Perry Park is a 5,000-capacity sporting ground located in the

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

suburb of

Bowen Hills Bowen Hills is an inner north-eastern Suburbs and localities (Australia), suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Bowen Hills had a population of 4,898 people. Geography Bowen Hills is by road from the Brisbane centr ...

. Perry Park is home to the Brisbane Strikers, which plays in Queensland Premier League 1. Perry Park is owned by

Brisbane City Council Brisbane City Council (BCC, also known as Council) is the local government of the City of Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. The largest local government in Australia by population, BCC's jurisdiction includes 2 ...

, and managed by the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

, who run facilities in the complex. Brisbane Strikers hold a sub-lease from the YMCA.

History

Scotsman Scottish people or Scots (; ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Scotland. Historically, they emerged in the early Middle Ages from an amalgamation of two Celtic peoples, the Picts and Gaels, who founded the Kingdom of Scotland (o ...

William Raff was granted ownership of the land in 1857. He then subdivided the land in 1875, and the lot where Perry Park is now situated was sold to

William Perry William Perry may refer to: Business * William H. Perry (businessman) (1832–1906), American businessman and entrepreneur * William Perry (Queensland businessman) (1835–1891), businessman and politician in Queensland, Australia Politics an ...

, among three other lots. Mr Perry was a prominent

ironmonger Ironmongery originally referred, first, to the manufacture of iron goods and, second, to the place of sale of such items for domestic rather than industrial use. In both contexts, the term has expanded to include items made of steel, aluminium ...

. He used the land essentially as his family

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are calle ...

and

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

paddock.

Australian rules football

Brisbane_vs_Valleys_1923_from_The_Daily_Mail_29_August_1923

In its oval configuration Perry Park was primarily used as 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 Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

and cricket between the 1920s and 1950s. From 1923 it was home to the

Queensland Australian Football League The Queensland Australian Football League (QAFL or "Q-A-F-L") is an Australian rules football competition organised by the AFL Queensland, contested by clubs from South East Queensland. Founded in 1903 it was previously known as the Queens ...

and the Mayne Football Club from 1925. The ground hosted 27 QANFL Grand Finals and many interstate games. The QAFL outgrew Perry Park in the 1950s, leaving it for the

Brisbane Exhibition Ground The Brisbane Showgrounds (formerly known as the Brisbane Exhibition Ground) is a multi-purpose venue located in Bowen Hills, Brisbane, Australia. Established in 1875, it hosts more than 250 events each year, the largest being the Royal Queen ...

and the

Brisbane Cricket Ground The Brisbane Cricket Ground, commonly known as the Gabba, is a major sports stadium in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. The nickname Gabba derives from the suburb of Woolloongabba, in which it is located. Over the years, the Ga ...

Wartime use

In the 1940s it was used as a base for the

Z Special Unit Z Special Unit () was a joint Allied special forces unit formed during the Second World War to operate behind Japanese lines in South East Asia. Predominantly Australian, Z Special Unit was a specialist clandestine operation, direct action, lo ...

of the Australian, British and New Zealand

armed forces A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a ...

for their 1943 raid on Japanese occupied

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

harbour.

Cricket

It was home to the Valleys Cricket Club from 1925 to 1942 and 1948 to 1967.

Soccer

acquired the land for soccer grounds in 1967 and converted the oval into two rectangular pitches with the main pitch along Abbotsford Road allocated as the main Perry Park stadium. In 1977, Perry Park Stadium hosted its first

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 ...

(NSL) game between Brisbane City and

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

club

Marconi Fairfield Marconi Stallions Football Club is an Australian semi-professional association football club based in Fairfield, Sydney, New South Wales. The club has been crowned Australian champion four times. The Stallions are the soccer team of Club Marc ...

. Perry Park hosted its sole international football match on 20 September 1992, when the Australian national football team hosted

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

in a

1994 FIFA World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States w ...

qualifier, as part of the

Oceania Football Confederation The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is one of the six continental confederations of international association football. The OFC has 13 members, 11 of which are full members and two which are associate members not affiliated with FIFA. It ...

qualifying draw.

Brisbane Strikers

The ground is home to the Brisbane Strikers; however the Strikers did not play all of its home games there during its reign in the

(alternating between Lang Park (now Suncorp Stadium), Ballymore and Perry Park). The club now plays all of its home games at Perry Park in the National Premier Leagues Queensland. In 2016, the Strikers hosted Melbourne City in the

FFA Cup The Australia Cup (currently known as the Hahn Australia Cup for sponsorship reasons) is the national soccer knockout cup competition in Australia. This annual competition is organised by Football Australia (known as Football Federation Austra ...

, losing 1–2 in the

Round of 16 A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

in front of a sell-out 3571 crowd (the crowd being capped due to security concerns). The match was

Tim Cahill Timothy Filiga Cahill (; born 6 December 1979) is an Australian former professional soccer player who played as an attacking midfielder but also played as a striker on many occasions. A box-to-box midfielder, Cahill became recognised for "hi ...

's first in City colours. The following year, the Strikers hosted former NSL club Heidelberg United in the 2017 National Premier Leagues final. The Strikers lost 0–2 in front of a crowd of 1105. As part of the Strikers' aborted bid for an

A-League A-League Men, also known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional soccer league in Australia and New Zealand and the highest level of the Australian soccer league system. Established in 2004 as the A-League by the ...

licence in 2018, the club produced plans for a complete rebuild of the facility, which would have seen the current Bill Waddell stand demolished and the pitched moved to the east to accommodate a 15,694-seat boutique stadium. Perry Park Cox Architects

References

External links

* {{Coord, 27, 26, 36, S, 153, 2, 22, E, region:AU, display=title Brisbane Strikers Sports venues in Brisbane Soccer venues in Brisbane Bowen Hills, Queensland A-League Women stadiums