Fourteen years ago today, Saturday 23 August 2003, was a landmark day for AFL football in Sydney.
A massive crowd of 72,383 packed what was Stadium Australia, now ANZ Stadium, for the Sydney Swans’ Round 21 clash with Collingwood.
It was and still is the biggest crowd in AFL history outside Victoria.
But as big as this is for the AFL in what is traditionally rugby league heartland, it is only part of the story.
Before reading on, ask yourself … how many of the top 11 AFL crowds outside Victoria have occurred in the NSW capital?
One? Two? Five? Ten?
All wrong.
It is all, in fact, all 11 of them. And all have involved the Sydney Swans at Stadium Australia.
In a glowing endorsement of the job the Swans have done to crack the toughest sporting market in Australia, the game has attracted 11 crowds of more than 54,000 in Sydney.
Spread from 2002 to 2016, this list includes four AFL finals and seven home-and-away games.
And while Sydney have played Collingwood in five of them, the other six involve six different opponents: Brisbane, St Kilda, West Coast, Fremantle, GWS and Essendon.
TOP SYDNEY AFL ATTENDANCES | ||||||
Rank | Year | Final | Opposition | Venue | Crowd | Date |
1 | 2003 | R21 | Collingwood | Stadium Australia | 72,393 | Sat 23/8/03 |
2 | 2003 | PF | Brisbane | Stadium Australia | 71,019 | Sat 20/9/03 |
3 | 2007 | R12 | Collingwood | Stadium Australia | 64,222 | Sat 23/6/07 |
4 | 2007 | R19 | St Kilda | Stadium Australia | 63,369 | Sat 11/8/07 |
5 | 2007 | R1 | West Coast | Stadium Australia | 62,586 | Sat 31/3/07 |
6 | 2006 | PF | Fremantle | Stadium Australia | 61,373 | Fri 22/9/06 |
7 | 2006 | R12 | Collingwood | Stadium Australia | 60,307 | Sat 24/6/06 |
8 | 2016 | QF | GWS | Stadium Australia | 60,222 | Sat 10/9/16 |
9 | 2008 | R14 | Collingwood | Stadium Australia | 59,266 | Sat 5/7/08 |
10 | 2012 | PF | Collingwood | Stadium Australia | 57,156 | Fri 21/9/12 |
11 | 2002 | R9 | Essendon | Stadium Australia | 54,129 | Sat 25/5/02 |
The next best AFL crowd outside Victoria was for Showdown #42 at Adelaide Oval in Round 3, 2017, when 53,698 saw the Crows beat the Power by 17 points.
The biggest crowd in Adelaide before AFL football moved permanently to Adelaide Oval in 2014 was 51,140 for Showdown #14 in 2003.
The biggest AFL crowd in Western Australia is 44,142. This has stood since the 1991 qualifying final between West Coast and Hawthorn at Subiaco Oval in Perth, which will host it’s last AFL match this weekend.
The biggest AFL crowd in Queensland is 37,224 at the Gabba for a Round 15 match in 2005 between the Brisbane Lions and Collingwood, while the biggest AFL crowd in Tasmania is 20,971 at Launceston’s York Park in 2006 for a Round 12 match between Hawthorn and Richmond.
The biggest AFL crowd in the Northern Territory stands at 14,100 when the Western Bulldogs played Port Adelaide at Darwin’s Marrara Stadium in 2006, while the best AFL crowd in Canberra stands at 14,974 when GWS hosted Richmond in 2016, marginally ahead of two games between the Swans and North Melbourne in 2004 and 2006.
The biggest AFL crowd at the SCG has stood for almost 20 years. This was 46,168 for a Round 22 match in 1997, when, on Saturday 30 August, 2nd-placed Geelong beat 5th-placed Sydney by 10 points to knock the Swans down to 6th.. They played a qualifying final the following week against the Western Bulldogs in Melbourne, losing by 35 points.
Sadly for Swans fans, the all-time non-Victorian record crowd of 72,393 in 2003 also brought a loss.
Sydney were fourth going into Round 21 trailing 3rd-placed Collingwood on percentage after having defeated 2001-02 premiers Brisbane at the Gabba by 14 points a week earlier, but they lost to the Magpies by 18 points.
Swans captain Stuart Maxfield earned two Brownlow Medal votes in a game that marked Craig Bolton’s 50th AFL appearance and gave birth to a challenging trivia question.
Can you name the three least experienced Swans players that night?
James Meiklejohn played his 5th and second-last game, Jarrad Sundqvist played his 8th and second-last game, and Heath James played the 7th game of a career that totalled 18 games.
The Swans team for the record-breaking attendance, coached by Paul Roos and not necessarily in position was:
B: Jared Crouch, Leo Barry, Lewis Roberts-Thomson
HB: Tadgh Kennelly, Craig Bolton, Ben Mathews
C: Ryan O’Keefe, Brett Kirk, Nic Fosdike
HF: Stuart Maxfield, Michael O’Loughlin, Paul Williams
F: Adam Schneider, Barry Hall, Nick Davis
R: Adam Goodes, Daryn Cresswell, Jude Bolton
INT: Andrew Schauble, James Meiklejohn, Jarrad Sundqvist, Heath James
The Swans beat Melbourne the following week at the MCG to qualify for September in fourth position, then opened their finals campaign by upsetting minor premiers Port Adelaide by 12 points in the qualifying final at Football Park.
But there the run ended. Brisbane beat Sydney by 44 points in the preliminary final at Stadium Australia in front of the second-biggest AFL crowd outside Victoria, before the Lions completed a premiership hat-trick against Collingwood the following week.
