Queenborough Oval

Last updated

Queenborough Oval
"The Bay"
Queenborough3.jpg
Queenborough Oval
Location Sandy Bay, Tasmania
Owner Hobart City Council
OperatorHobart City Council
Capacity 8,000 [1]
SurfaceGrass
Opened1916
Tenants
Hutchins Football Club - Old Scholars Football Association
South Hobart/Sandy Bay Cricket Club - TCA

Queenborough Oval is the home headquarters of the Hutchins Old Boys Football Club and the South Hobart/Sandy Bay Cricket Club. The ground is a former Tasmanian Football League venue, being the former home of the Sandy Bay Football Club (now defunct) from 1945 to 1997. After the demise of Sandy Bay in 1997, Hutchins moved to the ground during the 1998 season after vacating their former home ground of 43 years (Hutchins War Memorial Oval) just up the street from Queenborough. It is located on the corner of Nelson Road and Peel Street Sandy Bay, 5 km (3.1 mi) south of the Hobart CBD.

Contents

History

Queenborough Oval was originally part of the Queenborough Regional Cemetery, a 12-acre (49,000 m2) site opened in 1873 and owned by Sandy Bay businessmen George Luckman and Stephen Large who purchased the site for £280 as a means of good business enterprise so that the residents in the Queenborough area could bury their dead some distance from their homes.
The cemetery originally occupied the site from the edge of Sandy Bay Road (across from where Wrest Point Casino stands today), extending the whole way up the hills of Nelson Road to the edge Churchill Avenue (where The Hutchins School exists today).

By 1913 the Queenborough Cemetery Company had run out of money to maintain the cemetery and the entire site lay derelict until the Hobart City Council purchased the site in late-1915 through an Act of Parliament and began building sports grounds in 1916 in the lower portion off Sandy Bay Road (now known as Lower Queenborough) and the current Queenborough Oval above that on the corner of Peel Street, with the remainder of the cemetery being used until it was closed in 1934 and was later dismantled in 1961 for the construction of The Hutchins School site. [2] Across the road from the Peel Street end of Queenborough Oval, the headstones of many of the dead still remain in a small, well maintained remembrance garden.

Football at Queenborough began in 1916 with the ground being the new home to the Sandy Bay Rovers Football Club that played in the Queenborough Football Association at that time, prior to that, Rovers played at Lord's Paddock off Lord Street, Sandy Bay. Sandy Bay Rovers became defunct prior to World War Two and after the four-year break in football due to the War, the most notable tenant of the ground, Sandy Bay Football Club was formed in January 1945 and made the ground its home in the Tasmanian Football League. The quaint ground received some modifications in 1965 when a grandstand (later named the Palfreyman Stand after the Sandy Bay legend) was built and the clubroom building adjacent and terracing at the Peel Street end was also built.

Queenborough Oval was well known in Tasmanian football for the long row of hedges which extended along the perimeter fence along the Nelson Road side of the ground and the entire perimeter fence at the Peel Street end, known as "The Hedge End", the hedges were often inhabited by scores of children on matchdays playing in them.
Despite such a picturesque setting Queenborough Oval's shortcomings as a major football ground in TFL football were becoming obvious by the late 1970s with respect to the lack of room to be able to extend and further develop the ground for the future.

By 1980 The Mercury newspaper were headlining calls for Sandy Bay to vacate Queenborough Oval and move to North Hobart Oval or move to the Kingborough Region to the south of Hobart, due to the ground's small playing surface and somewhat inadequate spectator and player facilities, as poor crowds continued to dog the venue.
These calls were to continue until Sandy Bay finally moved away to play at North Hobart Oval in 1983, but then moved back to Queenborough part-time for the next two seasons before returning permanently in 1986.
By the early 1990s the Mercury once again had Queenborough in the firing line, with an article titled "Queenborough Is The Pits!" appearing in 1990, Sandy Bay then moved back and forth between North Hobart Oval and Queenborough Oval on several occasions until Sandy Bay's demise at the end of the 1997 TFL Statewide League season.

