To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the club’s first match at Prospect Oval, North Adelaide will play Glenelg at Prospect Oval on Sunday 8 May with North Adelaide wearing replica jumpers from 1922.

For many thousands of years, the custodians of the land where Adelaide now stands were the Kaurna people and we acknowledge them as the traditional custodians of the land and in particular the area where Prospect Oval now sits.

In 1897, local residents presented a petition to the Prospect District Council to establish a recreation ground.  The Council acceded to this request and chose a site owned by dairyman Richard Whitfield and known colloquially as Whitfield’s cow paddock.

The Prospect Recreational Ground was opened in 1898 with planned development in stages for an oval, a bowling green, croquet lawns, mounds and pavilion, tennis courts, a children’s playground and gardens.

The North Adelaide Football Club entered the South Australian Football Association (now SANFL) in 1888, originally called Medindie but changing to North Adelaide in 1893.  During the period 1888 to 1921, the Club had utilised various ovals as its home ground – Kensington, Adelaide, Jubilee, Adelaide again, Jubilee again and then Adelaide again.  But in 1921 negotiations were successfully concluded with Prospect Council for the Club to take up permanent residence at the Prospect Recreation Ground and to play its home games on the oval.

Interestingly, the oval that formed part of the area was labelled “Recreation Oval” on the plans and no record has been found of any official name change.  But from the beginning of negotiations in 1921 to adopt the oval as its permanent home, the Club had called it “Prospect Oval” and that name quickly became “official”.

A state-of-the-art grandstand was finished in March 1922 and was named the Prospect War Memorial Pavilion in memory of the servicemen who fought in the Great War (1914-1918).  On Monday 8 May 1922, Prospect Oval hosted its first League football match when North Adelaide played Glenelg.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of this first match, North Adelaide will play Glenelg at Prospect Oval on Sunday 8 May 2022, exactly 100 years after that first game.  A highlight of the day is that North will wear jumpers which are replicas of those worn in that first match in 1922.

For the full South Australia’s History Festival program, visit: https://festival.history.sa.gov.au/

By North Adelaide Football Club Heritage Committee

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