Box Hill City Oval is an
Australian rules football and
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 str ...
stadium located in
Box Hill, Victoria, Australia. It is the home ground of the
Box Hill Hawks Football Club
Box Hill Hawks Football Club is an Australian rules football club playing in the Victorian Football League. It has an alliance with the Hawthorn Football Club, which plays in the Australian Football League.
Early Australian rules football in ...
which plays in the
Victorian Football League
The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...
, and the Box Hill Cricket Club which plays in the
Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association.
Box Hill City Oval was officially opened in 1937. The capacity of the venue is approximately 10,000 people. The largest official attendance at the ground was on 14 August 1983 when 6,200 people attended a
VFA game between
Box Hill and
Oakleigh. In more recent times a crowd of 5,253 attended a
VFL game between the
Box Hill Hawks and
Williamstown on 19 June 2005. On Melbourne Show Day 1953, the venue hosted a benefit game for the family of
Ray Gibb
Ray Gibb (5 December 1928 – 10 September 1953) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Hawthorn and Richmond in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Gibb, a utility player, was the son of former Melbourne and Collingwood football ...
, who had died in an accident in early September, between a combined – team and a Box Hill team augmented with VFL and VFA stars; the crowd at the time was estimated to be 6,000. The venue has two pavilions and terracing on the western wing, but no grandstand.
It is currently the second-choice venue, behind
North Port Oval
North Port Oval, also known as the Port Melbourne Cricket Ground or by the sponsored name ETU Stadium, is an Australian rules football and cricket stadium located in Port Melbourne, Australia. The capacity of the venue is 6,000 people. It is ...
, for VFL finals; it usually hosts finals only in the first week, but also hosted the preliminary finals in 2010 when the North Port Oval surface was unplayable due to rain and overuse.
Major milestones
Sources
{{reflist
* "Box Hill Football Club Yearbook", Box Hill Football Club, Melbourne, 1951
* "Box Hill Football Club Souvenir History", Box Hill Football Club, Melbourne, 1961
* "Box Hill Football Club Souvenir History", Box Hill Football Club, Melbourne, 2000
Sports venues in Melbourne
Victorian Football League grounds
Buildings and structures in the City of Whitehorse
Sport in the City of Whitehorse