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Location | Queenstown, Tasmania |
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Coordinates | 42°4′33″S145°33′34″E / 42.07583°S 145.55944°E Coordinates: 42°4′33″S145°33′34″E / 42.07583°S 145.55944°E |
Capacity | 5,000 |
Surface | Gravel |
Construction | |
Opened | 1895 |
Construction cost | Unknown |
Architect | Various |
Tenants | |
Queenstown Crows Football Club |
Queenstown Oval, known colloquially as The Gravel or The Rec (for Recreation Ground), is a sports arena in Queenstown, located on the west coast of Tasmania. Built in 1895, it is infamous for its gravel playing surface, and is used primarily for Australian rules football, while also hosting cricket and athletics. [1] The ground has a main concrete grandstand and a total capacity of 5,000.
Queenstown is a town in the West Coast region of the island of Tasmania, Australia. It is in a valley on the western slopes of Mount Owen on the West Coast Range.
The West Coast of Tasmania is the part of the state that is strongly associated with wilderness, mining and tourism, rough country and isolation. As well as that, it was an early convict settlement location in the early stages of Van Diemen's Land.
Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is located 240 km (150 mi) to the south of the Australian mainland, separated by Bass Strait. The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 533,308 as of March 2019. Just over forty percent of the population resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, which forms the metropolitan area of the state capital and largest city, Hobart.
For nearly a century, Queenstown Oval was the grand final venue for the now defunct Western Tasmanian Football Association. [2] It is currently the home ground for the local Queenstown Crows in the Darwin Football Association. The ground was the first in Tasmania to have a siren installed to signal the start and end of each quarter. It was borrowed from the Mt Lyell Mines. [3] [4]
The Darwin Football Association is an Australian rules football league in Tasmania. The clubs belonging to the association are from localities close to Burnie and on the West Coast of Tasmania. This includes Queenstown, making this competition the only competition in Australia to play some of its games on a gravel surface.
Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company was a Tasmanian mining company formed on 29 March 1893, most commonly referred to as Mount Lyell. Mount Lyell was the dominant copper mining company of the West Coast from 1893 to 1994, and was based in Queenstown, Tasmania.
Inducted into the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame in 2007, [1] the ground was due for updating in the 2010s [5] and was part of The Unconformity festival in 2016. [6]
The Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame was established to help recognise outstanding services and overall contribution made to the sport of Australian rules football in Tasmania. Any participant of the sport, including players, umpires, media personalities and coaches, may be inducted. A physical hall was established in 2005 after the Tasmanian Community Fund provided a $50,000 grant to assist AFL Tasmania and the Launceston City Council with establishment of a permanent facility at York Park. The decision to locate the Hall of Fame at the ground was because the site had recently been redeveloped and was positioned as the "true home of Tasmanian football". AFL Tasmania initiated the Hall of Fame nomination process, with a number of clubs, players and grounds nominated and accepted into the Hall of Fame since 2005. The public Hall of Fame opened to the public on Saturday 21 February 2009.
The Unconformity is an arts festival held in Queenstown, Tasmania in Australia.
There is a subtle reference to the ground's gravel playing surface in Jamie Cooper's Tasmania's Team of the Century painting, with gravel visible in the knees of Queenstown-born Australian football legend Ian Stewart. [7]
Jamie Cooper is an Australian painter and former Australian rules footballer in the Victorian Football League.
Ian Harlow Stewart is a former Australian rules footballer who represented St Kilda and Richmond in the Victorian Football League (VFL) during the 1960s and 1970s. He later coached South Melbourne and Carlton and was an administrator at St Kilda.
Bellerive Oval is a cricket and Australian rules football ground located in Bellerive, a suburb on the eastern shore of Hobart, Tasmania. It is the only venue in Tasmania which hosts international cricket matches, and has a spectator capacity of 19,500.
York Park is a sports ground in the Inveresk and York Park Precinct, Launceston, Australia. Holding 21,000 people — the largest capacity stadium in Tasmania — York Park is known commercially as University of Tasmania Stadium and was formerly known as Aurora Stadium under a previous naming rights agreement signed with Aurora Energy in 2004. Primarily used for Australian rules football, its record attendance of 20,971 was set in June 2006, when Hawthorn Football Club played Richmond Football Club in an Australian Football League (AFL) match.
Soccer in Tasmania describes the sport of soccer being played and watched by people in the state of Tasmania in Australia.
Darrel John Baldock AM, commonly nicknamed "The Doc" and "Mr. Magic", was an Australian rules football player, coach, and state politician. In 1966 he captained the St Kilda Football Club to its first premiership. Baldock is a member of the Australian Football Hall of Fame and has been upgraded to the status of "Legend". He was also a handy cricketer, playing two first-class cricket matches, once for Tasmania and once for the Tasmania Combined XI. After retiring from football, Baldock served in the Tasmanian Parliament for fifteen years.
The Tasmanian State League (TSL), colloquially known as the "Tasmanian Football League (TFL)" is the highest ranked Australian rules football league in Tasmania, Australia.
Barry K. Lawrence is a former Australian rules footballer who played for St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and for Longford in the Northern Tasmanian Football Association (NTFA).
North Hobart Oval is a sports venue in North Hobart, Tasmania, used for Australian rules football.
Australian rules football in Tasmania known as "football" officially and locally, has a history dating back to the 1860s, with the state having the distinction of being the first place outside Victoria to play the sport.
KGV Oval is the home headquarters of the Glenorchy football and cricket clubs, as well as the Southern Football League.
Sport in Tasmania is participation in and attendance at organised sports events in the state of Tasmania in Australia. Sport is an important part of Tasmanian culture; though, while spectator sports have grown in recent decades, overall participation in sports has declined and is currently lower than the national average.
West Park Oval is an Australian Rules football, cycling and athletics venue located on the shores of Bass Strait in Burnie, Tasmania. It is the current home of the Burnie Dockers in the Tasmanian State League and previously in the NTFL and in the original TFL Statewide League.
A-League expansion in Tasmania has been proposed since the establishment of the A-League in 2005. Before the introduction of the league, Football Federation Australia (FFA) chairman Frank Lowy said he hoped to expand the competition into cities such as Hobart and Launceston, among others.
Victor Albert Ernest Joseph Barwick was an Australian rules footballer who played for St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Peter Russell Daniel is a former Australian rules footballer who played for Essendon in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
The Western Tasmanian Football Association was an Australian Rules Football competition based on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia.
The competition was made up of mostly miners living and working on the State's West Coast.
Christian Fagan is a former Australian rules footballer who is the senior coach of the Brisbane Lions in the Australian Football League (AFL). He spent his entire playing career in Tasmania, playing 263 senior games with Hobart, Sandy Bay, and Devonport. Before being appointed head coach of Brisbane in October 2016, Fagan had spent long periods as an assistant coach at Melbourne (1999–2007) and Hawthorn (2008–2016).