It was the grandstand that sat behind the goals at the city end of Victoria Park for 60 years, long before the Sherrin Stand came into existence. It was beautiful, historic and a landmark during some of the Club’s most successful years.
And it also, as it turns out, has links to one of Australia’s leading building firms.
Victoria Park’s 1909 grandstand is one of the most famous and storied in the ground’s history. The inspiration for it came from a local Collingwood Councillor, Cr Rain, who saw a grandstand in Maryborough while on holidays there and decided that Victoria Park deserved something of similar scale and grandeur.
By a stroke of luck, the architect of the Maryborough grandstand was Thomas Watt, who was a former Collingwood resident. He was engaged to design the new stand, while tenders were called for the work itself. The successful builder was noted in the papers as being a Mr L Hansen, whose tender for 2300 pounds had been accepted.
Now, for the first time, we know a little more about Mr L Hansen.
Lauritz Hansen arrived in Australia in the late 1890s as a Danish immigrant and sea merchant seeking a fresh start. Having docked in Melbourne, Lauritz – who by that stage was in just his early 20s – started his new life in Australia using his skills as a builder.
While he couldn’t speak much English and was a fairly shy fellow, Lauritz quickly immersed himself in Victoria, purchasing a house in Clifton Hill in 1906 after spending his time in the Goulburn Valley during the earlier years of the 20th century.
Having settled himself in Collingwood heartland, it was in 1909 that Lauritz’s affiliation with the Magpies began when he won the building contract. Although he’d built mostly residential estates during his time in Australia, Lauritz threw himself into construction of the new stand at Victoria Park.
Incredibly it took just four months to complete.
Much fanfare surrounded the laying of the foundation stone, including a man being fired from a cannon! And the grand opening of the stand in 1909 was quite the occasion: everyone at the football club, and in the wider community, was justifiably proud of their new architectural landmark. It firmly established Victoria Park as one of the premier sporting grounds in Melbourne.
Proud workers pose in the grandstand just before its opening
And for Lauritz Hansen it was just the boost his career needed.
In the years that followed he would team with his friend Otto Yuncken to form Hansen Yuncken, one of the country’s most successful and well-regarded building firms. It is still running, and still family-owned, today.
The project also helped turn Lauritz’s family into passionate Magpie fans, and four generations later his great great granddaughter Claire Hopkins is a member (and takes her own young daughter to games).
The 1909 grandstand was one of the most loved parts of Victoria Park for just on 60 years. It was a testament to the skills of the architects who designed it and the builders who brought it to life. And for Lauritz Hansen, it was the start of a great Collingwood family story too.
