Newlands Stadium

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This article is about the rugby and football stadium. For the cricket ground, see Newlands Cricket Ground.

A Stormers Super 14 rugby match at Newlands.

Newlands Stadium is located in Cape Town, South Africa.

The stadium currently has a capacity of 51,100 people and is an all seater venue.

Various sports clubs currently use the stadium as their home base, including:

Stormers in Super Rugby
Western Province Rugby Union in the Currie Cup (rugby union)

It was previously the home to Ajax Cape Town in the Premier Soccer League up until the end of season 2004/05. Ajax CT now play at Athlone Stadium.

1 History
2 Future
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

The decision to buy the ground the stadium stands on was made by the Western Province Rugby and Football Union in 1888. The first official match at Newlands took place on 31 May 1890 when Stellenbosch defeated Villagers there in front of a crowd of about 2400 people. The following year the stadium hosted its first rugby test when the British Lions toured South Africa.

It wasn't until 1919 that the first permanent concrete stands were erected on the grounds. Later, in 1927, the new grandstand was erected and the field layout was changed to run from North-South. Yet more changes came in 1931 when the South stand was also enlarged.

In the 1950s parts of a new grandstand as well as South stand were completed, facilities such as lifts and a Presidential room were added, a fourth bay was added to the grandstand, and an extension was added to the lower gallery.

The 1970s saw the stadium change once again as the headquarters of SA Rugby moved to Newlands, and several stands were built or renovated, while the 1980s saw private suites and function rooms erected on top of the North stands as well as demolition of the old South stand and inauguration of the new Danie Craven stand (also with private suites and function rooms). The 1980s also saw 10,253 seats added to the stadium.

Between 1990 and 1995 the stadium was under constant renovation, adding technology, increasing capacity, and upgrading facilities, as part of a 3-phase redevelopment plan in anticipation of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, when Newlands hosted the opening match of the tournament.

After the World Cup, development continued with several redevelopment and expansion projects to make the stadium more modern and increase capacity.

The stadium's name was changed several times by various sponsors, first from Newlands to Norwich Park Newlands in 1996, then to Fedsure Park Newlands in 2000 due to a merger between Fedsure and Norwich, and finally back to simply Newlands by Investec when they became the main sponsor in 2002. In late 2005, Vodacom became the stadium's main sponsor, but followed Investec's precedent and kept the stadium name as Newlands.

[edit] Future

The future of the stadium is uncertain following speculation that the Stormers, Ajax Cape Town and Western Province will use the soon to be built African Renaissance Stadium for their home games. The construction of a new stadium for the 2010 FIFA World Cup is not a popular decision with the locals as just improving the Newlands Stadium would cost half as much.^[1]