On 25 June 1964, three months after St Kilda's move to Moorabbin was first announced, it was revealed that the Coburg Council had approached the North Melbourne Football Club, and that they were discussing terms for the club to relocate its operations to Coburg Oval on a long-term lease.
[4] North Melbourne was keen to leave the North Melbourne Cricket Ground in Arden Street, which had been its home since the 19th century, because low population density in the surrounding industrial area and isolation from public transport were stifling its ability to attract fans, and a relocation to Coburg offered advantages in both of these areas.
[6] Coburg examined a number of legal options, and appealed unsuccessfully to force a referendum of ratepayers.
[7] Coburg had many allies: the Association did not want to see another of its best grounds lost to the League; the Australian National Football Council did not want to see a newly vacant North Melbourne ground lost to another code; and the League's Carlton Football Club was opposed to the invasion of its territory[8] – most of Coburg, including the ground itself, was in Carlton's recruiting zone (only West Coburg was in North Melbourne's territory), and 25% of Carlton's members lived in the area.
[9] In November 1964, the council and club began working on terms for a 40-year lease, under which the council would spend £80,000 to bring the venue to League standards, and North Melbourne would serve as ground manager, pay £4,000 per year in rent, and £50,000 for upgrades over thirty years.
[10][11] The council sought to formalise the deal through a controversial request for tender which effectively precluded anybody but North Melbourne from applying by stipulating that applicants "must play Australian rules football within the framework of the Victorian Football League";[12] it dropped the requirement that applicants play in the League after it was criticised as unethical, but the point was moot as Coburg Football Club's rent offer of £200 per year had no chance of competing with North Melbourne's £4,000 per year.
Because of the bleak outlook, the club began to discuss the possibility of amalgamating with North Melbourne[19] – a move which the Association warned would likely result in its suspension, as had occurred to Moorabbin eight months earlier.
[27] After discussions, both the council and the football club decided that it was in neither's best interests to continue the arrangement, and on 28 September 1965 the lease was terminated by mutual agreement after only eight months of the seven-year term.
To secure agreement from the football club to end its existing lease early, the Sunshine Council committed to developing a new Association standard venue at Skinner Reserve in Braybrook.
[34] In July 1965, before the venue was finished, the League's Footscray Football Club made an application to the Sunshine Council to permanently move its playing and administrative base from Western Oval to Skinner Reserve, and to develop it further to a League standard venue.
[36] This state of affairs existed until June 1966, when the Australian National Football Council intervened; up until this time, only Eddie Melai, who transferred from South Melbourne to Dandenong, took the opportunity.
[38] The Association had also been in favour of admitting Frankston, but the club failed to get a clearance from the Mornington Peninsula Football League, so was unable to make the move.