Richmond Oval (South Australia) - History

History

Richmond Oval is historically important as the first ground purpose-built for Australian Rules football, predating Waverley Park in Melbourne by over a decade. It was constructed upon land formerly used for housing that fell into major disrepair during the Great Depression and possessed demand for restoration because of the movement of people from the inner city. Unlike Waverley, however, Richmond Oval was originally designed with cricket pitches. Before it opened, all major clubs in the SANFL, VFL and WAFL had used grounds originally designed for cricket. West Adelaide had lost the Wayville Showground as their home ground after the 1939 season after it was taken over by the Australian Army due to the outbreak of World War II and had no home ground, instead playing its matches at Adelaide Oval along with South Adelaide. A major problem with this arrangement is that there was not enough room for both of these clubs to train even using the practice Adelaide Oval #2.

Although the decision to build a football oval was made in 1946, the West Adelaide Football Club did not decide on using it until 1952. After this decision was made, the ground was completely returfed and a grandstand erected, a process which took six years, during which many lower grade games were already played at the ground.

Originally West Adelaide hoped to start using the ground for SANFL league games in 1956. The Grounds committee sought an undertaking from the Council to complete the oval and have it ready for that season. Unfortunately the council was not in a financial position to meet the whole burden of this request and as a result, the club had no option but to use the venue only for training purposes that year. After many negotiations with the Council and the SANFL, including a £10,000, 10 year loan from the SANFL and another £10,000 loan from a local trading bank to pay for improvements, the ground was gradually developed with improvements including:

• The completion of the grandstand (roofing & seating),
• Fencing off the grandstand area,
• Erecting toilets,
• Terracing of the mound in front of the grandstand
• Erect necessary turnstiles, ticket boxes etc.
• Scoreboard erected in the north-east corner (donated by Halls Softdrinks Ltd)

The ground was officially opened by the Chief Secretary, Sir Lyell McEwin in 1958. In its first year, Richmond Oval was such a success that the SANFL decided to switch its traditional Anzac Day Grand Final rematch from the Adelaide Oval to the ground for 1959 (West Adelaide vs Port Adelaide). The first game at Richmond saw the Bloods run out 12.11 (83) to 10.13 (73) winners over neighbouring club West Torrens.

Richmond Oval has a capacity of 16,500 with seating for up to 2,000 in the B. K. Faehse Stand, named for former club captain Brian Faehse who played 224 games for The Bloods between 1944 and 1956. Faeshe was instrumental in bringing Richmond Oval to life both as a volunteer who worked on building the ground and a driving force behind the scenes to give Westies their own home ground for the first time in their 50+ year history. The oval runs north-south with concrete terracing surrounding the entire ground with a grass bank above the south western concrete and also the north-eastern concrete around to the outer wing. Richmond's goal to goal, wing to wing dimensions are 170m x 130m.

The ground record crowd was set in Round 5 of the 1969 SANFL season when 15,742 saw West Adelaide go down to the Neil Kerley coached Glenelg Tigers 18.18 (126) to 8.9 (57). Kerley had served 10 years as a player for Wests playing 155 games between 1952 and 1963 and coached West Adelaide to their most recent premiership at the time in 1961 and would in fact coach their next (and so far last) premiership in 1983.

Originally known as Richmond Oval, it was renamed as a result of sponsorship deals to Broadspectrum Oval in 2006 and then City Mazda Stadium in 2009. Lights for night games were also installed in time for the 2010 season and have so far been a success for the club with 6,133 fans showing their support for the clubs first home game under lights against North Adelaide on March 26. As of the end of The Bloods 2011 season, ten night games have been held at Richmond Oval with a total attendance of 36,961.

City Mazda Stadium is currently one of five suburban SANFL grounds to offer night football. The others are Norwood Oval, Elizabeth Oval, Hickinbotham Oval and Glenelg Oval.