Alberton Oval
View across Alberton Oval towards the Fos Williams Stand.
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| Former names | Queen and Albert Oval |
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| Location | cnr Brougham Place and Queen St, Alberton, South Australia |
| Coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
| Owner | City of Port Adelaide Enfield |
| Operator | Port Adelaide Football Club |
| Capacity | 15,000[1] |
| Field size | Football: 170m x 130m |
| Surface | Grass |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | 1877 |
| Opened | 8 November 1877 |
| Tenants | |
| 1880-present Port Adelaide Football Club 1896-1996 Port Adelaide Cricket Club |
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Alberton Oval is located in Alberton, a north-western suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. The ground is a public park and exclusively leased to the Port Adelaide Football Club for Australian rules football. It has a capacity of 17,000 people with seated grandstands holding 2,000, (the RB Quinn and the Fos Williams Stands).
Contents
History
With the nearby Queenstown Oval built upon in 1876, the Alberton and Queenstown Council opted to construct a cricketing ground on the land adjacent Brougham Place in 1876.[2] The Queen and Albert Oval was officially opened on 8 November 1877 for a game between the touring Tasmanian cricket team and a selected eleven of the Queen and Albert Cricket Association.[3]
The Port Adelaide Football Club
While several teams played at the Alberton Oval in the ground's early days, it is most famous for being the training and administration base for the Port Adelaide Football Club since it played its first game on 15 May 1880 and defeated the original, now-defunct Kensington Football Club 1-nil.
Port Adelaide still plays its SANFL games at the ground, although AFL games are played at Adelaide Oval and, between 1997 and 2013, at AAMI Stadium.
All of the club's teams, including its AFL team and its SANFL League and Academy teams, conduct their principal trainings at the ground.
The Allan Scott Power Headquarters stands adjacent to the oval. So too does The Port Club, a social venue for the club's supporters and players, which was opened on 14 November 1954.
Alberton is regarded as the "spiritual home" of Port Adelaide[4] due to the club (in the SANFL) playing almost all of their homes games there since commencing its tenancy. The club's AFL team usually plays one or two trial games at the ground during the pre-season.
Many notable Port Adelaide players have played matches on the ground, including four time SANFL Magarey Medal winner and club games record holder (392) Russell Ebert, nine time premiership coach Fos Williams, local junior and future Carlton player Craig Bradley, 1992 Best and Fairest winner Nathan Buckley, 1993 Brownlow Medallist Gavin Wanganeen and the Power's first ever AFL coach, John Cahill who also coached the club to 10 SANFL premierships.[5]
Cricket
Alberton Oval was used as a cricket ground during summer between 1877 and 1996.
Following the opening game between Tasmania and the Queen and Albert Cricket Association in 1877, the ground became the home of the new Port Adelaide Cricket Club in 1897 and remained so until the end of 1996.
Cricket and football shared the use of the oval for a century, until the Port Adelaide Football Club was elevated into the AFL in 1997 and required the full-year use of the ground.[6]
The cricket club now plays games at the Port Reserve in Port Adelaide.
Records
The record crowd for Alberton is 22,738 which was set in 1977 for a South Australian National Football League (SANFL) match between Port Adelaide and their traditional rivals Norwood. As of the end of the 2014 SANFL season, this remains the record SANFL attendance at a suburban venue.
The highest football score kicked at the ground is 33.24 (222) by Port Adelaide against the South Adelaide Football Club in 1988.
The highest football winning margin at the ground is 160 points by Port Adelaide against West Adelaide in 1903.
References and notes
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Adelaide Observer, Saturday 13 May 1876, Page 6
- ↑ South Australian Register, 23 October 1877, page 1
- ↑ History, Port Adelaide Football Club.
- ↑ Alberton Oval, Port Adelaide Football Club.
- ↑ Port Adelaide Cricket Club
