Rushton Park (also known as Lane Group Stadium under ground sponsorship arrangements) is an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

ground located in

Mandurah Mandurah () is a coastal city in the Australian state of Western Australia, situated approximately south of the state capital, Perth. It is the state's second most populous city, with a population of 107,641 as of the 2021 Australian census, 2 ...

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. Having been in use as a football ground since the early 1960s, the ground is currently used as a home ground by three clubs: the , competing in the

West Australian Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...

(WAFL), the Mandurah Mustangs, competing in the

Peel Football League The Peel Football League (PFL) is a country football league based in the Peel region of Western Australia. The competition was formed in 1992 when teams from the Metropolitan Football League and Murray Districts Football League merged. There ar ...

(PFL), and the Peel Thunderbirds, competing in the

West Australian Women's Football League The West Australian Women's Football League (WAWFL) was the governing body of women's Australian rules football in the state of Western Australia from 1987 until its dissolution in 2021. It organised the premier women's football league in Wes ...

(WAWFL). Rushton Park is the only regularly-used ground in the WAFL that falls outside the

Perth metropolitan area The Perth metropolitan region or the Perth metropolitan area is the administrative area and geographical extent of the Western Australian capital city of Perth and its conurbation. It generally includes the coastal strip from Two Rocks in t ...

History

The area that is now Rushton Park was first gazetted as a sanitation site on 20 August 1926, and was converted to a recreation reserve in September 1958, under the Mandurah Road Board. The reserve was named for Richard Rushton, a former local government commissioner, with the new name approved on 22 May 1972. The park was first used for football in the 1960s by the Mandurah Football Club in the

Sunday Football League The Sunday Football League Western Australia (SFL WA), commonly known as the Sunday Football League (SFL), is a defunct semi-professional Australian rules football league that was based in the southern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. The L ...

. The ground held its first

(WAFL) match in April 1986 between and , with a record attendance at the time of 7,147 people. A further game was hosted in the 1987 season, between and South Fremantle, with 4,547 in attendance. As well as football, the ground also hosted two

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

matches between a Western Australia Country XI and touring Sri Lankan and

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

sides, in 1987 and 1988, respectively. After the

Peel Thunder Football Club The Peel Thunder Football Club is an Australian rules football club playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW). The team is based in Mandurah, Western Australia, with their home ground being Rushton Park. The ...

was accepted into the WAFL for the 1997 season, Rushton Park became its home ground. The first game of the 1997 season, against , drew a crowd of 5,781 people. Attendances declined during the late 1990s and early 2000s, with an average of around 1,200 attending games at Rushton Park. A match in 2000 between Peel and drew only 815 people.

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL) pre-season matches in 2004 ( and ) and 2006 ( and ), attracted crowds of 7,527 and 8,283 people respectively, with the latter a new ground record. In September 2009,

naming rights Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...

to the ground were sold to the

Bendigo Bank Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is an Australian financial institution, operating primarily in retail banking. The company was formed by the merger of Bendigo Bank and Adelaide Bank in November 2007. Before the merger, Bendigo Bank delivered its pr ...

as part of a three-year deal. A A$9 million redevelopment of the ground, consisting of the construction of a new grandstand and facilities, began in February 2010, and was completed in June 2011. The ground hosted the 2011 State Game against Queensland in June 2011. An AFL pre-season match between West Coast and during the

2012 NAB Cup The 2012 NAB Cup was the Australian Football League (AFL) pre-season competition played before the 2012 home-and-away season. The games were played between 17 February and 18 March 2012. The competition format was changed for the second cons ...

was attended by approximately 9,000 people, setting a new ground record.Schmook, Nathan (2012)
Kerr's late sealer see Eagles pip Port
– Australian Football League. Published 3 March 2012. Retrieved 3 March 2012.

References

External links

* {{WAFL Women's AFL Women's grounds West Australian Football League grounds Sports venues in Western Australia Peel Thunder Football Club Defunct cricket grounds in Australia Sport in Mandurah 1960s establishments in Australia