Wentworth Park is a park near the suburbs of
Glebe
Glebe (; also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s))McGurk 1970, p. 17 is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved ...
and
Ultimo in
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
,
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
, Australia.
The park contains several muti-purpose sporting pitches, cricket nets and a number of fitness installations. There is a playground in the southern area of the park and seating for picnics. Public toilets are next to the sports field.
In the centre of the park is the
Wentworth Park Sporting Complex.
History
Wentworth Park was initially a creek and swamp, known from the 1830s as Blackwattle Cove Swamp. Between the 1830s and 1860s, various toxic industries were established along the shore, including, in particular,
abattoir
A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility.
Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...
s and
boiling down
Boiling down was the term used in Australia for the process of rendering the fat from animal carcasses to produce tallow. It was a common activity on farms and pastoral properties to produce tallow to be made into soap and candles for domestic us ...
works. The pollution from these works befouled the swamp so that, even after the removal of these establishments from the area, the local council lobbied to have the area in-filled because of the stench that continued to arise from the water and mud.
Infilling of the creek and head of the swamp commenced in 1876 and continued until 1880. Silt dredged from the
Sydney Harbour
Port Jackson, consisting of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, is the ria or natural harbour of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The harbour is an inlet of the Tasman Sea (p ...
was used to carry out the process and numerous sea walls and dykes were constructed as part of the program. When the area was filled, trustees were appointed to manage the new park and a competition was announced to design the new facility. After numerous complaints regarding the management of the competition, the construction commenced and by 1882 opinion had turned favourably to the new ovals, greens, paths, lakes and other facilities offered in the park, named in honour of
William Wentworth
William Charles Wentworth (August 179020 March 1872) was an Australian pastoralist, explorer, newspaper editor, lawyer, politician and author, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures of early colonial New South Wales.
Throug ...
.
Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, the park came to serve as a focus for community activities including concerts, celebrations, moving pictures and in particular the home of Glebe Dirty Reds and sport in general. During the
1910 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand
The 1910 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand was the first international tour of the Great Britain national rugby league team, "The Lions". They played the second ever Ashes series against Australia, and their first as the visiti ...
, an
Australasian team defeated
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
at the ground before a crowd of approximately 15,000.
The commencement of hostilities for
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
led to a downturn in patronage of the park's amenities although community functions, such as stretcher drills and polling were carried out here. The main effect of World War I was the introduction of a large number of timber sheds used to store wool for the war effort. These sheds lingered on at the park for a number of years after the war.
As a sporting venue
Wentworth Park was originally a rugby league sports ground in the
Glebe
Glebe (; also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s))McGurk 1970, p. 17 is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved ...
area, the home ground of the
Glebe Dirty Reds
The Glebe Dirty Reds are an Australian rugby league foundation club which played in the New South Wales Rugby Football League's Sydney premiership, the major competition for the sport in Sydney, from 1908 until their exit at the end of 1929. Th ...
who were a part of the
New South Wales Rugby League premiership
The New South Wales Rugby League premiership was the first rugby league football club competition established in Australia and contributor to today's National Rugby League. Run by the New South Wales Rugby League (initially named the New Sout ...
at the time of the competition's inception. The ground was also home to
Annandale rugby league team throughout their existence from 1910 to 1920. After the Glebe Dirty Reds were removed from the competition at the end of 1929,
Balmain Tigers
The Balmain Tigers (also known as the Sydney Tigers from 1995–96) are a rugby league club based in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Balmain. They were a founding member of the New South Wales Rugby League and one of the most successful in t ...
continued to play some of their home matches at the ground. The final game of first grade rugby league played at Wentworth Park was in Round 2, 1931 when the Balmain Tigers played against University with Balmain Tigers winning 29–14. A question over the use of league or grounds gatemen led the League to decide to use other grounds.
From 1928 until 1936, Wentworth Park was also used as a speedway and was known as Wentworth Speedway. The first racing took place on 21 April 1928 and continued until 28 November 1936.
Motorcycle speedway
Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that use only ...
was the first category to use the venue, with competitors including future
Speedway World Champions Lionel Van Praag
Lionel Maurice Van Praag, GM (17 December 1908 – 15 May 1987) was an Australian motorcycle speedway champion, who won the inaugural Speedway World Championship in London on 10 September 1936. Van Praag's victory saw him established as Austra ...
and
Bluey Wilkinson
Arthur George "Bluey" Wilkinson (27 August 1911 – 27 July 1940) was an international speedway rider. Wilkinson was Speedway World Champion in 1938 after narrowly missing out on winning the inaugural Championship in 1936.
Early life
Wi ...
. Wentworth Park was the site of Sydney's first ever
Speedcar race on 5 October 1935. The final speedway meeting was to have taken place on 5 December 1936, but track damage and noise complaints saw the meeting cancelled.
During July 1938 the government granted a second greyhound racing licence (consisting of 26 fixtures) for Wentworth Park. Although the licence was granted in July 1938 it was not until Saturday 28 October 1939 that the new track opened. The opening had been delayed due to the construction of the track taking longer than expected.
Sporting Complex
Wentworth Park Sporting Complex is a multi-purpose
sporting facility Over the years, the facility has been used for various sports including
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 ...
,
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...
,
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 ...
,
greyhound racing
Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around a track. There are two forms of greyhound racing, track racing (normally around an oval track) and coursing; the latter is now banned in most countries. Tra ...
