| Location | Liebenberg Road, Gelvandale, Port Elizabeth, South Africa |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 33°54′50″S25°33′36″E / 33.914°S 25.560°E |
| Owner | Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality |
| Capacity | 3,000 |
| Surface | Grass |
| Construction | |
| Opened | March 2010 |
| Construction cost | R68 million [1] |
| Tenants | |
| Bay United(2010 - 2011) Bay Stars (2011 - 2013) | |
Gelvandale Stadium is a multi-use stadium located in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. [2] The stadium is equipped with an athletics track, football pitch and floodlights. It is currently used mostly as a community sports ground, and by local amateur football club Swallows.
Port Elizabeth or The Bay is one of the major cities in South Africa; it is situated in the Eastern Cape Province, 770 km (478 mi) east of Cape Town. The city, often shortened to PE and nicknamed "The Windy City", stretches for 16 km along Algoa Bay, and is one of the major seaports in South Africa. Port Elizabeth is the southernmost large city on the African continent, just farther south than Cape Town. Port Elizabeth was founded as a town in 1820 to house British settlers as a way of strengthening the border region between the Cape Colony and the Xhosa. It now forms part of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, which has a population of over 1.3 million.
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) of coastline of Southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini (Swaziland); and it surrounds the enclaved country of Lesotho. South Africa is the largest country in Southern Africa and the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and, with over 57 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different African languages, nine of which have official status. The remaining population consists of Africa's largest communities of European (White), Asian (Indian), and multiracial (Coloured) ancestry.
It is currently used as a part-time home ground for East London based National First Division side, Blackburn Rovers. [3] The stadium was previously used for professional football matches, as the home ground of National First Division club, Bay United. After the relocation of Bay United, it was used as the home ground of Bay Stars in the SAFA Second Division.
East London is a city on the southeast coast of South Africa in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality of the Eastern Cape province. The city lies on the Indian Ocean coast, largely between the Buffalo River and the Nahoon River, and hosts the country's only river port. As of 2011, East London had a population of over 267,000 with over 755,000 in the metropolitan area.
The National First Division (NFD) is the second-highest league of South African club football after the Premier Soccer League (PSL). Both the NFD and PSL are organised by the National Soccer League.
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played with a spherical ball between two teams of eleven players. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries and dependencies, making it the world's most popular sport. The game is played on a rectangular field called a pitch with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by moving the ball beyond the goal line into the opposing goal.
It was also utilized as a training field for teams participating in the 2010 FIFA World Cup and 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, after being built and opened in March 2010. [4] It was one of Port Elizabeth's two training venues, along with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Stadium. These training venues were used by World Cup participants for practices, practice matches and other training, before their games at the city's Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. The bidding process for hosting the tournament finals was open only to African nations. In 2004, the international football federation, FIFA, selected South Africa over Egypt and Morocco to become the first African nation to host the finals.
The 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, also known as the Orange Africa Cup of Nations South Africa 2013 for sponsorship reasons, held from 19 January to 10 February 2013, was the 29th Africa Cup of Nations, the football championship of Africa organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Starting from this edition, the tournament was switched to being held in odd-numbered years instead of even-numbered years so that it does not clash with the FIFA World Cup.
