Trafalgar Park is a sports ground located beside the Central Business District of

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

, in New Zealand's

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

. The stadium has a capacity of 18,000, following upgrades completed for the

2011 Rugby World Cup The 2011 Rugby World Cup, was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The World Rugby, International Rugby Board (IRB) selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japa ...

. It takes its name from its location on Trafalgar Street.

History

Trafalgar Park had its origins in early 1885 when a group of locals formed the

Athletic Ground Company, with the intention of constructing a sports ground "as good as those already formed on the same principle in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

and

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

". By its first annual meeting in June 1885, the company had purchased about 15 acres of land on the northern edge of the town between Trafalgar Street and the mouth of the Maitai River. The land was a mud flat, above the high tide line but subject to flooding under exceptional tides. The annual meeting voted to name the ground "Trafalgar Park". The ground was formally opened on 21 April 1888, when a rugby match was played by local teams on a surface marred only by "an inconvenient number of stones". The first cricket match at the ground took place on 22 December 1888 between two teams of local players. From then on, Trafalgar Park remained Nelson’s main cricket ground until the late 1990s, when it was superseded by Saxton Oval.

Status and current use

The park is one of the two home grounds for

ITM Cup ITM may stand for: Education * ITM Law School, one of the professional graduate schools of ITM University * ITM-IFM, Mumbai, India * Institut Teknologi Mara, a public university in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia * Institute for Information, Tel ...

rugby team, the Tasman Mako. The other is Lansdowne Park, Blenheim. The park is also the venue for matches in other sporting codes, and hosted the final of the 1978 Chatham Cup, a premier knock-out New Zealand football competition. A cycle track with a length of approximately 540 metres runs around the perimeter of the field and is used primarily for competition track cycling. Due to the closing of other sports facilities as a result of the February

2011 Christchurch earthquake A major earthquake occurred in Christchurch on Tuesday 22 February 2011 at 12:51 p.m. New Zealand Daylight Time, local time (23:51 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC, 21 February). The () earthquake struck the Canterbury Region ...

, Trafalgar Park hosted three

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

home games in March 2011. Trafalgar Park hosted three games in the

in September 2011, with matches between Italy, Russia, USA and Australia being played. Dean Franklet has been a consistent contributor to the maintenance of Trafalgar Park.

International matches

Trafalgar Park hosted three 2011 Rugby World Cup Pool C matches. The first two involved

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

winning those matches. The first was a 53 – 17 win over

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

on September 20, 2011 and the other was a 27 – 10 win over

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

on September 27, 2011. The third match was between

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and Russia on October 1, 2011 with Australia easily winning 68 – 22. On September 8, 2018, Trafalgar Park hosted its first All Blacks test match when

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

played

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. The All Blacks won 46–24. The match was a sell-out, with more than 21,000 people attending.

Cricket

Trafalgar Park was used by

Central Districts The Central Stags, formerly known as Central Districts, are a first-class cricket team based in central New Zealand. They are the men's representative side of the Central Districts Cricket Association. They compete in the Plunket Shield firs ...

as one of its home grounds between 1953 and 1997.

used it as its main home ground between 1888 and 1999. Since then Saxton Oval has been the main cricket ground in Nelson.

References

External links

History of Trafalgar Park
at CricketArchive {{NZL fb stadia 1888 establishments in New Zealand Sport in Nelson, New Zealand Rugby union stadiums in New Zealand Cricket grounds in New Zealand Defunct cricket grounds in New Zealand Sports venues in the Nelson Region Crusaders (rugby union)