A staggering audience of over two million viewers watched on Sunday night as Channel 9 retold the gripping and controversial story of how media mogul Kerry Packer threw the cricket world into turmoil by creating ‘World Series Cricket’.
David Riggs, St Kilda Football Club’s facilities manager, watched the show intently after preparing for some of the scenes at Moorabbin Oval.
“Having watched it (the TV series), I was amazed at how political the issue got. Obviously cricket changed back then to what it is now,” he said.
“It was a bit of an honour for us because it’s the only grandstand that suited what they wanted to do and also they were very happy with the way the ground was prepared.”
Mr Riggs and his team spent more than a week getting ready for the scenes which were done and dusted within two days of filming.
“They were there for two days, for just four minutes of film so you can imagine what’s involved in the whole thing. They filmed from 6am in the morning until 10pm at night so it was a big deal.”
The ground has been used for filming before in a magazine shoot and television show.
“They had scenes from Rush a few years ago and they were there for a whole week doing scenes but not sporting scenes as such.”
“The shape of the grandstand suited what the grandstand at Waverley used to look like and the producers wanted an old style grandstand which they couldn’t find at any other ground.”
“It’s got some history there (Moorabbin Oval). It’s nearly falling down but it’s the age that people seem to like.”
The two-part series will conclude on Sunday night but it may not be the last time the Moorabbin Oval is featured on the big screen.
“We’ve actually had a couple of calls about doing some filming there. We had a photo-shoot for a magazine about six months ago and also a film crew from India that wanted to shoot for an Olympic movie but they didn’t end up doing it, they might do it next year.”
