The fabled cricket ground will host the A-League stoush between Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers on Saturday night.
Sydney FC will play several home matches at the venue in the next three seasons while the nearby Sydney Football Stadium is demolished and redeveloped.
The SCG is not the most ideal venue for watching football but the derby nonetheless will turn the clock back to a colourful and uncertain period in our football history.
The last time a football match took place at the historic venue was actually 33 years ago when Australia faced Vasco da Gama in front of 14,000 fans.
Rio de Janeiro-based Vasco were taking apart in a four-team 'world series' in 1985 with England's Tottenham Hotspur and Italy's Udinese.
Frank Arok's Socceroos lost 1-0 to a first-half goal from Roberto Dinamite but they would turn the tables on the boys from Brazil with a 2-1 win in the Melbourne final thanks to a goal in each half from striker John Kosmina.
The Socceroos' line-up at the SCG was thus: Greedy; Gomez, O'Connor, Yankos, Jennings; Patikas, Crino, Odzakov, Murphy (Farina 74); Soper, Kosmina.
The match was part of a double header. Udinese beat Spurs 2-0 in the early match.
The 1985 tournament served as preparation for Australia's campaign to reach the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico that would fail at the last hurdle when the Socceroos lost 2-0 on aggregate to Scotland.
Football at club and international level in the mid-1980s was very different to what it is now.
Today's Socceroos and A-League players are a pampered lot compared to the band of intrepid footballers who were poorly paid, little known sportsmen who dreamed of playing in a World Cup and perhaps catching the eye of a foreign club.
As semi-professional players they received a token payment of $200 for representing Australia while the modern Socceroos got about $6500 each for donning the green and gold jersey against Kuwait.
The National Soccer League was split into two conferences, most Australian teams played with a sweeper, you could ring a player any time for a quote, competitive women's football did not even exist and nor did the players' union.
The 'ethnic game' that came with a lot of baggage was seen as a very minor player in Australia's sporting landscape and its coverage in the media reflected the contempt with which it was treated. 'Wogball' is what thousands used to call it.
Football today enjoys far more respect from those who once may have seen it as a basket case, the bete noir of Australian sport.
The A-League with all its faults and idiosyncrasies is still around and has become an accepted competition with a decent standard although after 13 seasons it is not in as healthy a position as it was hoped to be.
Hundreds of people are gainfully employed in the game that has become an industry in its own right and, needless to say, coverage of the sport has increased substantially across Australia with many media outlets devoting more specialist journalists exclusively to the game.
There will always be those who would argue that the quality of football has not improved since the early years of the National Soccer League. This claim may or may not be true or realistic but what is beyond doubt is that the level of today's professionalism would have been unheard of 30 years ago.
It is fair to mention too that today's football at decent grounds offers a better and more enjoyable match day experience, even though Football Federation Australia at one stage almost destroyed the fan culture with their draconian measures that drove many aficionados away.
By the same token never in our game's history have supporters at large been treated as if they were mere customers of a supermarket chain like they appear to be today although, to be fair, this is a worldwide phenomenon.
Football is a multi-million dollar business now and fans often end up as the meat in a sandwich as wealthy businessmen fight for their share of the kitty. Australia, to a lesser extent, is no exception.
The game of the people was closer to its stakeholders in the past but, hey, this is progress and the price we have to pay for it, I suppose.
It is with these nostalgic sentiments that an expected crowd of about 35,000 will make its way to the SCG on Saturday for a trip down memory lane.
They will get a tangible sample of the outcome of soccer's long and troublesome transformation into football and, why not, reminisce on the days when that little game of ours battled away with limited means and against all the odds to gain respect in a sports-mad country that is besotted with winners and has no time for losers.
Many would say we have not done too badly.
