Football Field

The goalposts are still standing. Paint peels from the uprights in long strips, the white posts rising from thick grass with a small dilapidated shed behind them. At the edge of the field a burnt and rusting car sits tagged with graffiti, charred debris scattered across the asphalt beside it. By 2015, the ground had been unmaintained for six years. Macquarie Boys Technology High School operated on this 10-hectare site at the corner of Kissing Point Road and James Ruse Drive, Rydalmere, from the late 1950s until the end of 2009. The campus was purpose-built for the school, which had earlier operated on Macquarie Street in Parramatta under a series of names: Parramatta Intermediate High School, then Parramatta Junior High School from January 1944, then Macquarie Boys' High School from 1955. The word "Technology" was added to the name in 1989 to reflect a shift in curriculum emphasis. The buildings were constructed in the standard postwar institutional typology of the NSW Government Architect's Branch: brick and concrete, classroom wings with covered walkways, an assembly hall, and grounds that included playing fields across the site. The school's closure was announced on 23 August 2007 by NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca, who cited enrolments of 220 students and a projection of 180 for the following year. Years 7 to 10 were discontinued at the beginning of 2008, and the remaining Year 11 and 12 students completed their HSC before the school closed permanently at the end of 2009. For nearly a decade, the campus sat vacant. A proposal to establish Lachlan Macquarie College on the site did not proceed; by 2015, the University of Western Sydney had confirmed it would not take up the lease. Three fires damaged the buildings during the vacancy period, the last recorded in April 2018. Demolition of all structures was approved by the NSW Department of Education in late April 2018 and completed by November of that year. This photograph records the football field in 2015, before the fires took the hall and before the demolition crews cleared the site. The posts were still up. The grass had taken the rest.