The Kensington Oval is located on 344 The Parade, Kensington, South Australia

Kensington, South Australia

Kensington is a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia in the City of Norwood, Payneham & St Peters. Unlike the rest of the city, Kensington's streets are laid out diagonally in order to follow Second Creek....

. Now used primarily for cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 in South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

, the venue was once Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

's premier athletics facility and known as Olympic Sports Field.

Early history

Kensington Oval was officially opened on Saturday, 10 July, 1875.

The ground was originally used for a range of sports including Australian Rules Football

Australian rules football

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

. The Kensington Football Club and the Norwood Football Club

Norwood Football Club

Norwood Football Club, nicknamed, Redlegs, is an Australian rules football club belonging to the South Australian National Football League in the state of South Australia...

 played at the oval between 1875 and 1897.

As the home ground of the Kensington Districts Cricket Club

Kensington Cricket Club

The Kensington District Cricket Club is a semi-professional cricket club in Adelaide, South Australia. It competes in the South Australian Grade Cricket League, which is administered by the South Australian Cricket Association .-Location:...

, Sir Donald Bradman

Donald Bradman

Sir Donald George Bradman, AC , often referred to as "The Don", was an Australian cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time...

 played there often in the 1930s.

Olympic Sports Field

From 1963, the ground was converted into an athletics stadium, featuring a rubber-bitumen track. In 1975, the track was upgraded to tartan track

Tartan track

Tartan Track is the trademarked all-weather synthetic track surfacing made of polyurethane which is used for track and field competitions. It lets athletes compete in bad weather without serious performance loss and improves their results over other surfaces...

.

As Olympic Sports Field, the ground was home to Athletics South Australia's interclub athletics competition from October to March and the South Australian Championships. A number of Australian Championships

Australian Championships in Athletics

The Australian Athletics Championships or Australian Open Track and Field Championships are held annually to determine Australia's champion athletes in a range of athletics events. The championships are the primary qualification trial for athletes wishing to compete at the Olympic Games,...

; in 1967, 1968, 1970, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1986 and 1992, were also held at the venue.

The ground was also home to the Adelaide City

Adelaide City

Adelaide City is a football club in Adelaide, South Australia. They are also known as The Zebras. They played in the National Soccer League for 27 Seasons but withdrew just prior to the 2003/2004 season. They now play in the South Australian Super League. City won the inaugural Super League...

 soccer club and, in 1977, a game against Sydney Marconi

Marconi Stallions

The Marconi Stallions Football Club is an Australian football club located in Sydney, Australia. The club won the National Soccer League title a record four times, along with South Melbourne FC and Sydney City SC...

 saw a record crowd of 13,132.

Redevelopment as Kensington Oval

In the 1990s, a new home for South Australian athletics, Santos Stadium

Santos Stadium

Santos Stadium is a sporting venue located in the Adelaide Parklands immediately to the north of ETSA Park, Adelaide's largest netball complex....

, was built and Olympic Sports Field was taken over by the neighbouring Pembroke School, Adelaide

Pembroke School, Adelaide

Pembroke School is an independent, co-educational, non-denominational, day and boarding school, located at Kensington Park, a suburb 6 kilometres east of the CBD of Adelaide, South Australia....

. The running track was removed and the ground redeveloped as a cricket ground. Its original name of Kensington Oval was revived and the ground now plays host to grade and women's cricket matches.