Paisley Street in central Footscray
Is a suburb 5 km west of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its Local Government Area is the City of Maribyrnong. At the 2006 Census, Footscray had a population of 11,401.
Footscray is characterised by a very diverse, multicultural central shopping area, which reflects the successive waves of immigration experienced by Melbourne, and by Footscray in particular. Once a centre for Italian and Macedonian migrants, it is now a hub for Vietnamese, and increasingly, East African immigrants in Melbourne.
Footscray is named after Foots Cray, a locality south-east of London.
People
The inner western suburbs of Melbourne were traditionally undesirable as residential areas due to the presence of heavy industry, however this has changed dramatically as nearly all of the factories have gone over the last decades, and their products now imported. From the 1950s till 1990s the affordability of housing and availability of employment opportunities in these areas have made them attractive to migrants for many years. Greek, Italian, Macedonian, Bosnian and Croatian migrants arrived in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by Vietnamese in the 1970s and 1980s. However, in recent years there has been rapid gentrification as younger people seek affordable period housing close to Melbourne city centre. This is also due to the newly approved “Footscray Superstation” and successful results from crime prevention schemes.
To mitigate crime issues, a scheme called ‘Project Reduction’ was implemented in 2006. Under the scheme, drug offenders will be banned from Footscray, as well as burglars, shoplifters and people with assault convictions if they are found to be drug addicted or gang related in any way, shape or form.
Culture
Footscray streetscape showing tram terminus
Footscray has been the setting of several Australian movies, the most notable being Romper Stomper which was filmed in and around Footscray in 1992. It deals with a fictional gang of neo-Nazi skinheads and their battle against Vietnamese immigrants. Not all scenes were filmed locally. The “Footscray Railway Station” featured in the movie has a pedestrian underpass, while the real station has an overpass for foot traffic; the station used for filming was Richmond station. The film Metal Skin (1994) was also set in and around Footscray.
The Australian Croatian Association’s headquarters are located in Footscray, serving the large Croatian community in the area. Other support and social groups include Macedonian, African, Albanian, Chinese, Filipino, Greek, Bosnian, Italian, Polish, Serbian, Spanish, Latin American and Vietnamese.
The Footscray-Yarraville City Band rehearses weekly and performs throughout the year locally, nationally and internationally. They conduct an annual Carols by Candlelight event each December, held in the Yarraville Gardens.
The Tết Lunar Year Festival is held each year in Footscray. It is a vibrant, colourful and amazing festival, featuring dancing dragons, live music, food stalls, theme park rides and fireworks in the late evening.
The Footscray Club is a social club that has been part of Footscray since 1894. This was the original Footscray Cycle Club when cycling became quite popular in Australia in the 19th century. By 1909 the club had build a permanent site on Paisley street where it still stands today. Early in the last century the club evoloved into a purely local social club where members of the local community meet and socialize to this day.
The Footscray Historical Society works on a number of local fronts to record and preserve the history of the area. The Society has an active membership who take part in a range of activities to assist this endeavour. Records such as rare books, business records and correspondence are held at the Society’s headquarters at Ercildoune, built in 1876 as a branch of the National Bank of Australasia. The Society owns this historic building and has had the interior and exterior restored. Tours, forums and discussions are held regularly.
Footscray is at the centre of the Kariwara Scout district of Scouts Australia. Started in 1909, the 1st Footscray Scout hall is a historic building next to the Footscray police station in Hyde St. 3rd Footscray is the hall seen from the railway line and no longer has youth programs but is home to adult training. The 2nd Footscray Scout hall has a modern brick hall after the first hall burnt down in 1982. The group has programs for children aged 7 to 26 and meets at Guadion park in Barkly St. The 10th Footscray Scout group is in Essex St next to the YMCA and has programs for 7 to 15 year olds. The 5th Footscray group is opposite Seddon station and has programs for 6 to 15 year olds. All are part of Scouts Australia.
Politics
Footscray falls within the federal electorate of Gellibrand (currently held by the ALP’s Nicola Roxon) and the state electorate of Footscray (currently held by the ALP’s Marsha Thomson), and the City of Maribyrnong at local level. The suburb’s historical voting patterns have been fairly typical of a working-class suburb with a high migrant population and it remains a very safe area for the ALP.
At the Federal Election of 2007, the suburb contained the polling booths of Footscray, Footscray East, Footscray South, Maidstone, and Western Hospital. The ALP generally won a majority of the primary (first-preference) vote at each booth, with: 61.64% at Footscray (compared to 18.01% for the Liberals and 12.17% for the Greens); 64.98% at Footscray East (compared to 17.82% for the Liberals and 9.78% for the Greens); 56.53% at Footscray South (compared to 19.78% for the Liberals and 15.01% for the Greens); 64.94% at Maidstone (compared to 22.43% for the Liberals and 6.40% for the Greens); 65.74% at Western Hospital (compared to 21.12% for the Liberals and 6.37% for the Greens).[4]
Unsurprisingly for an inner-city suburb, the Greens have become a growing presence.
