Adelaide Oval — South Australia’s Footy Showpiece

Adelaide Oval is what happens when a city decides it’s had enough of being the polite middle child of Australian sport. For decades, South Australians put up with the corporate concrete of Football Park (out at West Lakes, with all the charm of a discount Bunnings carpark). Then in 2014 they finished a $610 million redevelopment of the old test cricket ground, dragged AAMI Stadium to the dustbin, and announced — in that quiet South Australian way — that they were now hosting the loudest 53,000-seat ear-bashing in the country. They weren’t lying.

The History: Cricket Ground to Footy Cathedral

Adelaide Oval has been a cricket ground since 1871. The first international cricket match here was 1884 against England. The Moreton Bay fig trees on the eastern side of the ground were planted in 1893; some of them are still there, and they’re heritage-listed. Don Bradman called it his favourite Australian ground. The scoreboard — the iconic manually-operated one on the eastern hill — dates from 1911 and is also heritage-listed. The Adelaide Oval is, in cricket terms, sacred.

For most of its history, footy was a barely-tolerated guest. The SANFL hosted finals here occasionally; the VFL/AFL came through for state-of-origin games and the occasional one-off. The Crows and Power played at Football Park (West Lakes) from their respective debuts (1991 and 1997).

Then, in the late 2000s, the South Australian state government, the SANFL, the Adelaide Oval Stadium Management Authority and the AFL clubs got together and worked out a deal. Football Park was sold; the Crows and Power would move to Adelaide Oval; the redevelopment would expand the ground from a 32,000-seat cricket venue to a 53,500-seat dual-code stadium. Cost: $610 million. Funded by: state government bonds.

The redevelopment finished in early 2014. The first AFL match was Round 1 2014 — Adelaide vs North Melbourne — and the venue immediately re-set the standard for Australian footy crowds. Average AFL attendance at Adelaide Oval since 2014: 45,000+, regularly higher than the MCG average.

The Footy: Crows + Power = One Ground

Adelaide Oval hosts both Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide home games. Showdowns (Crows vs Power) are the loudest fixtures on the entire AFL calendar, often hitting 52,000+ on a Saturday night. The stadium is configured with both clubs’ colours on different LED boards, and the goalposts are repainted between games.

The pitch dimensions: 167m × 124m. Long, narrow, and one of the longest grounds in the AFL. Forwards complain it’s hard to mark deep; midfielders love how the wings stretch out. The grass is couch with rye over-seeding (similar to the MCG). The pitch was relaid in 2020; another relay is due around 2027.

The South Australian crowd is, frankly, ferocious. There’s something about Adelaide footy fans — the city is small enough that you know every other person at the game, the rivalry is intense enough that the entire town shuts down for a Showdown, and the SANFL parochialism is real enough that the AFL has effectively had to defer to local culture in scheduling.

Famous Moments

Adelaide Oval’s footy lore is shorter than the MCG’s but rich. Eddie Betts’s freak goal against the Crows in the 2017 preliminary final from the boundary, banana from 50m. The 2017 preliminary final itself, Adelaide thrashing Geelong 17.10 (112) to 9.7 (61) on the way to their Grand Final loss. The 2020 Showdown with Port winning by a single point with 30 seconds left. The Crows’ 2017 home preliminary — the Crows’ last finals win to date.

The cricket lore overlaps: Adam Gilchrist’s century at Adelaide Oval in the 2003 Boxing Day Test (wait, that was the MCG — Adelaide gets the New Year’s Test). Bradman’s 299 not out. Australia vs the West Indies 1993 — the famous one-run win. Steve Waugh’s ‘tonk it through the covers for a Test century in Adelaide’ moment from 1995.

And the bizarre: the 2014 Test cricket match where Adelaide Oval’s drop-in pitch produced 8 wickets in a session; the AFL Grand Final replay (no, never; Adelaide Oval has never hosted a VFL/AFL Grand Final — only an SANFL one).

The Iconic Scoreboard

The manually-operated wooden scoreboard on the eastern hill is the most photographed object in South Australian sport. Built in 1911, heritage-listed in 1992, still operated by hand for cricket matches. For footy it’s not used (the AFL needs digital scoring on the big LED screens), but it remains in place as part of the cultural landscape. If anyone proposed pulling it down, the city would burn down.

Trivia That Wins Bar Bets

• Adelaide Oval is the second-largest stadium in Australia by capacity (53,500), behind only the MCG.
• The cricket-only “St Peter’s Cathedral end” is named after the actual St Peter’s Cathedral, visible from the ground.
• The 2014 redevelopment was funded with the largest infrastructure bond issue in South Australian state history.
• Showdown attendance record: 53,615 (Showdown XLVIII, May 2018).
• Adelaide Oval was the venue for the 2015 Cricket World Cup quarter-final between Australia and Pakistan.
• The pitch is the longest in the AFL at 167 metres goal-to-goal.
• The cathedral end is the only end where you can see St Peter’s spire over the grandstand — a quirk that survived the redevelopment specifically because heritage authorities demanded it.

Rumours and the Future

The 2024–2025 chatter has been about a roof. The Adelaide Oval Stadium Management Authority has explored fitting a partial retractable roof over the eastern stand to manage extreme summer temperatures (Adelaide hits 45°C in February — cricket in those conditions is brutal). Cost estimates: $300+ million. Likelihood: moderate. Timeline: probably 2030 if it happens.

There’s been speculation about Adelaide Oval hosting an AFL Grand Final. The 2021 Optus Stadium GF set a precedent for Grand Finals leaving the MCG; if it ever happened again, Adelaide’s case is real (53,000 capacity, central location, footy-mad city). The MCG has the lease until 2057, but emergencies make precedents.

The big rumour: SANFL Grand Final fully shifting from Adelaide Oval back to a SANFL home ground as the AFL prioritises its events. Won’t happen — the SANFL Grand Final is a 60,000-seat event in its own right.

The Verdict

Adelaide Oval is the gold standard for stadium redevelopment in Australia. They took a heritage cricket ground, kept the heritage, added 20,000 seats, and built something that’s now genuinely the second-best AFL venue in the country. The Showdowns are louder than any MCG fixture; the views from the Riverbank Stand are postcard-good; and the city built around the ground has flourished on the back of it.

If you’re a footy traveller, Adelaide Oval should be on your bucket list. Pick a Showdown weekend, book a hotel within walking distance (the entire CBD is 15 minutes’ walk away), and find out what 53,000 South Australians sound like when they’re collectively screaming about a free kick. You won’t regret it. Even Victorians grudgingly admit the place is something special.