Devonport Oval is an Australian rules football, cricket and athletics stadium in Devonport, Tasmania. It is the home stadium for the Devonport Football Club in the Tasmanian State League and for the Devonport Cricket Club in the NWTCA competition. The oval also hosts the Devonport Athletics & Cycling Carnival each year and regularly attracts interstate competitors. The stadium has a capacity of 13,000 people and has recently undergone upgrades for increased lighting to be used for night football matches in the TSL in 2009. There has been recent talk of selling the Devonport Oval, along with the East Devonport Oval and two other local recreation facilities, to fund a new sporting precinct in Devonport.
History
The Devonport Oval is positioned next to Mersey Bluff in Devonport overlooking Bass Strait. It has two stands, the Frank Matthews Stand is a long wooden Main Stand on the wing, a newer concrete stand with bucket seats in the pocket, a pavilion and a grass hill. The ground is tiered on one side. After the Devonport City Council's decision to upgrade the unused Devonport Oval in 1937, a Victorian Football League practice match was played there between Collingwood and Geelong, and the redevelopment was a winner for the fans, with a crowd of more than 10,000 attending. In 1959, Devonport's population was just under 14,000 people, in that same year an interstate Australian football match between Tasmania and Victoria was played there and the attendance was 13,500; three years later, an interstate match between Tasmania and the Victorian Football Association drew 20,000 spectators. The Devonport Oval hosted one One Day International cricket match in the 1986–87 season between England and the West Indies. It also hosted many TasmanianSheffield Shield cricket matches and domestic one-day matches for Tasmania. The ground also hosted two Tasmanian State Grand Finals and six TFL Statewide League finals between 1988 and 2000 and hosted the North West Football UnionGrand Final on several occasions.
