Thebarton Oval
Planning
At the time of the First World War, members of the Thebarton Council were convinced that the district needed a main oval or recreation ground. The councillors lobbied the State Government to assist them in the venture.
In April 1917, the State Government acquired an 8.8 hectare (c. 22 acre) site at the northern corner of Ashley Street and Taylors (later South) Road, Torrensville from Clement and William Danby and Robert Parker for £3,250. The government resolved that 5 acres (c. 2 hectares) would be put aside for a technical education school, with the remainder being made available to the Thebarton Council for recreational purposes. The Ashley Street site was one of the few substantial areas of vacant land remaining in Thebarton.
South Australia’s pioneering town planner, Charles C. Reade (1880 - 1933), was soon at work laying out a design for the area, to be known as the Thebarton Recreational Park. Reade’s eventual design included the 5 acre site to be taken up by the new Thebarton Technical School; 13 acres (c.5.2 hectares) for the Thebarton Oval; and the remainder devoted to a recreational area featuring among other facilities a bowling green, tennis courts and a children’s playground.
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The first sod on the project was turned by the Premier of the day, Crawford Vaughan, in early May 1917.
Mainly for reasons of expense, portions of Reade’s design, in particular the recreational area, were not realised. However Reade’s plans for the oval and the technical school largely came to fruition. (The technical school opened in 1922 as a pre-apprenticeship training institution for boys. Today the substantially redeveloped site of the former ‘Thebbie Tech’ is the home of the Thebarton Senior College).
Thebarton Council formally ratified Reade’s plan in July 1918 and in late May 1919 approved the borrowing of £2,240 to buy 14 acres (c. 5.7 hectares) of the Ashley Street site.
Council took advantage of a Federal Government scheme to employ returned servicemen by borrowing £10,000 from the Government, to be repaid over 30 years, to employ men to prepare the oval and to make improvements to surrounding roads and fencing.
Council put aside extra money to make additional improvements, including the building of a pavilion, training rooms and other accommodation, at a later date.
Opening
The Thebarton Soldiers’ Memorial Oval and Recreation Ground was opened by the State Governor, Sir Archibald Weigall, on Saturday 29 October 1921. It was to have been opened on 15 October, however heavy rain saw the opening delayed.
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A guard of honour comprising members of the 43rd Infantry Battalion under Captain B.L. Todd and local school children attended the Governor. Major A. Brinkworth presented a 75mm. gun, captured by the Australian Light Horse during operations in Palestine in 1917-1918, to the mayor of Thebarton, J.L. Leal, on behalf of the Federal Government.
Leal described the oval as ‘one of the most important undertakings in the history of the town’. The oval was a part of the war memorial building program undertaken by many local councils after the First World War.
Grandstand and gates
Today the major historic elements of the Thebarton Oval precinct are the original grandstand and entrance gates.
Reade’s plan for the recreation ground included a grandstand/pavilion at the north-western corner of the ground and the main entrance in the south. The foundation stone for the grandstand was laid on 17 February 1921 by Mayor Leal; the architects of the grandstand were Cowell and Cowell of King William Street, Adelaide. The grandstand, including its access steps and seating, became a State Heritage Place on 13 December 2001.
In February 1922 Thebarton’s Oval Committee advertised for tenders to build the entry gates, ticket office and scoreboard. The tender was won by Sando, Wilckens and Burnside of Norwood with a bid of £451; the cost of construction was met entirely from funds raised by the public.
To coincide with the opening of the oval, the Thebarton Citizens’ Recreation Ground Committee held a carnival from mid-October to late November 1921. It featured children's dancing displays, drill teams, gymnasium and other sporting competitions, a fancy dress contest, motorcar, bicycle and whippet racing and an open air cinema. The main feature was the ‘steeplechasing Overland motor car’. Much of the proceeds from the carnival were spent on further improvements to the oval. The committee continued to raise funds until the late 1920s.
In April 2004 the grandstand was renamed as the Hank Brothers Grandstand in recognition of Bob, Bill and Ray Hank who, between them, played 576 games of league football for West Torrens. Bob (1923 - 2012) in particular, a dual Magarey Medallist and long-time state player, was regarded by supporters as a legend of the local game.
Cricket
The oval became associated with a range of sports, particularly cricket and football. The West Torrens Cricket Club used the oval as its home ground from 1921 to 1988, when the club moved to the adjacent King’s Reserve.
