Brunswick Street Oval

The WT Peterson Community Oval, best known as the Brunswick Street Oval and also as the Fitzroy Cricket Ground, is an Australian rules football and cricket ground located in Edinburgh Gardens in Fitzroy North, Victoria, Australia.

History

Australian football
The ground is the home of the Fitzroy Football Club in the Victorian Amateur Football Association. It was also Fitzroy's home in the Victorian Football Association from 1884 to 1896, and in the Victorian Football League from 1897 until 1966, with the last game being played there on Saturday 20 August 1966 against , a game which the Lions lost by 84 points. The Fitzroy Football Club then moved its home games to Princes Park, sharing the ground with Carlton Football Club between 1967 and 1969, while keeping their training and administrative base at the Brunswick Street Oval, before moving its home games and their training and administrative base to the Junction Oval in St Kilda from 1970. A total of 747 matches at the top level of Victorian senior football – 135 in the VFA and 612 in the VFL – were played at the ground over 83 seasons of competition.

The ground was also used for Australian football during the late 1970s and 1980s by the Fitzroy Rovers Football Club in the Western Suburban Football League, before it began to be used by the University Reds football club in the Victorian Amateur Football Association in 1991. In 1996, the Fitzroy Football Club were placed into administration, ultimately leaving the AFL at the end of the 1996 season. That year the club's AFL license was taken over by the Brisbane Bears, at which point the Bears changed their name to the Brisbane Bears-Fitzroy Football Club (BBFFC or Brisbane Lions). Fitzroy eventually came out of administration in 1998, and merged with the Fitzroy Reds in 2009, to rejoin competitive football within the Victorian Amateur Football Association, and are now based at the oval once again. The main grandstand is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.

Cricket
The venue's original tenants, the Fitzroy Cricket Club, used the venue as its primary home ground from 1872 until it left the venue in 1986, when they merged with the Doncaster Cricket Club.  The venue hosted one first-class cricket match, between Victoria and Western Australia in 1925/26. The venue remains home ground of the Edinburgh Cricket Club which was established in 1978 and is one of the largest cricket clubs in Victoria with 40 junior sides ranging from under 10 to under 18.

Soccer
During the 1975 and 1976 Victorian State League seasons, the venue was used by the soccer club Heidelberg United (then known as Fitzroy United Alexander), as well as one fixture in the National Soccer League. In the 1980s the venue was used intermittently by several lower-league soccer clubs up until 1990. The venue had previously hosted several showpiece soccer matches in the 1910s and 1920s, including Dockerty Cup finals, the annual local 'internationals' as well as genuine international matches.

Records
VFA games: 135 between 1883 and 1896, including 122 which Fitzroy played in.
VFL games: 612 between 1897 and 1966, including 609 which Fitzroy played in.
VFL finals games: 4
Highest VFA attendance: 22,500 (Fitzroy vs. , 17 September 1892)
Highest VFL attendance: 36,000 (Fitzroy vs. , 6 May 1935)

References

 Austadiums

Defunct Australian Football League grounds
Defunct Australian rules football grounds
Heritage-listed buildings in Melbourne
Cricket grounds in Victoria (state)
Soccer venues in Melbourne
Sports venues completed in 1883
Fitzroy, Victoria
Sport in the City of Yarra
Buildings and structures in the City of Yarra