Sydney Cricket & Sports Grounds

Many champions have been crowned on this turf, Australian Football League (AFL) premiership flags have been unfurled, and records have been written here. The ground, like the sports themselves, has evolved to meet changing times and demands.

But it has always remained connected to its past, through the timeless Ladies and Members Pavilions and the dreams of its players and fans.

Not to mention concerts by stars like U2, Prince, and Madonna.

In 1851, Colonel Henry Bloomfield was stationed at the Victoria Barracks. He applied to use the scrubby expanse of land south of the barracks for his soldiers. Once permission was granted, the soldiers cultivated 25 acres of the once sandy hills into a military garden and cricket ground—now the SCG.

Walk through the entrance of SCG, home of the Sydney Swans Football Club, and be engulfed in a sea of red and white. The Swans have an eventful sports history, including the club’s relocation from South Melbourne for the 1982 season. Today, they are Sydney’s most popular sporting team.

This is a sculpture of Paul Kelly, who joined the Swans in 1990. In 234 games, he kicked 200 goals. “Captain Courageous” captained the Swans for a club-record 182 matches over 10 consecutive seasons. There are 13 more bronze sculptures of great athletes around the precinct.

Before machinery, a cricket pitch was prepared using a roller pulled by a large horse. The first mechanical roller arrived in 1928. It is still in use today.

This ball was made of Bulli soil from the SCG pitch more than 100 years ago. Bulli soil is a black clay-like material, which provides a hard foundation and is famed for its cricket pitches. Bulli soil was introduced to the SCG in the late 1800s from Bulli Colliery in Wollongong, south of Sydney.

Six light towers were installed at a cost of $1.2M for the first game of World Series Cricket between Australia and the West Indies in 1978. The first match at night took place in 1930 at the Sydney Sports Ground. World Series Cricket made night cricket a permanent part of the sport.

Cricket became a popular pastime for women in the colony in the late 1800s. Today, women play cricket professionally. The first organised game of women’s cricket in Australia was played at the SCG in 1886.

As was common during long cricket matches, patrons would head down from the rear of the Ladies Pavilion to the main tearoom on the ground floor. This space is now occupied by the SCG Museum.

The Sydney Cricket Ground Museum is a working historical registrar dedicated to collecting, documenting, preserving and displaying the unique sporting and social activities that have occurred on the grounds of the SCG, the Sydney Sports Ground, SCG No.2 and the Sydney Football Stadium.

The Members Pavilion provides the backdrop to thousands of memorable moments. In this photo, spectators participate in Jane McGrath Day. Since 2009, this annual event—the largest sporting charity event in Australia—has raised funds to finance nurses to support breast cancer patients.

SCG membership dates to 1878. The original leather tickets were replaced by metal badges like this in 1900. This badge was owned by the cricketer Charles “The Terror” Turner, one of Australia’s greatest bowlers. Today, SCG members carry a plastic card like a credit card.

The Members Pavilion Away Change Room once housed a cupboard for essential supplies. In 2001, an attendant inscribed a tribute to a player on the cupboard doors. A new tradition was born: Players began to transcribe their own messages on the doors when they took five wickets or scored a century.

In 2014, the SCG was transformed so that the Arizona Diamondbacks could host the LA Dodgers in the Major League Baseball Opening Series Matches. The games drew capacity crowds and a global television audience as large as the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Loyal fans filled the stands to see legend Steve Waugh in his final Ashes Test in January 2003. Waugh cover-drove a boundary off the last ball of day two to raise his score from 98 to 102. The crowd went wild when his century came up before the day ended.

This is a printed silk scorecard from the first English cricket tour of Australia in 1862.

In the past, spectators liked to recline and watch the game from the area known as “the Hill.” This photograph, taken in 1956, shows fans in front of the mechanical scoreboard by Robertson and Marks, which was built in 1924.

The first electronic scoreboard was installed at the SCG in 1983, replacing the mechanical scoreboard. Since then, technological improvements have seen the introduction of modern video screens, with the essential components of subsequent models becoming smaller.

The Messenger scoreboard, erected in 2014, measured 276m2. In 2018 the scoreboard was modified: additional elements were added creating an overall screen that now measures 434m2 the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere.

The O'Reilly Stand, erected in 1984, was originally named the Pat Hills Stand for the then SCG Chairman. Pat Hills was a New South Wales politician in various high offices.

A change of government brought a change of name to the stand, with the honour going to legendary leg-spinner turned journalist Bill O’Reilly.

Gascoigne is in the front row of the Victor Trumper Stand. Cathy Weiszmann sculpted Yabba heckling players, which was typical behaviour for him but unusual for the traditionally quiet spectators of his time.

Named after rugby league's Clive “Little Master” Churchill, the Churchill Stand opened in August of 1986, one year after Churchill's death. Churchill is regarded as rugby league’s greatest player and was also a celebrated coach.

The new Brewongle Stand was completed in 1980 at a cost of $8.9M. The old stand had become known unofficially as the ''the Brewongle'' after a popular tearoom of the same name operating within. Alice and May Lee, two sisters, are believed to have run and named the tearoom during the late 1890s.

Sports events have taken place on the site of the original Sydney Football Stadium for over a century. The Sydney Sports Ground, opened in 1903, hosted the football codes, cricket and boxing matches, a speedway and other sporting events.

On January 24, 1988, the Sydney Football Stadium was opened with a spectacular concert featuring Joe Cocker and John Denver. The concert was organised in celebration of the bicentennial year and the launch of Sydney's first premier rectangular stadium.

This aerial photograph shows a double header at the Sydney Cricket Ground and the Show Ground. On the SCG (bottom field) an Australian Rules exhibition match is played. At the Show Ground (upper Field), a rugby league match is played.

The Sydney Football Stadium was the main competition venue for football (soccer) during the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. It staged 10 matches over seven days, attracting 226,519 spectators.