Everything about Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium totally explained
Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium (formerly known as
Central Coast Stadium,
Northpower Stadium and
Central Coast Express Advocate Stadium) is a sports venue on
Grahame Park in
Gosford, on the
Central Coast of
New South Wales. Originally designed to be the home stadium for the
North Sydney Bears rugby league football club, the stadium is now home to the Central Coast Storm rugby league football club and the
Central Coast Mariners Football Club (soccer). The stadium also continues to host irregular rugby league and
rugby union fixtures although unsuccessful bids have been made to have locally based teams play in the
National Rugby League (NRL) and
Super 14.
The stadium is rectangular and is unusual in that seating is located on only three sides of the ground. The southern end is open giving filtered views of
Brisbane Water through a row of palm trees. With an all seater capacity of 20,119 it's currently the sixth largest stadium in the
A-League. It is within walking distance of the Gosford CBD, the
railway station and is adjacent to the Central Coast Leagues Club.
History
In 1911, Erina Shire Council proposed to create a park on the shore of Brisbane Water. The park required much land to be reclaimed from marshland. It also required privately owned land to be purchased by council and a section of road to be demolished.
Waterside Park was opened in 1915 and a cricket pitch was added during that year. Further reclamation of the foreshore extended the park during the Depression that gave work to the unemployed. By 1939 surplus railway land had been added and a Bowling Club and green as well as tennis courts had been constructed. In 1939 the Park was renamed Grahame Park.
A full stadium was then touted and later built in the late 1990's, planned to be ready in 1999 for NRL club the
North Sydney Bears, before construction problems including large spells of inclement weather delayed completion. The stadium finally opened in early 2000 as NorthPower Stadium at Grahame Park, the
Northern Eagles National Rugby League team (a merging of the aforementioned Bears and the
Manly Sea Eagles) taking residence there until their dissolving at the conclusion of the 2002 season. In 2003, with no major sporting team in residence, the stadium played host to three group matches in the
2003 Rugby World Cup. The
Pacific Islanders rugby union team played one match at the stadium on their 2004 tour.
The stadium gained its second fulltime tenant in
2005 with the formation of the
Central Coast Mariners, a team in the newly-formed national
A-League football (soccer) competition. It became the first fulltime national sporting competition to have a team play at the stadium. Further use of the stadium in 2006 follows from it being the home ground to the
Central Coast Waves rugby union team, which joined the
Shute Shield in 2006. The stadium has continued to host NRL competition matches from time to time, as well as a number of pre-season trials each season. The
Central Coast Rays, the Central Coasts'
Australian Rugby Championship team, played out of the stadium during the only season of the competition in
2007. The stadium continues as a home to the Mariners A-League side currently, and will continue to host NRL matches throughout the 2008 Centenary Year. It was announced in March 2008 that Blue-Tongue Stadium's Video Screen would be updated and made permanent, with the State Government granting $250,000 towards its construction.
Records
Record crowds for different sports:
Trivia
- The seating at Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium still spells the words "Go Bears" in each bay in spite of the originally intended tenants, the North Sydney Bears, never having called the ground home.
- The stadium has had many naming rights sponsors, including NorthPower Energy, the Central Coast Express Advocate (a local newspaper), and now Bluetongue Brewery.
- Bay 16 is the area which is the base of the Central Coast Mariners' most vocal supporters group, "The Marinators".
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://bluetongue_central_coast_stadium.totallyexplained.com">Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
