Leederville Oval (known as Medibank Stadium under a

naming rights Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...

agreement between 2006 and 2016) is an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

ground located in Leederville, a suburb of

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Western Australia. The ground is used as a home ground by two clubs: the

East Perth Football Club The East Perth Football Club, nicknamed the Royals, is an Australian rules football club based in Leederville, Western Australia, current playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). Formed in 1902 as the Union Football Club, the clu ...

and the Subiaco Football Club, both competing in the

West Australian Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...

(WAFL). The ground was previously home to the

West Perth Football Club The West Perth Football Club, nicknamed the Falcons, is an Australian rules football club located in Joondalup, Western Australia. West Perth competes in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW) and is the oldest exi ...

from 1915 to 1993, before the club moved to Arena Joondalup, its current home ground. The ground is serviced by the

Joondalup railway line The Joondalup line is a commuter rail service in Western Australia, linking the Perth central business district (CBD) with the metropolitan area's north-western suburbs. The service is operated on the Northern Suburbs Railway by Transperth Trai ...

, with the nearest stop being the Leederville station.

History

Originally part of a series of interconnected wetlands north of the

Perth central business district Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is p ...

, the land now part of the ground was first established as a recreation reserve by the

Municipality of Leederville The Municipality of Leederville was a local government area in inner suburban Perth, Western Australia, based around the suburb of Leederville. It was established as the Leederville Road District on 3 May 1895. It was renamed the Municipality o ...

in 1900.A Brief History of the Suburb Leederville
– vincentheritage.com.au. Retrieved 20 November 2011. The ground was opened in July 1915 with a timber and brick

grandstand A grandstand is a normally permanent structure for seating spectators. This includes both auto racing and horse racing. The grandstand is in essence like a single section of a stadium, but differs from a stadium in that it does not wrap a ...

as a purpose-built venue for the

, who had previously shared the

WACA Ground The WACA (formally the WACA Ground) is a sports stadium in Perth, Western Australia. The stadium's name derives from the initials of its owners and operators, the Western Australian Cricket Association. The WACA has been referred to as Wester ...

with the

Perth Football Club The Perth Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is an Australian rules football club based in Lathlain, Western Australia, currently playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). Representing the south-east area of the Perth metropo ...

. The first match was played on 24 July 1915, with defeating West Perth by fifteen points, 10.9 (69) to 6.18 (54). A number of other sports were played at Leederville Oval from the early 1920s to the early 1970s. The Western Australian Amateur Athletic Association leased the ground for a number of years, and the Australian Open Track and Field Championships were held there in 1940 (men's), 1947 (women's), 1953 (men's), 1954 (women's) and 1960 (men's). A

picture theatre A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall (Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

operated at the ground in 1924. Due to a dispute between the

Perth City Council Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

and the WANFL regarding the rental agreement, neither Leederville Oval nor

Perth Oval Perth Oval, currently branded HBF Park (under a sponsorship agreement with HBF Health Fund) and called Perth Rectangular Stadium for international football matches, is a sports stadium in Perth, the capital of the Australian state of Western A ...

were used during the 1940 WANFL season. West Perth were forced to use

Subiaco Oval Subiaco Oval (; nicknamed Subi) was a sports stadium in Perth, Western Australia, located in the suburb of Subiaco. It was opened in 1908 and closed in 2017 after the completion of the new Perth Stadium in Burswood. Subiaco Oval was the high ...

and the

for the duration of the season. The ground underwent extensive redevelopments beginning in 1958 to allow it to be used as a venue for the

1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games The 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games were held in Perth, Australia, from 22 November to 1 December 1962. Athletic events were held at Perry Lakes Stadium in the suburb of Floreat and swimming events at Beatty Park in North Perth. The ...

in Perth. This involved "shrouding" the timber base of the old grandstand with concrete. The new construction was named the RP Fletcher Stand after the president of the West Perth Football Club from 1946 to 1962. A match between West Perth and East Perth in round 21 of the 1978 season saw 24,567 attend, a ground record. West Perth vacated the ground in 1993, moving to Arena Joondalup for the 1994 season. At the last West Perth home game held at the ground, in August 1993 against Subiaco, a crowd of 20,112 people attended. A small number of East Perth and Subiaco home matches were played at the ground after 1994; however, these were not well-attended. With the restructure of the City of Perth in 1994, responsibility for the ground was transferred to the newly formed Town of Vincent. The council's headquarters were located in the Leederville Oval grandstand until its new administrative centre was constructed. The ground hosted two

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

pre-season In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of Se ...

matches in February 1995: one between a under-23 and a under-23 side, and one between West Coast and . After the East Perth and Subiaco Football Clubs agreed to move into the ground, in 2003 and 2004 respectively, a A$4 million redevelopment was announced, funded by the State Government and the Town of Vincent. It was also proposed by the

Department of Sport and Recreation Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

to move some

interstate The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...

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 striki ...

matches to Leederville Oval from the WACA Ground; however this did not eventuate. In 2006, the Town of Vincent signed a A$250,000

deal with

Medibank Private Medibank Private Limited, better known as simply Medibank, is one of the largest Australian private health insurance providers, covering 3.7 million people in 2021. Medibank initially started as an Australian Government not-for-profit insurer i ...

to rename the ground "Medibank Stadium" for three years. This was renewed in 2009. Leederville Oval hosted

(AFL) pre-season matches in 2006 and 2010, featuring and and West Coast and Carlton respectively, and WAFL inter-league matches in 2004, 2009 and 2010.VFL demolishes WAFL in State League clash at Leederville Oval
– perthnow.com.au. Published 22 May 2010. Retrieved 20 November 2011.

References

External links

* {{WAFL Women's West Australian Football League grounds Sports venues in Perth, Western Australia East Perth Football Club Subiaco Football Club West Perth Football Club Vincent Street, North Perth