Knights Stadium is an Australian

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

stadium in Sunshine North, a suburb of

Melbourne, Victoria Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung–Taungurung language, Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the St ...

. Built in 1989, it is used by the

Melbourne Knights Melbourne Knights Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in the suburb of Sunshine North, Melbourne. The club currently competes in the National Premier Leagues Victoria, the second-tier of the Australian soccer league ...

as a home ground in the

NPL Victoria The National Premier Leagues Victoria, commonly known as NPL Victoria, is a semi-professional soccer league in Victoria, Australia. The league is a part of the National Premier Leagues, and is the highest level within the Victorian soccer lea ...

competition, and previously in the

National Soccer League The National Soccer League (NSL) was the top-level soccer league in Australia, run by Soccer Australia and later the Australian Soccer Association. The NSL, the A-League's predecessor, spanned 28 seasons from its inception in 1977 until its d ...

(NSL). The Knights were one of only a handful of clubs in the NSL to actually own their home ground. The land at Somers Street, which had been a

Village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

drive through cinema, was bought and developed largely through donations and volunteer work from the local Croatian community. The idea was that if 1000 people each donated $300 that would equal $300,000, more than enough to purchase the land. Knights Stadium east

The stadium holds approximately 15,000 people. It consists of a seated main stand (the

Mark Viduka Mark Antony Viduka ( ; born 9 October 1975) is an Australian retired football player who played as a centre forward. He captained the Australia national team to the Round of 16 at the 2006 FIFA World Cup which remains their best ever performance ...

Stand) which has a capacity of 4,000 and open standing-room terracing around the rest of the stadium. The largest crowd at the stadium came in 2000 at a

match between the

and

South Melbourne South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at t ...

, it drew a crowd of 11,500. The Stadium complex covers around . It has three pitches, including the main pitch. The complex also contains the Melbourne Croatia club rooms and the Knights Sports Gym (an open to the public member's boxing / fitness gymnasium under the stadium). The facility has two car parks with 700 spaces. The stadium is also home to the Melbourne Croatia Soccer Club, which currently owns the stadium with the

serving as tenants. This came about in 2006 when the

and Melbourne Croatia Soccer Club Inc. separated and become two separate legal entities. The beginning of 2008 saw Knights Stadium facilities receive its most significant face-lift since the grandstand was first built with the main pitch being re-laid, as well as renovations on both the grandstand and terraces. Viduka Knights Stadium

In the 2009 season the stadium's name was changed from Knights Stadium to Mansion Stadium, after online betting giant Mansion88, became the club's major sponsor and bought the naming rights to the stadium. This was a temporary naming deal for the 2009 season. Their sponsorship deal has since ended and the name then returned to that of Knights Stadium. In 2011, the club replaced 900 old and broken seats in order to host the first round of the 2011 Australasian Supercross Championships. In 2016, Knights spent around $100,000 on Stadium upgrades, including further asphalting of the car-park and a replacement of the old, tall fence, with a smaller, more viewer-friendly, fence, bringing it in line with most other premium stadiums around the State.

References

External links

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Melbourne Knights
{{National Premier Leagues Victoria stadiums Soccer venues in Melbourne Rugby union stadiums in Australia Sports venues in Melbourne Melbourne Knights FC Sports venues completed in 1989 Sport in the City of Brimbank Buildings and structures in the City of Brimbank