A Venue Fit For The Biggest Stage

Alison Mitchell reckons England supporters will be blown away when they see the newly-refurbished Adelaide Oval

- Alison Mitchell

Whenever I catch a domestic flight into Adelaide, I always request a window seat on the left hand side of the plane. The flight path into the city passes over North Adelaide, meaning as you lose height, you get a fantastic view over the green slopes of Elder Park, the winding river Torrens, the angular shape of the Festival Theatre nestled on the riverbank, and then what used to be the iconic rust-red roofs of the grandstands of the Adelaide Oval.

Whilst the course of the river hasn’t changed, and the blue and white leisure boat named ‘Popeye’ still chugs up and down the Torrens, the bird’s-eye view of the Adelaide Oval is very different to what it used to be all those years ago, and indeed even the last time England toured.

I have been doing this flight since I was a child in the 1980s, filled with excitement at seeing my Australian relatives, who would be waiting for us en-masse in the arrival halls. Sometimes there would be as many as 30 aunts, uncles, cousins, great aunts and grandparents ready to greet my jetlagged parents (my mother being the Adelaidian who met an Englishman and then settled in the UK), my older brother and me.

Long before the days of email, mobile phones, Facebook, and instant messaging, these reunions would be occasions of immense significance and emotion. Think Cilla Black’s popular 80s TV show, only without such an element of surprise. The powerful memories are why I still get goose bumps every time I fly into the South Australian capital and take in this familiar view. Of course, while we were in Adelaide, we would also be taken to the Adelaide Oval.