First images of the $780 million Olympic Park Metro station. Picture: Supplied
For years, Sydney has been the ‘Pinocchio’ of sports destinations, a clunky imitation, but yearning to be real.
Because how can you be fair dinkum if you don’t have a train that goes directly from Central Station to the city’s biggest entertainment precinct?
But in great news for Sydneysiders, it would seem we are only six years away from becoming a real sporting city.
The Olympic Stadium precinct has Accor Stadium (formerly Stadium Australia), Afterpay Arena (formerly Qudos bank Arena), Sydney Showground, Ken Rosewall Arena and various other sporting complexes.
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The new Sydney Olympic Park Metro station is due for a 2032 completion. Picture: Supplied
International music acts play there regularly, while the destination also plays host to State of Origin, the NRL grand final and the Royal Easter Show, among many other things.
Occasionally, there are direct trains from Central to the venue, usually when a major event is on and the organisers of that event pay extra money to fund the extra train services.
But the rest of the year, it’s business as usual.
There are sporting or music events there most weeks, but the only way to get there via train from Central is to swap at Lidcombe Station and get another train. But even that option is sometimes unavailable.
I discovered this recently, when I left home with my two young sons to go and watch a game of footy at Accor Stadium.
The Odyssey was all the rage at the cinema at the time, but little did I know, my boys and I were embarking on an epic journey of our own.
A friend of mine, a massive Souths NRL fan, had won the use of a corporate box at the stadium for the Rabbitohs V Warriors game, after his son spun up the prize on a chocolate wheel.
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Things started well with a train at Central Station.
He invited me and my boys along. What a great experience for a seven and five year old who had recently become keen followers of the NRL.
The only problem is that the biggest part of the ‘game day experience’ would occur before the kick off.
Originally, I’d wanted to drive to the venue and park at the nearby parking station. When I went online in the morning to pre-book and pay for parking, I was told there was none available and that pre-booked parking needed to be organised by the day before.
The next plan was to take a train from Central Station. We arrived at Central at 3pm. This would be great. Even if it took an hour, we’d be there for 4pm with plenty of time to eat and enjoy the box before kick-off at 5.30pm.
It took less than 10 minutes before we were on a train headed for Lidcombe. That journey took about a half-hour, but when we arrived at Lidcombe, signage informed us that rail replacement buses were operating instead of trains to Olympic Park. Uh-oh.
When we exited Lidcombe Station and followed the signs to the bus stop, we were greeted with the site of a huge queue of footy fans and no buses to be seen.
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Everything will run smoothly for NSW Origin fans when this is completed. Picture: Supplied
After joining the queue, we waited about 10 minutes before one bus even turned up.
In disbelief, I stood with my kids in a queue for an hour, as every now and then, a single bus came and put a small dent in the line.
When we finally got onto a bus, it took more than 30 minutes to get to the stadium.
Once we arrived, we then had to walk all the way around to the far side of the ground to enter.
We eventually walked into our box three minutes before kick-off.
A trip from Central Station to a game of footy, a distance of about 15km, had taken us two and a half hours.
Some other friends of ours at the game informed us they had driven and parked in the carpark I had originally wanted to park in. They didn’t have a booking, they just drove in and parked. Sheesh.
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The game turned out to be an awesome experience for the kids with delicious food, drinks and free merchandise, plus a great vantage point for the action on the field.
The game itself was an awesome experience and the pies were delicious.
Too bad about the ridiculous mission that was needed to get there in the first place. And they wonder why fans aren’t keen to travel to see their teams play in person.
This week, plans were revealed for the new Metro West train line, which will include a new metro station at Olympic Park, with four large platforms and the ability to activate extra services and space for major events. It will apparently be ready in 2032, an outrageous 32 years since the Sydney Olympics and, ironically, in the same year Brisbane will be hosting the next Olympics to come down under. The $780 million project will include 500 new apartments and also shops, offices and a public plaza.
I might wait until then to head back to that precinct, when Sydney goes from Pinocchio to real sporting city.