 | |
 | |
 | |
| Former names | Canberra Stadium Bruce Stadium National Athletics Stadium |
|---|---|
| Location | Bruce, Australian Capital Territory |
| Coordinates | 35°15′0″S149°6′10″E / 35.25000°S 149.10278°E /-35.25000; 149.10278 |
| Owner | Australian Sports Commission |
| Capacity | 25,011[1] |
| Record attendance | 28,753 – Brumbies vsCrusaders,2004 Super 12 Final |
| Surface | Grass |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 29 October 1977 |
| Architect | Philip Cox |
| Main contractors | Leighton Contractors |
| Tenants | |
| Canberra Raiders (rugby league) (1990–present) ACT Brumbies (rugby union) (1996–present) Canberra City FC (soccer) (1977–1986) Canberra Cosmos FC (soccer) (1995–2001) 2015 AFC Asian Cup Canberra Bushrangers (baseball) (1993–1995) | |
| Website | |
| www.giostadiumcanberra.com.au | |
Canberra Stadium, commercially known asGIO Stadium Canberra, is a facility primarily used forrugby league andrugby union games, located adjacent to theAustralian Institute of Sport inCanberra, the capital of Australia. It is the largest sports venue by capacity in Canberra.
The Canberra Stadium was previously known as the Bruce Stadium and the National Athletics Stadium before its current name.
The facility was designed by architectPhilip Cox[2] and constructed byLeighton Contractors.[3] It opened on 29 October 1977.[4]
In 1977, it was the venue for thePacific Conference Games, and was also the venue for the 4thIAAFWorld Cup in Athletics.[4] At the latter meet, the still-current world record for the women's 400m was recorded byEast GermanMarita Koch, and a world record for the women's 4 × 100 m relay was set by East Germany, which stood until the2012 London Olympic Games.
In the late 1980s, the running track was removed and the warm-up track next door upgraded. New offices, seating, andphoto-finish facilities were added. In the1990 NSWRL season, thereigning NSWRL premiers theCanberra Raiders moved to Bruce Stadium fromSeiffert Oval inQueanbeyan, their home ground since entering theNew South Wales Rugby League in1982. The Raiders won their second straight premiership in 1990.
The removal of the athletics track meant thatAustralian rules football games, more specifically those of theAustralian Football League (AFL), could be played at the ground, resulting in pre-season matches being scheduled as early as 1990.[5] In 1995, an AFL match for premiership points was contested between theWest Coast Eagles andFitzroy. There were also a number of pre-season AFL games played at the venue, mostly featuring theSydney Swans.
Also around that time, acricket pitch was placed in the centre of the ground as an experiment, and a day/nightone-day cricket match was played between two local teams before a small crowd. Regular cricket matches on the ground did not eventuate.
Further renovations occurred in 1997, in preparation for staging soccer matches as part of the2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney,[6] which shrank the size of the playing field, preventing any future Australian rules football games being played there. The final cost of the renovations was more than seven times what had been originally anticipated by the Territory government of the time, and the subsequent controversy ended the career of then Chief MinisterKate Carnell.[7][8][circular reference] During the lead-up, unseasonal snow fell on 28 May 2000, during a match between the Raiders and the Wests Tigers, the only such occasion inNational Rugby League history, with the snow causing frost damage to the turf intended for theOlympic soccer tournament.
Olympic soccer in 2000 initiated a stadium facelift, converting the playing surface from oval to rectangular and bringing the crowd closer to the action.[9] It is now an all-seater rectangular stadium with two main grandstands on either side of the playing field. The major disadvantage of that revamp was that the stadium could no longer host AFL games. All top-class cricket and Australian rules football games in Canberra are now staged at the 15,000-capacityManuka Oval.
A2008 Rugby League World Cup game betweenScotland andFrance was played at Canberra Stadium, the first everrugby league test played at the venue. France defeated Scotland 36–16.
In 2009, there was anA-League bid from Canberra that, if successful would have seen anA-League soccer team play at the stadium starting with the 2010–11 season. However, the League decided that the new teams would beSydney Rovers FC (which dissolved due to financial problems) andMelbourne Heart FC.
To coincide with Canberra's 100th birthday celebrations, the stadium was chosen to host the2013 Rugby LeagueAnzac Test betweenAustralia andNew Zealand. On 19 April 2013 in what was the first game ever played by the Kangaroos in Australia's capital city, a crowd of 25,628 saw Australia defeat their Trans-Tasman rivals 32–12.
In January 2014, Canberra Stadium was rebranded GIO Stadium Canberra as part of anaming rights deal withGIO Insurance.[10]
A new video screen was installed at the southern end of the stadium in March 2020.[11]
The stadium is currently owned by theAustralian Government through theAustralian Sports Commission and leased to theGovernment of the Australian Capital Territory. While the current lease is due to expire in 2010, the ACT Government is seeking ownership of the stadium through a land transfer with the Australian Government.
Capacity is a nominal all-seated 25,011, the largest crowd being 28,753 for the 2004 Super 12 Final. The main grandstand is named after Canberra Raiders andAustralian rugby league playerMal Meninga, and a statue of another Raiders and Australian league representativeLaurie Daley adorns the main grandstand entrance.
