Richmond Oval (Hisense Stadium)

Capacity: 16,500 (approx)
Record Crowd: 15,742 – West Adelaide vs Glenelg (1969)
Home Team: West Adelaide (SANFL)

Richmond Oval (currently Hisense Stadium, formerly City Mazda Stadium and Broadspectrum Oval) is an Australian rules football oval in Richmond, a western suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It has been the home of South Australian National Football League (SANFL) club West Adelaide for training since 1956 and home games since 1958.

Richmond Oval has a capacity of approximately 16,500 with seating for up to 2,000 in the B. K. Faehse Stand, named in honor of former club captain Brian Faehse who played 224 games for West Adelaide between 1944 and 1956. Faeshe was instrumental in bringing Richmond Oval to life as a volunteer who worked on building the ground and as a driving force behind the scenes as a member of the Grounds Committee to give the club its own home ground for the first time in its 50+ year history.

The oval runs north-south with concrete terracing surrounding the entire ground with a grass bank above the south western concrete and also the north-eastern concrete around to the outer wing. Richmond’s goal to goal, wing to wing dimensions are 170m x 130m.

The ground record crowd was set in Round 5 of the 1969 SANFL season when 15,742 saw West Adelaide go down to the Neil Kerley coached Glenelg Tigers 18.18 (126) to 8.9 (57). Kerley had previously spent 10 years playing for Westies, playing 155 games between 1952 and 1963. He also coached West Adelaide to their most recent premiership at the time in 1961 and would in fact coach their next premiership in 1983. Richmond Oval is currently one of four suburban SANFL grounds to offer night football. The others are Norwood Oval (Norwood), Elizabeth Oval (Central District), Hickinbotham Oval (South Adelaide) and Glenelg Oval (Glenelg).

The oval was used as a venue in the AFL’s 2014 pre-season, the NAB Challenge. On 16 February, the Adelaide Crows defeated Port Adelaide 0.18.11 (119) to 0.9.5 (59) in front of 8,765 fans, the largest attendance at the ground since the 1980s.