The final TFL match staged at Queenborough Oval was on Sunday, 27 July 1997 where a crowd of 1,333 people saw Sandy Bay host Glenorchy to which the Bay were handed a 101-point defeat, 21.13 (139) to 5.8 (38) by Glenorchy in a sad end to their 53-year history at the ground.
On 25 May 1968, the touring New Zealand All Blacks, in their second match on tour, played Tasmania at Queenborough Oval, winning 74–0.
The All Blacks, captained by Sir Brian Lochore, later coach of the first team to win the Rugby World Cup in 1987, scored 18 tries that day of which only seven were converted. The captain of the Tasmanian Rugby Team was John Donaldson of the university-Associates Club.
Queenborough also hosted an international soccer friendly between Tasmania and touring Welsh club Cardiff City on 8 June 1968, Cardiff won the match 5–1 in front of a crowd of 4,500.
Today, Queenborough Oval is now used by Hutchins Old Boys Football Club in the Old Scholars Football Association, who moved from their former Hutchins Memorial Oval base to Queenborough in 1998.
The ground has hosted finals in that competition over several years, along with STJFL football as well as being the home to the South Hobart/Sandy Bay Sharks in the Tasmanian Cricket Association

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KGV Oval</span> Sports stadium in Hobart, Tasmania

KGV Oval is the home headquarters of the Glenorchy football and cricket clubs, as well as the Southern Football League.

The Sandy Bay Football Club was an Australian rules football club based in Sandy Bay, Tasmania. The team participated in the Tasmanian Football League from 1945 to 1997.

The 1989 TFL Statewide League premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged across Tasmania, Australia over eighteen (18) roster rounds and six (6) finals series matches between 1 April and 16 September 1989.
The League was known as the Cascade-Boags Statewide League under a dual commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement with both Cascade Brewery in Hobart and Boag's Brewery in Launceston.

The 1986 TFL Statewide League premiership season was an Australian rules football competition, staged across Tasmania over 18 roster rounds and six finals series matches between 5 April and 20 September 1986.
This was the inaugural season of statewide football and the League was known as the Cascade-Boags Statewide League under a dual commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement worth $205,000 with both Cascade Brewery in Hobart and Boag's Brewery in Launceston.

The 1987 TFL Statewide League premiership season was an Australian rules football competition, staged across Tasmania over 18 roster rounds and six finals series matches between 4 April and 12 September 1987.
This was the second season of statewide football and the League was known as the Cascade-Boags Statewide League under a dual commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement with both Cascade Brewery in Hobart and Boag's Brewery in Launceston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1990 TFL Statewide League season</span>

The 1990 TFL Statewide League premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged across Tasmania over 21 roster rounds and 6 finals series matches between 31 March and 22 September 1990.
The League was known as the Cascade-Boags Statewide League under a dual commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement worth A$1.08 million over the following three years with both Cascade Brewery in Hobart and Boag's Brewery in Launceston.

The 1988 TFL Statewide League premiership season was an Australian rules football competition, staged across Tasmania, Australia over eighteen (18) roster rounds and six (6) finals series matches between 2 April and 17 September 1988.
This was the third season of statewide football and the League was known as the Cascade-Boags Statewide League under a dual commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement with both Cascade Brewery in Hobart and Boag's Brewery in Launceston.

The 1991 TFL Statewide League premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged across Tasmania over twenty one (21) roster rounds and six (6) finals series matches between 30 March and 21 September 1991.
This was the sixth season of the statewide competition and The League was known as the Cascade-Boags Statewide League under a dual commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement with both Cascade Brewery in Hobart and Boag's Brewery in Launceston.

The 1992 TFL Statewide League premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged across Tasmania over eighteen (18) roster rounds and six (6) finals series matches between 4 April and 19 September 1992.
This was the seventh season of statewide football competition and The League was known as the Cascade-Boags Statewide League under a dual commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement with both Cascade Brewery in Hobart and Boag's Brewery in Launceston.

