Berea Park is a multi-sport venue in

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, on Lilian Ngoyi Street (earlier Van der Walt Street) near downtown. It has been utilized by multiple local sports teams in both football/soccer, including Berea Park F.C., and formerly cricket ( North Eastern Transvaal). The ground was formerly a cattle compound, part of the Hoffman farm. In September 1882 it started being the home for Pretoria's cricket team, and became known as Berea Park.

History

In September 1882, a former cattle pasture a few minutes by horse-cart from Church Square was dedicated as a cricket field for Pretoria players. The land was owned by a widow named Hoffman and was part of a farm including what is now Fountains Valley. By the time

Walter Read Walter William Read (born 23 November 1855 in Reigate, Surrey, died 6 January 1907 in Addiscombe Park, Surrey) was an English cricketer. A fluent right hand bat, he was also an occasional bowler of lobs who sometimes switched to quick overa ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

side visited South Africa in 1892, the field was already known as Berea Park. A Pretoria team played against the English visitors, in the first international cricket match in Pretoria, at the time the capital of the

South African Republic The South African Republic ( nl, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, abbreviated ZAR; af, Suid-Afrikaanse Republiek), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer Republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it ...

(ZAR). The Pretoria team featured 22 players versus 11 on the Walter Read side. In the match, held from January 29-30, 1892, the Pretoria team won one turn and knocked 29 runs. In the 1906-07 season, the

Currie Cup The Currie Cup is South Africa's premier domestic rugby union competition, played each winter and spring (June to October), featuring teams representing either entire provinces or substantial regions within provinces. Although it is the premier ...

was held in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

and Pretoria, marking the beginning of domestic

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

. The Northerns used the Park from the 1937-38 until the 1984-85 one, when their new stadium,

Centurion Park Centurion Park is a cricket ground in Centurion, Gauteng, South Africa. It is also known as SuperSport Park since television company Supersport bought shares in the stadium. The capacity of the ground is 22,000. The Titans cricket team have pl ...

, was built. In 1897, the staff built the first clubhouse there. The first

motor vehicle A motor vehicle, also known as motorized vehicle or automotive vehicle, is a self-propelled land vehicle, commonly wheeled, that does not operate on Track (rail transport), rails (such as trains or trams) and is used for the transportation of pe ...

was exhibited in South Africa at Berea Park that same year. President

Paul Kruger Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904) was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and President of the South African Republic (or ...

of the ZAR gave a speech for the occasion. In 1903,

South African Railways Transnet Freight Rail is a South African rail transport company, formerly known as Spoornet. It was part of the South African Railways and Harbours Administration, a state-controlled organisation that employed hundreds of thousands of people ...

(now Transnet) purchased the Park as a sports ground for railway staff. The old clubhouse has since been used as a library, music room, and pub. The southern clubhouse was built in 1907, while the northern one was added in 1926, the year the Berea Rugby Club opened. A soccer team, the Pretoria South African Railways team, began using the field in 1918, and since 1935 Berea Park F.C. has competed in what was then called the Transvaal Soccer League.

Fire

In the 1990s, the building was used for administration and conference hosting, but later the structures and grounds began to fall into disrepair. A combined girls' and boys' high school used the grounds until an April 2010 fire did great damage. Since then, the site and terrain have not been used at all.

References

External links

Page on Cricketarchive.com

Page on up.ac.za
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