The Wangaratta Showgrounds is situated on the banks of the Ovens River, close to central Wangaratta and provides a large venue for a host of local sports and community clubs. It has hosted the Wangaratta Agricultural Show since 1860 and the annual Wangaratta Athletic Carnival since 1917. The sports oval is a major North Eastern

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and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

venue in

Wangaratta Wangaratta ( ) is a city in the northeast of Victoria, Australia, from Melbourne along the Hume Highway. The city had an estimated urban population of 19,318 at June 2018. Wangaratta has recorded a population growth rate of almost 1% annually ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Australia and is known as the Norm Minns Oval.

History

The first annual exhibition (Wangaratta Show) was hosted in 1860 by the Ovens and Murray Agricultural and Horticultural Association on land near the Ovens River, Wangaratta. The Boxing Day Wangaratta Hospital Fete was first held at The Showgrounds in 1882, which also included an athletic program. The first recorded international cricket match hosted on the ground came when Wangaratta played the touring

Fijians Fijians ( fj, iTaukei, lit=Owners (of the land)) are a nation and ethnic group native to Fiji, who speak Fijian and share a common history and culture. Fijians, or ''iTaukei'', are the major indigenous people of the Fiji Islands, and live in ...

in 1908. The ground held its first first-class match in 1986 when

played

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in the

Sheffield Shield The Sheffield Shield (currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Marsh Sheffield Shield) is the domestic first-class cricket competition of Australia. The tournament is contested between teams from the six states of Australia. Sheffield Shi ...

. Ten years later a second first-class match was played there between Victoria and the

West Indians A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

. A

List A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

match was played there in the 2005/06

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between Victoria and

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. The Showgrounds Oval serves as a football ground in the winter. It is the home ground of the

Wangaratta Football Club The Wangaratta Magpies Football Club, officially known as the Wangaratta Magpies Football & Netball Club, is an Australian rules football club, which first played in the Ovens and Murray Football League in 1893 and is based in Wangaratta, Victori ...

, Junior Magpies Football Club and the Murray Bushrangers Football Club and is one of the

Ovens & Murray Football League The Ovens and Murray Football Netball League (O&MFNL) is an Australian rules football and netball competition containing ten clubs based in north-eastern Victoria, the southern Riverina region of New South Wales and the Ovens and Murray are ...

's main two venues, alongside

Lavington Sports Ground Lavington Sports Ground (known as "Lavington Panthers Oval" between 2001 and 2009) is a sports ground located in the suburb of Hamilton Valley near Lavington on the north-west fringe of the city of Albury, Australia. The oval is nestled in ...

Albury Albury () is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the ...

. The venue secured the rights to host five

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 games between 2012 and 2021; however, the first of those matches, to have been played between and in

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

, was cancelled after Essendon's chartered flights were unable to land in or near Wangaratta due to the very heavy afternoon rain throughout northern Victoria. The venue also hosted two matches in the 2005 Australian Football International Cup. The venue also has a bicycle track, and floodlighting suitable for night matches. The oval was renamed the Norm Minns Oval in honour of Norm Minns, who played in four consecutive O&MFL premierships with Wangaratta from 1949 to 1952, won another O&MFL flag as captain-coach of

Benalla Benalla is a small city located on the Broken River gateway to the High Country north-eastern region of Victoria, Australia, about north east of the state capital Melbourne. At the the population was 10,822. It is the administrative centr ...

in 1953, and went on to the committees and selection boards for both the Wangaratta and the O&MFL interleague teams.

Notes

* 1908 (first recorded international cricket match) *

: = 1986, 1996, 2006.

References

{{reflist

External links

The Showgrounds
at

ESPNcricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

The Showgrounds
at CricketArchive Cricket grounds in Australia Sports venues in Victoria (Australia) Sports venues completed in 1908 1908 establishments in Australia