The eastern grandstand was named the Gregan/Larkham Grandstand on 28 April 2007, afterBrumbies andAustralia rugby union greatsGeorge Gregan andStephen Larkham. Both ended their international careers after the2007 Rugby World Cup as the two most-capped players in Wallabies history (at that time), with Gregan ata world-record 139 and Larkham at 102.
| Attendance | Date | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 28,754 | 22 May 2004 | 2004 Super 12 Final –Brumbies vsCanterbury Crusaders |
| 27,489 | 27 May 2000 | 2000 Super 12 Final –Brumbies vsCanterbury Crusaders |
| 26,567 | 27 September 2019 | 2019 NRL Preliminary Final –Canberra Raiders vsSouth Sydney Rabbitohs |
| 26,476 | 17 September 2010 | 2010 NRL Semi Final –Canberra Raiders vsWests Tigers |
| 25,628 | 19 April 2013 | 2013 Anzac Test –Kangaroos vsKiwis |
Whilst the stadium suits the needs of its two current primary tenants, as of 2017 it is the smallest Super Rugby stadium and only a medium-sized NRL venue. The stadium itself is approaching 35 years old, and despite modernisations over the years is lacking in certain amenities for fans – especially covered seating.
Additionally, Australia hadbid for the2022 FIFA World Cup and Canberra Stadium does not meet the necessary criteria to host matches. As such, the ACT Government launched a study examining the upgrade or replacement of Canberra Stadium, with options ranging from increasing capacity and enclosing the current facility, to completely re-configuring the current stadium to an oval for cricket and Australian rules football and building a state of the art rectangular facility next door.[12]
Citing costs of building multiple facilities as an issue, ACT Sports MinisterAndrew Barr indicated his preference would be a 'super stadium' built with World Cup standard facilities and capacity, able to be reduced to approximately 30,000 seats after the event. Such a facility would have to incorporatemovable seating in order to accommodate all of the major Australian sporting codes.[13]
The official bid for the 2022 World Cup indicated that the 'super stadium' plan was unlikely and the original plan of a new rectangular stadium built next door to the current stadium, with the existing facility re-configured for oval field sports, was considered to be the likely outcome.[14]
After the failed World Cup bid a new rectangular covered stadium was proposed for Canberra.[15] In 2013 the ACT government announced plans to build a 30,000 covered (with a roof similar toForsyth Barr Stadium) rectangular stadium in the city on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. It would be part of a 15-year significant redevelopment of the foreshore which extends the city to the Eastern Basin. Along with the stadium, as part of the redevelopment there would be apartments, a convention centre and an urban beach.[16] Plans to build a new stadium have, however, been put on hold indefinitely due to the need for funds to compensate local residents over an asbestos home insulation debacle.[17] Plans to construct the new stadium have since been pushed back by a decade.[17]
| Rugby Union Test Matches | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Team #1 | Result | Team #2 | Event | Attendance | Referee |
| 22 September 1998 | Australia  | 74–0 |  Tonga | 1999Rugby World Cupqualifying | 14,176 | Steve Walsh |
| 22 September 1998 | Fiji  | 26–18 |  Samoa | 1999Rugby World Cupqualifying | 14,176 | Steve Lander |
| 24 June 2000 | Australia | 32–25 |  Argentina | 2000Puma Trophy | 15,072 | David McHugh |
| 15 October 2003 | Italy  | 36–12 | Tonga | 2003Rugby World Cup Pool D | 18,967 | Steve Walsh |
| 19 October 2003 | Wales  | 27–20 | Tonga | 2003Rugby World Cup Pool D | 19,806 | Paul Honiss |
| 21 October 2003 | Italy | 19–14 |  Canada | 2003Rugby World Cup Pool D | 20,515 | Paddy O'Brien |
| 25 October 2003 | Italy | 15–27 | Wales | 2003Rugby World Cup Pool D | 22,641 | Andrew Cole |
| 13 June 2009 | Australia | 31–8 | Italy | 2009 mid-year rugby test series | 22,468 | Romain Poite |
| 5 June 2010 | Australia | 49–3 | Fiji | 2010 mid-year rugby test series | 15,438 | Peter Fitzgibbon |
| 16 September 2017 | Australia | 45–20 | Argentina | 2017Rugby Championship /Puma Trophy | 14,229 | John Lacey |
| Rugby league Test Matches[19] | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test# | Date | Result | Attendance | Notes |
| 1 | 26 October 2008 |  France def. Scotland 36–18 | 9,287 | 2008Rugby League World CupGroup B |
| 2 | 19 April 2013 | Australia def. New Zealand 32–12 | 25,628 | 2013Anzac Test First time the Kangaroos had ever played in Australia's capital city |
| 3 | 5 May 2017 | Australia def. New Zealand 30–12 | 18,535 | 2017Anzac Test |
| 4 | 29 October 2017 |  Lebanon def. France 29-18 | 5,492 | 2017Rugby League World CupGroup A |
| 5 | 3 November 2017 | Australia def. France 52–6 | 12,293 | 2017Rugby League World CupGroup A |
| 6 | 10 November 2017 | Fiji def. Italy 38–10 | 6,733 | 2017Rugby League World CupGroup D |
| Concerts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Date | Artist | Tour |
| 14 November 2012 | Elton John | 40th Anniversary of the Rocket Man |
| 10 December 2016 | Keith Urban andCarrie Underwood | Ripcord World Tour |
| 27 January 2019 | Keith Urban andJulia Michaels | Graffiti U World Tour |
| 23 February 2024 | Matchbox Twenty | Slow Dream Tour |
Media related toCanberra Stadium at Wikimedia Commons
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
see also:Sport in Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.jpg)
