Pitch (sports field)

A pitch or a sports ground is an outdoor playing area for various sports. The term pitch is most commonly used in British and Australian English, while the comparable term in American and Canadian English is playing field or sports field.

In most sports the official term is field of play, although this is not regularly used by those outside refereeing/umpiring circles. The field of play generally includes out-of-bounds areas that a player is likey to enter while playing a match, such as the area beyond the touchlines in association football and rugby or the sidelines in American and Canadian football, or the "foul territory" in baseball.

The surface of a pitch is most commonly composed of sod (grass), but may also be artificial turf, sand, clay, gravel, concrete, or other materials. A playing field on ice may be referred to as a rink, for example an ice hockey rink, although rink may also refer to the entire building or, in the sport of curling, to either the building or a particular team.

Sydney Sports Ground

The Sydney Sports Ground No. 1 was a Stadium and Dirt track racing venue in Sydney, New South Wales. The ground was located where the car park of the Sydney Football Stadium (SFS) currently sits. The ground had two main grandstands and was surrounded by a grass covered hill, giving it a capacity of more than 35,000. It was demolished along with the smaller No.2 Ground in 1986 to allow the building of the SFS, which opened in 1988. During its lifespan the Sports Ground hosted Rugby League, Rugby Union, Soccer, Motorcycle speedway and Speedway car racing.

The Sports Ground was the home ground of NSWRL team, the Eastern Suburbs Roosters, the club playing 500 games at the ground from 1911 until 1986, with a 283-199-18 W-L-D record.

History

Sport

The ground's primary use was as the home venue for Eastern Suburbs, who began playing at played the ground in Round 2 of the 1911 NSWRFL season with a 22-9 win over the North Sydney Bears on 6 May in front of 5,000 fans. The Roosters played their last game at the Sports Ground on 29 June 1986, defeating North Sydney 21-14 in front of only 8,175 fans. The South Sydney Rabbitohs club also used it as a home ground from 1928 to 1947.