, and
speedway
Speedway may refer to:
Racing Race tracks
*Edmonton International Speedway, also known as Speedway Park, a former motor raceway in Edmonton, Alberta
*Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a motor raceway in Speedway, Indiana
Types of races and race cours ...
. Wentworth Park is located from the
Sydney central business district
The Sydney central business district (CBD) is the historical and main Central business district, commercial centre of Sydney. The CBD is Sydney's city centre, or Sydney City, and the two terms are used interchangeably. Colloquially, the CBD or c ...
.
Greyhound racing is conducted at Wentworth Park on Wednesday and Saturday nights as well as some special events. Greyhound races are conducted over . The track is a sand surface having been converted from grass in the 1990s. Hurdle racing was a feature of Wentworth Park until the early 1980s. It fell away and annual events were held in December for a number of years until the mid-1990s.
The nearby
University of Technology, Sydney
The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is a public research university located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Although its origins are said to trace back to the 1830s, the university was founded in its current form in 1988. As of 2021 ...
and other educational facilities regularly hold student
examinations within two levels of the grandstand.
Tenants to the Wentworth Park complex include Janison Exam Management (formerly Language Testing Consultants (LTC)) and The New South Wales Greyhound Breeders, Owners and Trainers Association (NSW GBOTA).
The infield oval is used by local schools as well other community sporting groups for sporting events.
Since the 1980s, The New South Wales Greyhound Owners Breeders and Trainers Association (NSW GBOTA) has been the primary tenant of Wentworth Park (previously sharing with the now defunct NSW National Coursing Association Club). Greyhound racing is held at the venue every Wednesday and Saturday nights from 7.30pm. The biggest event of the year at Wentworth Park is the Group 1
Golden Easter Egg
The Golden Easter Egg is an Australian Group 1 Greyhound racing in Australia, greyhound race held annually at Sydney's Wentworth Park racetrack in Glebe, New South Wales, Glebe. In 2012 it was listed as the richest greyhound race in the world.
...
which provides prize money of 1,000,000 across the Easter carnival. The Carnival attracts approximately 25,000 racegoers. The final night is held annually on Easter Saturday.
Wentworth Park is also the home ground of semi-professional
association football
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 ...
club
Balmain Tigers FC
Balmain & District Football Club is an Australian soccer club. It was the successor of the defunct Balmain Tigers Football Club was an Australian semi-professional football club based in the Inner West suburb of Balmain in Sydney, New South W ...
who play in the
NSW State League Division 1
The NSW League Two Men is an Australian semi-professional association football league comprising teams from New South Wales. The league sits at Level 3 on the New South Wales league system (Level 4 of the overall Australian soccer league system, ...
, the third division of football in New South Wales.
On 5 January 2018, it was announced that the Glebe Dirty Reds would return to Wentworth Park to play pre-season games which would be the first time that rugby league has been played there in 90 years. The matches also featured The
Newtown Jets
The Newtown Jets are an Australian rugby league football club based in Newtown, a suburb of Sydney's inner west. They currently compete in the NSW Cup competition, having left the top grade after the 1983 NSWRFL season. The Jets' home ground ...
and The
Blacktown Workers Sea Eagles
The Blacktown Workers Rugby League Football Club, also known as Blacktown Workers Sea Eagles, are an Australian rugby league football club based in Blacktown, New South Wales formed in 1962. Since 2017 they have had a side in the NSW Cup, as th ...
. On 17 February 2019, the Glebe Dirty Reds played in a pre-season trial game against the
North Sydney Bears
The North Sydney Bears is an Australian rugby league football club based in North Sydney, New South Wales. The club competes in the New South Wales Cup, having exited the National Rugby League following the 1999 NRL season after 90 years in the ...
at Wentworth Park; and won, 24–12. This was the first time the two clubs had met since 1929. The day also featured two other matches with the Newtown Jets playing against the North Sydney
Intrust Super Premiership NSW
The NSW Cup, currently known as the Knock-On Effect NSW Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a rugby league competition for clubs in New South Wales. The competition has a history dating back to the NSWRFL's origins in 1908, starting off as a reserv ...
side and Ryde-Eastwood against
Sydney University rugby league team
The Sydney University Rugby League Football Club is a rugby league team currently playing in the Saturday Metro League competition. The University of Sydney was represented in the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership from 1920 to 19 ...
.
See also
*
Glebe and Wentworth Park railway viaducts
The Glebe and Wentworth Park railway viaducts are a series of two heritage-listed railway bridges and arch bridge, arch viaducts that carry the Inner West Light Rail across Wentworth Park, Jubilee Park, and Johnstons Creek (New South Wales), Joh ...
*
List of parks in Sydney
Sydney is well endowed with open spaces and has many natural areas. Many of these exist even within the compact city centre. These include the Chinese Garden of Friendship and Hyde Park (which is named after London's Hyde Park). The metropo ...
References
External links
*
*
Creative Commons license">CC-By-SA
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright license
A public license or public copyright licenses is a license by which a copyright holder as licensor can grant additional copyright permissions to any and all pers ...
]
{{NRL Grounds
Rugby league stadiums in Australia
Greyhound racing venues in Australia
Balmain Tigers
Greyhound racing in Australia
Soccer venues in Sydney
Glebe, New South Wales
Parks in Sydney