The 1993 TFL Statewide League premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged across Tasmania, Australia over eighteen roster rounds and six finals series matches between 4 April and 18 September 1993.
This was the eighth season of statewide football competition and The League was known as the Cascade-Boags Draught Super-League under a dual commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement with both Cascade Brewery in Hobart and Boag's Brewery in Launceston.
The finals series was also sponsored by Telecom Mobilenet and known as the Telecom Mobilenet Finals Series.

The 1980 Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL) premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged in Hobart, Tasmania over fifteen roster rounds and four finals series matches between 24 May and 20 September 1980.
The season started almost two months later than usual and was shortened by several rounds to accommodate the inaugural Winfield Statewide Cup which was held that season.
The League was known as the Winfield League under a commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement with the Winfield tobacco company.

The 1981 Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL) premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged in Hobart, Tasmania over twenty (20) roster rounds and four finals series matches between 4 April and 19 September 1981.

The 1982 Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL) premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged in Hobart, Tasmania over twenty (20) roster rounds and four finals series matches between 3 April and 18 September 1982.
The League was known as the Winfield League under a A$36,000 commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement with the Winfield tobacco company.

The 1997 TFL Statewide League premiership season was an Australian rules football competition, staged across Tasmania, Australia over twenty roster rounds and six finals series matches between 12 April and 20 September 1997.
This was the twelfth season of statewide football and the League was known as the Cascade-Boags Draught Super League under a dual commercial naming-rights sponsorship agreement with both Cascade Brewery in Hobart and Boag's Brewery in Launceston.
At the conclusion of this season four clubs left the competition owing to severe financial problems.
Hobart, in debt to the tune of $450,000, were already advised by TFL executives that they would not be granted a renewed licence to continue on in the TFL after this season and decided to join the SFL from 1998, both South Launceston and Launceston continued to find onfield success minimal and were also servicing large debts that looked likely to continue to grow and promptly pulled out of the competition and rejoined the NTFL from 1998 whilst Sandy Bay, unable to find a merger partner, was wound up at season's end and became defunct.

The 1979 Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL) premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged in Hobart, Tasmania over twenty (20) roster rounds and four (4) finals series matches between 7 April and 22 September 1979.
This was the centenary season of the Tasmanian Football League, the finals series was sponsored by the Winfield tobacco company to the tune of A$10,000.
The Grand Final of this year set an all-time record football match attendance in Tasmania of 24,968 patrons, this was also a single-day sporting record attendance in the state of Tasmania for twenty five years until it was broken when a crowd of 30,150 attended Symmons Plains Raceway in Northern Tasmania for a V8 Supercar Championship event in 2004. (1)

The 1978 Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL) premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged in Hobart, Tasmania over twenty (20) roster rounds and four (4) finals series matches between 1 April and 16 September 1978.
The competition's major sponsor for the 1978 season was Hitachi.

The 1972 Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL) premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged in Hobart, Tasmania over twenty (20) roster rounds and four finals series matches between 1 April and 16 September 1972.

The 1974 Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL) premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged in Hobart, Tasmania over twenty-one (21) roster rounds and four (4) finals series matches between 6 April and 5 October 1974.

The 1975 Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL) premiership season was an Australian rules football competition staged in Hobart, Tasmania over nineteen (19) roster rounds and four (4) finals series matches between 29 March and 20 September 1975.

Statewide Australian rules football competition has been played in Tasmania, Australia under the umbrella of the Tasmanian Football League from 1986–1998, Football Tasmania from 1999–2000 until the competition was disbanded in December 2000 and AFL Tasmania from 2009 when a new ten-club competition, this time known as the Tasmanian State League, was formed.

References

  1. "Queensborough Oval". Austadiums. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
  2. "Sandy Bay" by Nicola Goc (1998) (p.p 239 and 240)

42°54′14″S147°19′59″E / 42.904°S 147.333°E / -42.904; 147.333