Norwood Oval

Norwood Oval
The Parade
Location	cnr The Parade and Woods St, Norwood, South Australia
Coordinates	34°55′11″S 138°37′50″E / 34.91972°S 138.63056°E / -34.91972; 138.63056Coordinates: 34°55′11″S 138°37′50″E / 34.91972°S 138.63056°E / -34.91972; 138.63056
Broke ground	Late 1890s
Opened	1901
Owner	Norwood, Payneham & St Peters Council
Operator	Norwood Football Club
Surface	Grass
Capacity	22,000
Tenants
Norwood Football Club (SANFL) Adelaide Bite (ABL)

Norwood Oval (currently known as Coopers Stadium due to sponsorship from the Adelaide based Coopers Brewery) is a suburban oval in the western end of Norwood, an inner eastern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. Norwood, Payneham & St Peters Council own the Oval but rent it, for a peppercorn rental, to the Norwood Football Club. It has been used for a variety of sporting and community events including baseball, soccer, rugby league and American football, but its main use is for Australian rules football. It is the home ground for the Norwood Football Club ("The Redlegs") in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL).

The Oval has a capacity of 22,000 people, with grandstand seating for up to 3,900. The ground record crowd was set in 1971 when 20,280 turned up to watch an SANFL match between Norwood and their traditional SANFL rivals Port Adelaide. Norwood Oval's dimensions are 160m x 110m making it the narrowest ground in use in the SANFL.

In the 1950s the Norwood Football Club received permission from the then City of Kensington & Norwood to install six light towers at the oval. This allowed Norwood to host not only night football matches but also night baseball. Regular night SANFL night series matches were played at the oval until 1984 when all night games were transferred to the SANFL's own Football Park.

In 1973 the SANFL introduced the 5 team finals for the first time and Norwood Oval holds the distinction of hosting the first ever SANFL Elimination Final when home team Norwood defeated rivals Port Adelaide by 6 goals. The First Semi-final was also held at Norwood in 1973 when reigning premiers (and 1972 Champions of Australia North Adelaide, led by 3 time Magarey Medallist Barrie Robran, defeated Norwood in a close game bringing an end to the Redlegs 1973 season.

Night football returned to Norwood Oval during the early 2000s and Friday night games at the oval (all featuring The Redlegs) have been a regular feature in the SANFL ever since. With the popularity of the Friday night games, other clubs have started installing lights at their grounds with Elizabeth Oval (Centrals), Richmond Oval (West Adelaide) and Noarlunga Oval (South Adelaide) all having installed lights while Woodville-West Torrens are upgrading the lights at Thebarton Oval in a bid to play SANFL night games at the venue for the first time since the mid-1980s.

The light towers were upgraded at Norwood Oval in 2010. The six light towers that had been in place since the 1950s were replaced with 4 light towers of television standard positioned at the 'corners' of the oval.

Nowrood Oval was also the scene of Norwood's triumph over East Perth in the 1977 National Football League grand final.

Baseball

Norwood has also hosted Baseball since the 1950s with the South Australian Baseball team being tenants until 1989, then followed by the Adelaide Giants in the Australian Baseball League (ABL) from 1989 till its folding in 1999. In 2009 the SA Baseball team moved from Thebarton Oval back to Norwood Oval to play their Claxton Shield games. In August 2010 it was announced by the Australian Baseball League that Coopers Stadium at Norwood Oval would be the new home ground of Adelaide Bite, the team representing Adelaide in the ABL.^[1]

References

1. ^ Stockman, Jennifer (6 August 2010). "Adelaide takes a BITE at new ABL". Adelaide Bite. Australian Baseball League. http://web.theabl.com.au/news/article.jsp?ymd=20101030&content_id=15902276&vkey=news_t4064&fext=.jsp&sid=t4064. Retrieved 19 June 2011. 

External links

• Norwood Oval at Austadiums