In April 2012 a $12,000 brass and bronze sculpture of legendary West Torrens, state and Australian cricketer David Hookes (1955 - 2004) that had been commissioned by the City of West Torrens was placed behind the oval’s northern goal posts. Before the statue could be formally unveiled however, it was stolen; a replacement statue was unveiled in late October 2012 and placed in a more prominent position on a mound overlooking the oval near South Road. This sculpture sustained damage and was subsequently reset in place next to the Thebarton Community Centre on the corner of Ashwin Parade and South Road at Torrensville.
Football
The South Australian National Football League (SANFL) initially took up a 5 year lease for its games at the oval. Moving from the Hindmarsh Oval, the West Torrens Football Club (the ‘Eagles’) made the oval its home ground from the 1922 season, playing its first game there on 6 May 1922 (West Torrens won).
The official dimensions of the playing arena at the time were 207.7 yards by 157.3 yards (189.8 metres by 143.8 metres); in the 1930s Thebarton Oval was the second largest oval in South Australia.
The West Torrens senior football team played games at the oval until 2 September 1989; in 1990 the club merged with the Woodville Football Club. (West Torrens had played exactly 500 senior games at the oval). Woodville-West Torrens continued to train and to play its junior games at the ground for a few years and since 2000 has used it as a pre-season training base. From 2005 to 2012 Woodville-West Torrens played 11 home-and-away SANFL games at the oval.
Although the oval was built to accommodate a maximum of around 15,000 spectators, the record attendance of 20,832 occurred on 26 May 1962 when West Torrens played Norwood. The game resulted in a draw.
The South Australian Amateur Football League (SAAFL - now the Adelaide Footy League) has been based at the oval since 2008.
The SANFL Umpires department is also based at Thebarton Oval, with umpires training there during the SANFL season.
The first women’s AFL game to be conducted in Adelaide was held at the oval on 4 February 2017 between Adelaide and Greater Western Sydney in front of a crowd of 9,250. Adelaide won by 36 points.
In November 2020 the State Government granted $5 million funding to the South Australian National Football League, the oval’s current leaseholder, to be used as part of an $18 million project ‘to create a dedicated elite-level sports facility for football talent programs and umpiring, as well as an AFLW-compliant venue’.
In 2022 the oval is being heavily touted as the possible new headquarters for the Adelaide Crows football team.
Lighting and new grandstands
Largely as a result of its football commitments, the oval underwent a range of improvements over the years. For example, 6 light towers were installed in the 1950s when night football became popular; they were used for most night football finals until 1984 when Football Park’s lights were used for the first time.
The lights were used by a range of other sporting bodies until 2011. Four new towers, each containing 18 lights, were installed in readiness for the March 2012 opening of the SANFL season.
A new grandstand, seating 1,000 people, was built at a cost of £27,853 and opened in May 1957 in time for the 1957 season. In April 2004 the stand was named in honour of Phil Ridings (1917 - 1998), a West Torrens and state cricketer who later became a highly respected cricket administrator.
Other sports
Other sports based at Thebarton Oval in the 1920s included cycling, running and whippet (greyhound) racing; of these cycling and running continued into the 1930s. On one memorable occasion in March 1934 chariot and camel racing were also conducted at the oval.
Other sporting organisations
- Gridiron Association of South Australia (1989-2011)
- South Australian Rugby League (1992-95)
- South Australian Baseball Team (2003-08).
The South Australian Jockey Club leased the oval and its facilities from 2005, though its plans for a major upgrade of the venue were shelved when the lease lapsed in 2007.
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Community events
Over the years the oval has also been home to a multitude of local community events including recreation camps, street festivals, school holiday programs and for many years an annual Christmas festival. In 1987 - 98 the oval also hosted 5 high profile music concerts including an Australian Made concert in 1987, Pink Floyd in February 1988 and Pearl Jam in July 1998.
Name changes
Thebarton Oval has undergone a series of putative name changes as sponsorship deals came and went. The oval was, for example, known as the Adelaide Airport Stadium in 2012 - 2016; the Aldi Arena in 2017 - 18; and has been the Guardall Security Stadium since 2019.
West Torrens Historical Society Inc. (G. Grainger, 2022) Every effort has been made to provide complete and accurate information, please advise of any errors or omissions.
2024 Update
The Adelaide Football Club (AFC) has reached an agreement with the SANFL which will see the State League's governing body vacate its lease at Thebarton Oval.
This will allow the AFC to push ahead with plans to build a new headquarters and home ground at the site.
The City of West Torrens approved the AFC's Thebarton Oval Precinct Masterplan at a special meeting on 19 December 2023 following a period of community consultation. A development application by the AFC was then submitted to the State Commission Assessment Panel (SCAP), which was approved subject to conditions, on 3 June 2024.
The Thebarton Oval precinct will remain the property of the Council as it is community land; the AFC has a 42-year lease over the site with the option for another 42.
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