Ormond Park
Ormond Park does not stand out for a grandstand or a pedigree league. Moonee Valley Football Club, playing Australian rules in the Essendon District Football League since 1933, share the reserve with the Moonee Valley Cricket Club, whose season started life in 1971/72 as the Moonee Ponds Cricket Club. Add a bowling club and a soccer tenant, and the ground hosts four sports at once.
The soccer side, Essendon Royals, has the longest unbroken claim on the turf — reports from 2014 already put the club's tenure at Ormond Park past fifty years. In 1964 the council renamed the ground E.E. Gunn Reserve, after Ernest Edwin Gunn, a former mayor of Caulfield. The Ormond Park name later returned to use, though nothing in the record marks the date it happened.
The pitches themselves stay natural grass for now, though Moonee Valley City Council has floated adding one synthetic surface down the track. More immediate is the old grandstand, due to come down in 2026. What Ormond Park has never hosted is a top-flight AFL or VFL fixture.
Who plays here
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Essendon Royals Sc
9 matches
Recent matches here
| Date | Match | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 21 Aug | Essendon Royals Sc — Keilor Park | 1:4 |
| 31 Jul | Essendon Royals Sc — Altona City | 3:2 |
| 24 Jul | Essendon Royals Sc — Kingston City | 4:2 |
| 10 Jul | Essendon Royals Sc — Box Hill | 3:2 |
| 19 Jun | Essendon Royals Sc — Werribee City | 3:2 |
| 5 Jun | Essendon Royals Sc — Springvale | 8:0 |
| 22 May | Essendon Royals Sc — Nunawading | 5:1 |
| 15 May | Essendon Royals Sc — Moreland City | 3:1 |