Carlaw Park was a

multi-purpose stadium A multi-purpose stadium is a type of stadium designed to be easily used by multiple types of events. While any stadium could potentially host more than one type of sport or event, this concept usually refers to a specific design philosophy tha ...

in Parnell, a central suburb of

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It neighboured the

Auckland Domain The Auckland Domain, also known as Pukekawa / Auckland Domain, is a large park in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the oldest park in the city, and at is one of the largest. Located in the central suburb of Grafton, the park land is the remains o ...

's Northern end. It was primarily used for

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

and had a peak spectator capacity of around 28,000 in the 1930s, though this fell to around 17,000 by the time the ground was closed in 2002.

History

The stadium's grandstands and terraces were built in 1916, and it became the home of

in Auckland from 1921. It was named after James Carlaw, the chairman of the

Auckland Rugby League The Auckland Rugby League (ARL) is the governing body for the sport of rugby league in the Auckland Region of New Zealand. It is responsible for rugby league in the region, including both club and school rugby league. It began in 1910 when the fi ...

managing committee who secured the land in 1920 and developed the ground further. The ground was officially opened on 25 June 1921 and

City Rovers The City Newton Dragons are a defunct New Zealand rugby league club that was based at Victoria Park, Auckland. The club was created in 1948 by a merger of two original clubs, the City Rovers and Newton Rangers. Both the Rovers and the Rangers pa ...

defeated Maritime 10–8 on the opening day in front of 7,000 fans.Coffey, John and Bernie Wood ''Auckland, 100 years of rugby league, 1909-2009'', 2009. , p.p.62-63 Herb Lunn scored the first try and

Eric Grey Eric Charles Grey (1 May 1895 – 2 May 1977) was a New Zealand rugby league player. A , Grey represented Auckland at a provincial level, and was a member of the New Zealand national team in 1920. He played two test matches for New Zealand aga ...

kicked the first goal on the ground. The ground hosted the sole test match in the New Zealand leg of the 1951 French rugby league tour of Australasia. The

spent £4,322 on capital expenditure in developing the ground. The ground was purchased for $200,000 in 1974. The ground hosted 3

Winfield Cup The Winfield Cup was an Australian rugby league trophy awarded to the winner of the New South Wales Rugby League premiership (NSWRL) Grand Final from 1982 to 1994, and then to the winner of the newly-founded Australian Rugby League (ARL) Grand Fin ...

games (one in 1992 the two other games were held in 1993) with the first game between

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

and Manly Warringah attracting 17,368 spectators. Strong attendances across these matches led to the inclusion of the

Auckland Warriors The New Zealand Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and is the League's only team from outside Australia. They were formed in 1995 as ...

into the Winfield Cup in 1995. During its long history it hosted many matches in various

Rugby League World Cup The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league tournament contested by the top national men's representative teams. The tournament is administered by the International Rugby League and was first held in France in 1954, which was ...

s. The stadium capacity was officially listed as 17,000 when it closed in 2002 due to health and safety reasons. Between 1924 and 1999 Carlaw Park hosted sixty-six Test matches. The largest Test crowd was an estimated 28,000 during the 1928 England tour.

won the game, defeating

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 ...

17–13. The final rugby league test at the ground came on 22 October 1999 when New Zealand defeated

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...

74–0 in front of the ground's lowest ever test crowd of 4,528.

Later years

In August 2006 the Auckland Rugby League reached an agreement to lease the property off to be developed as a

retirement home A retirement home – sometimes called an old people's home or old age home, although ''old people's home'' can also refer to a nursing home – is a multi-residence housing facility intended for the elderly. Typically, each person or couple i ...

. No development has started as of August 2007. However the site has been officially 'handed over' in August 2007 in a ceremony involving Prime Minister Helen Clark. Carlaw Park was one of the venues under consideration for

Stadium New Zealand Stadium New Zealand, often called the Waterfront Stadium, was the provisional name for a national stadium proposed for the Auckland waterfront to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The stadium never advanced beyond a concept design. The possible cho ...

, a proposed stadium to host the

2011 Rugby World Cup The 2011 Rugby World Cup was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The International Rugby Board (IRB) selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japan and South Af ...

. Complications over the lease of the property, the requirement for additional land to be taken from Auckland Domain, and the proximity of the heavy traffic on Stanley Street led to other options being preferred by the Government. The backers of Carlaw Park hosting the Cup secured NZ$200 million for its possible development, but the government finally chose

Eden Park Eden Park is New Zealand's largest sports stadium, with a capacity of 50,000. Located in central Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, it is three kilometres southwest of the CBD, on the boundary between the suburbs of Mount Eden and King ...

to host the World Cup games. Carlaw Park is now the site of a

Caltex Caltex is a petroleum brand name of Chevron Corporation used in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, and Southern Africa. It is also the brand name of non-Chevron petroleum companies in some countries (such as New Zealand, and previously ...

service station, several offices, a Quest Apartments hotel building, and the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

's largest student accommodation Carlaw Park Student Village. Since mid-November 2018, Carlaw Park has been connected by a walkway to the

Parnell railway station Parnell railway station is a station serving the inner-city suburb of Parnell in Auckland, New Zealand. It is situated on the Newmarket Line, approximately 600m north of Parnell Tunnel, and is located in the Waipapa Valley adjacent to Aucklan ...

Rugby league test matches

List of rugby league test matches played at Carlaw Park.Carlaw Park
''rugbyleagueproject.org''

Rugby League World Cup

List of

matches played at Carlaw Park.
Results are from the 1968,

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

, 1977 and 1985–1988 World Cups.

References

{{1985-88 RLWC Venues Rugby League World Cup stadiums Defunct rugby league venues in New Zealand Sports venues in Auckland Multi-purpose stadiums in New Zealand Auckland Domain