ve got’,” he says, gesturing to the orange and black walls. But just outside the lounge, Giblin is standing in one of several corporate boxes that sell on game days for $339 per person. There are two rows of plastic seats, with salmon-coloured tables, a bar fridge and a kettle.Steven Siewert
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