Food
The Footscray Market is a fresh produce and seafood market, catering particularly to the various ethnicities and local restaurants. Another large market in Footscray is Little Saigon, which opened in 1992 to cater to the growing Asian population, but now has customers from all backgrounds. Little Saigon is noisy and crowded, with a wide array of tropical fruits and Asian produce. The little saigon building is not built for a market, but has steadily grown in popularity compared to the footscray market, due to free parking available nearby.
Restaurants in Footscray are mostly Vietnamese or Chinese, however there are many African restaurants, including several Ethiopian cafes and restaurants, and also Indian restaurants. There also exists several pubs that serves contemporary Australian food.
Sports
Aussie Rules Football
Footscray is home of the Western Bulldogs, an Australian rules football team which plays in the Australian Football League. The team was known as the Footscray Football Club until 1996, and played its home games at the Whitten Oval, which is now used only as the club’s training ground.
Footscray also has some WRFL clubs, they are the West Footscray Roosters, the North Footscray Devils and the Parkside Magpies.
[edit]Horse Racing
Flemington Racecourse, the home of the Melbourne Cup, is across the Maribyrnong River to the northeast in the neighbouring suburb of Flemington, immediately opposite Footscray Park, the second largest botanical garden in Victoria.
[edit]Cycling
The Footscray Cycling Club promotes road racing and criterium racing, whilst cyclists are represented by the MazzaBUG, the Maribyrnong Bicycle User Group.
Nearby bike paths include the Maribyrnong River Trail and the Hobsons Bay Coastal Trail.
[edit]Football/Soccer
The football club Croatia Melbourne was founded in Leeds Street, Footscray in 1953. Today it bears the name Melbourne Knights FC, and although now play in the Victorian Premier League, were crowned National Champions in 1994/95 and 1995/96.
[edit]Cricket
The Footscray Cricket Club was founded in 1883 and for the first 113 years of its existence was also situated at the Western Oval (now Whitten Oval) until 1996 when combined pressure exerted by the Footscray Football Club and state-government-appointed commissioners to the City of Maribyrnong saw the club relocated to the Mervyn G. Hughes Oval.
Until the test cricket debut of the Melbourne Cricket Club’s Brad Hodge in December 2005, the Footscray Cricket Club had produced the most Test players of any Melbourne based district cricket club. Footscray’s Test representatives in order of debut are Ron Gaunt, Les Joslin, Ken Eastwood, Alan Hurst, Ray Bright, Merv Hughes, Tony Dodemaide and Colin Miller.
The club won its only District First Eleven premiership under the captaincy of Lindsay James in 1979/80
Art
The Footscray Community Arts Centre is an old bluestone building with an amphitheatre which is home to the Women’s Circus, exhibitions, art studios and workshops and is located alongside the Maribyrnong River. Their programs include workshops for people of all ages, a Community Cultural Development Artist Residency program and ArtLife – a program for people with disabilities to participate in arts activities and develop life skills.
The Melbourne Museum of Printing located in Footscray is open for public visits, classes for students of typography and the artist’s access studio. Visitors are able to see various facets of typesetting and printing, including Gutenberg’s invention of movable types, typesetting (by hand) with movable types, Linotype machine (hot metal composition), Ludlow machine (hot metal for large or fancy type), engravings needed to print an illustration and stereotypes (duplicates of typesettings).
The Trocadero Art Space is a recently opened arts venue exhibiting new and contemporary art in the heart of Footscray. The space consists of two purpose-built interior exhibition spaces and as an outdoor, street-exposed exhibition space.
Media
Three free, weekly suburban newspapers are distributed in Footscray. The Western Times is part of the News Corporation-owned Leader Newspapers group; The Footscray Mail is part of the Fairfax Community Newspapers Victoria and the Star which is produced by the Star News Group (covering Footscray, Yarraville & Braybrook). They are distributed every Wednesday.
The Western times is now known as the Maribyrnong Leader and now carries very little local content.
Fairfax runs the Mail. also known as the Footscray mail, it is published out of the Airport west office but carries a lot more local content that the ‘Leader’ brand.
Star News Group runs the footscray star, this is one of 8 papers they run in the north west. these papers started around the year 2000. The star brand itself is over 100 years old and is well known for its content on Community Groups.
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