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'Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium' (formerly known as 'Central Coast Stadium', 'Northpower Stadium' and 'Central Coast Express Advocate Stadium') is a sports venue on ''Grahame Park'' in Gosford, on the Central Coast of New South Wales. Originally designed to be the home stadium for the North Sydney Bears rugby league football club, the stadium is now home to the Central Coast Mariners Football Club and the Central Coast Rays rugby union club. The stadium also continues to host irregular rugby league and rugby union fixtures although unsuccessful bids have been made to have locally based teams play in the National Rugby League (NRL) and Super 14.
The stadium is rectangular and is unusual in that seating is located on only three sides of the ground. The southern end is open giving filtered views of Brisbane Water through a row of palm trees. With an all seater capacity of 20,119 it is currently the sixth largest stadium in the A League. It is within walking distance of the Gosford CBD, the railway station and is adjacent to the Central Coast Leagues Club.

Contents

History

Records

Trivia

Notes

References

External links

History

In 1911, Erina Shire Council proposed to create a park on the shore of Brisbane Water. The park required much land to be reclaimed from marshland. It also required privately owned land to be purchased by council and a section of road to be demolished. ''Waterside Park'' was opened in 1915 and a cricket pitch was added during that year. Further reclamation of the foreshore extended the park during the Depression that gave work to the unemployed. By 1939 surplus railway land had been added and a Bowling Club and green as well as tennis courts had been constructed. In 1939 the Park was renamed Grahame Park.
For the three years 2000-2002, it was one of the home grounds of the Northern Eagles, a merged team from the North Sydney Bears and Manly-Warringah clubs.
In 2003, with no major sporting team in residence, the stadium played host to three group matches in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The Pacific Islanders rugby union team played one match there on their 2004 tour.
The prospects for the stadium improved in 2005 with the formation of the Central Coast Mariners, a team in the newly-formed national A-League football (soccer) competition. This team is resident at the stadium, resulting in regular national-level competition at the stadium.
Further use of the stadium in 2006 follows from it being the home ground to the Central Coast Waves rugby union team, which joined the Shute Shield in 2006.
The stadium hosts NRL competition matches from time to time, as well as pre-season trials.
The Central Coast Rays, the Central Coasts' Australian Rugby Championship (ARC) will play out of the Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium when the competition starts in August of 2007.

Records

Record crowds for different sports:

Sport:	Date	Match	Crowd
Football (soccer):	17 February 2006	Central Coast Mariners 1 - 1 Newcastle Jets 2005/6 A-League Minor Semi-Final (2nd Leg)	17,429
Rugby league:	6 February 2000	Northern Eagles 24 - 14 Newcastle Knights Round 1 of the  2000 NRL Season	20,059
Rugby union:	27 October 2003	Japan 26 - 39 USA Pool B match, 2003 Rugby World Cup	19,653

Trivia

★ The seating at Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium still spells the words "Bears" in each bay in spite of the originally intended tenants, the North Sydney Bears, never having called the ground home.

★ The stadium has had many naming rights sponsors, including NorthPower Energy, the Central Coast Express Advocate (a local newspaper), and now Bluetongue Brewery.

★ Bay 16 is the area which is the base of the Central Coast Mariners' most vocal supporters group, "The Marinators".

Notes

:: Currently, the official Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium website lists the capacity as 20,059 whereas both Central Coast Mariners FC and Austadiums list it as 20,119.^[1][2] The all-time record crowd at the stadium is also 20,059 - recorded during a NRL match - making it implausible for that figure to also be the maximum capacity.

References

1. Stadium Profiles
2. Central Coast Stadium

External links

★ Official website for Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium

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