Devonport Oval - History

History

The Devonport Oval is positioned next to Mersey Bluff in Devonport overlooking Bass Strait.

It has two stands, the Frank Matthews Stand is a long wooden Main Stand on the wing, a newer concrete stand with bucket seats in the pocket, a pavilion and a grass hill. The ground is tiered on one side.

After the Devonport City Council's decision to upgrade the unused Devonport Oval in 1937, a Victorian Football League practice match was played there between Collingwood and Geelong, and the redevelopment was a winner for the fans, with a crowd of more than 10,000 attending. In 1959, Devonport's population was just under 14,000 people, in that same year an interstate Australian football match between Tasmania and Victoria was played there and the attendance was 13,500.

The Devonport Oval hosted one One-Day International match in the 1986–87 season between England and the West Indies. It also hosted many Tasmanian Sheffield Shield cricket matches and domestic one-day matches for Tasmania. The ground also hosted two Tasmanian State Grand Finals and six TFL Statewide League finals between 1988 and 2000 and hosted the NWFU Grand Final on several occasions.

Read more about this topic:  Devonport Oval

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
    —Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    “We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
    —Milan Kundera (b. 1929)

    “... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
    —Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)