Clive Berghofer Stadium (officially known as Toowoomba Sports Ground and previously known as Athletic Oval) is a stadium in

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( , nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar') is a city in the Toowoomba Region of the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. It is west of Queensland's capital city Brisbane by road. The urban population of Toowoomba as of the 2021 ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

, Australia. Situated on Mary Street on the eastern fringes of

Toowoomba CBD Toowoomba City is an urban locality in the Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. It is the central suburb of Toowoomba, containing its central business district. In the , Toowoomba City had a population of 2,088 people. Geography The subu ...

adjacent to Queens Park and

Toowoomba East State School Toowoomba East State School is a heritage-listed state school on the corner of Arthur and Mary Streets, East Toowoomba, Queensland, East Toowoomba, Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1935 to 1936 by the Queensland Depar ...

. The ticket counters and entrance are on Arthur Street behind the (east facing) grandstand. It was renamed to reflect the home club's major sponsor, philanthropist property developer and former local Mayor

Clive Berghofer Clive John Berghofer (born 4 March 1935) is an Australian property developer, politician and philanthropist. He was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, Alderman and Mayor of Toowoomba. Early life Clive Berghofer was born on 4 May ...

. The stadium is the home ground of

National Premier Leagues The National Premier Leagues (NPL) is a national association football competition in Australia which acts as the second tier of the sport in the country below the A-League. The NPL consists of the highest level state league in each state-based ...

soccer club, the

South West Queensland Thunder South West Queensland Thunder is a semi-professional soccer club based Toowoomba, and represents the South West Queensland Region in the National Premier Leagues Queensland and Football Queensland Premier League. The club was established in 20 ...

. The

Gold Coast Titans The Gold Coast Titans are a professional rugby league football club, based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. The club competes in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australia and New Zealand's national rugby league club competition. The ...

have played pre-season games here since 2014 and in 2018 hosted the first ever

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

(NRL) premiership match in Toowoomba. The stadium also plays host to

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 ...

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 it ...

and

football (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 ...

and includes lights which are up to National Rugby League standard. The recently upgraded grandstand includes undercover seating for 2,300. It has the capacity to hold 9,000 people officially, however the largest crowd is estimated to be 10,000 which occurred during a 2004 NRL pre-season game between

Brisbane Broncos The Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Football Club Ltd., commonly referred to as the Broncos, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos play in Australia's elite c ...

and

Melbourne Storm The Melbourne Storm are a rugby league club based in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia that participates in the National Rugby League. The first fully professional rugby league team based in the state, the Storm entered the competition in 1998. ...

.Profile
at austadiums.com In the past, the stadium has hosted international and national rugby league matches as well as concerts and rodeos. The stadium became the scene of controversy when indigenous activist Stephen Hagan in 1999 noticed a sign declaring the name of the E. S. "Nigger" Brown Stand, named after the 1920s rugby league player Edwin Stanley Brown who was also known as "Nigger" Brown. Hagan regarded the word "

nigger In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cases ...

" as offensive and embarked on a ten-year campaign to have the stand renamed, while those opposed to the renaming said that Brown's nickname could not be a racial slur as Brown was a fair-skinned man of European descent. While Hagan's court battles were ultimately unsuccessful, the name was not used again when the stand was demolished as part of the stadium's upgrades.

References

Sports venues in Queensland Rugby league stadiums in Australia Rugby union stadiums in Australia Soccer venues in Queensland Buildings and structures in Toowoomba Toowoomba Clydesdales Venues of the 2032 Summer Olympics and Paralympics {{Australia-sports-venue-stub

See also

References