Stadium
In their inaugural season, very few home matches were allocated to the Canterbury-Bankstown club. However, when the opportunity arose the club took their matches to either Marrickville or Pratten Park. From the following season, the club began to base itself at Belmore Sports Ground. The club had a long-time affinity with the ground and stayed there continuously until 1994.
In 1995 when the Super League War began to come about, the club changed its playing name to the "Sydney Bulldogs" in an attempt to broaden its fan base and played matches at Parramatta Stadium where spectator facilities were of a higher class. This move paid off with the club going on to become premiers that season. However, the club reverted its name to Canterbury for the 1996 season and once again played matches out of Belmore Sports Ground; something that lasted up until the inaugural National Rugby League season of 1998.
Once the new Stadium Australia had been finished and opened in preparation for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, the club began to play matches there between 1999 and 2000. From 2001 to 2005, the club then began to play matches out of the new Sydney Showground at Homebush Bay, with bigger matches played out of the then-Telstra Stadium from 2003. When fans began to complain about the poor quality of the Showground venue as a rugby league ground, the club eventually decided to move all future home matches to the Stadium, where the club remains. In 2008, Telstra Stadium became known as ANZ Stadium due to a naming rights change.
The club's training and administration offices remained at Belmore Sports Ground until the beginning of 2008, but were relocated to Sydney Olympic Park during the 2008 season. With the NSW Government committing to upgrading Belmore Sports Ground, the club administration and training has now been returned to the historical ground after a $9 million dollar upgrade.
Read more about this topic: Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
Famous quotes containing the word stadium:
“It’s no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the Yankee Stadium of ancient times.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“In their eyes I have seen
the pin men of madness in marathon trim
race round the track of the stadium pupil.”
—Patricia K. Page (b. 1916)