Under Eddie McGuire's plan, Etihad Stadium would be demolished. Credit:Emily Godfrey

The answer fell into the AFL's hands. Kennett, when premier, proposed as part of the revitalisation of docklands a stadium to accommodate soccer and rugby with the working title of Victoria Stadium (sound familiar?), but footy commandeered it and beefed it up and put a roof on it, and we all said wow and seemingly half the competition moved in. That was barely 15 years ago, and since then it has had more changes of name than Sam and Warnie have had of face, but already it is a throwaway toy, evidently. Instead of acting as conduit to the docklands redevelopment as planned, it is now in the way. In the blink of an eye, it had regressed from visionary to obscuring the view. Frankly, it is not much of a stadium, because it's the same cookie-cutter stadium everyone builds now, except at the Adelaide Oval, and it has proved to be anything but the expected boon for its tenants. But at least it soon will be the AFL's own.

Or will it? Eddiehad is not merely Pie in the sky. The buzzword now is precinct.Tennis had moved in snugly next to the MCG, and so did soccer and the two rugby codes in their own stadium-ette, and so did Collingwood – they keep bobbing up – all in one neighbourhood, and now there is this plan for footy to barge in, too, although there is no apparent room, and none for parking, and public transport does not so much serve the site as pass by it within waving distance, and the northern and western suburbs can do as they please again. The working title again is Victoria Stadium, just in case you thought it was in the Northern Territory.

The rationale for an all-the-sport-you-can-eat centralised sporting precinct is as dodgy as the rationale for the grand prix at Albert Park. It looks good from the air, and from the lord mayor's office, and from Bernie Ecclestone's condo in London, less so from Pascoe Vale or Prahran, where Melburnians actually live. It's like the King Street nightclub precinct was, good for business, less so for people. It's like Crown casino still is if you want to hold a function in this town: you can't go anywhere else.

But if footy insists, it can go somewhere else. On the other side of the tracks, the MCG side, the footy side, there is already a ground with a long history in the game, and plenty of room for redevelopment without having to shove anyone else aside, and its own railway station, and a road everyone is intent on widening anyway, and a club that you imagine would welcome the investment and the kudos. What a twist in history it would make if, 50 years after Richmond moved across Yarra Park, footy came back the other way.