The Kensington Oval is located on 344 The Parade,

Kensington, South Australia Kensington is a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia in the City of Norwood, Payneham & St Peters council area. Unlike the rest of the city, Kensington's streets are laid out diagonally. Second Creek runs through and under part of the suburb, wh ...

. Now used primarily for

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 ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, the venue was once

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

's premier

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

facility and known as Olympic Sports Field.Australian Stadiums - Kensington Oval
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Early history

From an area originally known as Shipsters Paddock, Kensington Oval was officially opened on Saturday, 10 July 1875.
/ref> The ground was originally used for a range of sports including Australian Rules Football. The Kensington Football Club and the

Norwood Football Club Norwood Football Club, nicknamed the Redlegs, is an Australian rules football club competing in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) in the state of South Australia. Its home ground is Coopers Stadium (Norwood Oval), which i ...

played at the oval between 1875 and 1897. The Norwood Cycle and Motor Club, now Norwood Cycling Club, the oldest

cycling club A cycling club is a society for cyclists. Clubs tend to be mostly local, and can be general or specialised. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Cyclists' Touring Club, (CTC) is a national cycling association; the Tricycle Association, Tandem ...

in the southern hemisphere, had its opening day celebrations at the oval on 4 February 1884. Despite being located in Adelaide's eastern suburbs, the oval was also the home ground for the West Adelaide Football Club in 1897. As the home ground of the Kensington Districts Cricket Club, Sir Donald Bradman played there often after joining the Kensington club upon his move to Adelaide from Sydney in 1935.

Olympic Sports Field

From 1963, the ground was converted into an athletics stadium, featuring a rubber-bitumen track. In 1975, the track was upgraded to tartan track. As Olympic Sports Field, the ground was home to Athletics South Australia's interclub athletics competition from October to March and the South Australian Championships. A number of Australian Championships; in 1967, 1968, 1970, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1986 and 1992, were also held at the venue.Athletics Australia - National Championships
The ground was also home to the

Adelaide City Adelaide City Football Club is a soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia. The club was known historically as Juventus — the original name given to the club by its founders in Adelaide's Italian community. Adelaide City is one of Aust ...

soccer club and, in 1977, a game against Sydney Marconi saw a record crowd of 13,132.

Redevelopment as Kensington Oval

In the 1990s, a new home for South Australian athletics,

Santos Stadium SA Athletics Stadium is a comprehensive, modern athletics facility. Located only a few minutes drive from the Adelaide CBD, the athletics facility offers a national standard nine lane running track and field complex including training and warm-u ...

, was built and the oval was returned to a sports playing field, which is held in trust by the City of Burnside and is currently leased for specific hours of (school term) use by the nearby Pembroke School. The running track was removed in 1997 and the ground was redeveloped as a cricket ground. Its original name of Kensington Oval was revived and the ground now plays host to grade and women's cricket matches.

References

{{coord, 34, 55, 18, S, 138, 39, 10, E, display=title Athletics (track and field) venues in Australia 1875 establishments in Australia Sports venues in Adelaide Sports venues completed in 1875 Cricket grounds in Australia