CANBERRA STADIUM

Canberra, Australia

WSPE-674

Canberra Stadium (originally known as Bruce Stadium) is a facility primarily used for rugby league and rugby union games, located adjacent to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Bruce is the Canberra suburb where the stadium is located, and in turn Bruce was named after Stanley Bruce, Australian Prime Minister 1923–1929.

Constructed in 1977 for the Pacific Conference Games, it also was the venue for the 4th IAAF World Cup in Athletics. At the latter meet, the fastest 400m for women, was recorded by East German Marita Koch, and also the 4x100m women's relay by East Germany – times that still stand today.

In the late 1980s the running track was removed and re-located to the warm up stadium at the AIS site and in 1990 the Canberra Raiders Rugby league team started playing their home games at Bruce in 1990 after they became more successful.

The removal of the track meant that Australian rules football, more specifically the Australian Football League (AFL), could now be played at the ground and in 1995 the first AFL match for premiership points was contested between the West Coast Eagles and Fitzroy.

There were also a number of pre-season AFL games played at the venue, mostly featuring the Sydney Swans.

Also around this time, as an experiment, a cricket pitch was placed in the centre of the ground, and a day/night 1 day cricket match was played between 2 local teams before a small crowd. Regular cricket matches on the ground did not eventuate.

Further renovations occurred in 1997 in preparation for staging soccer matches as part of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, which also in turn shrank the size of the playing field preventing any future Australian rules football games being played on the field. The final cost of the renovations was more than seven times what was originally anticipated by the territory government of the time, and the subsequent controversy ended the career of then Chief Minister Kate Carnell. During the lead-up, on 28 May 2000, unseasonal snow fell during a match between the Raiders and the Wests Tigers, the only such event in National Rugby League history, with the snow causing frost damage to the turf intended for the Olympic football tournament.

Olympic soccer in 2000 has initiated a stadium facelift converting the playing surface from oval to rectangular and bringing the crowd closer to the action. The only downside to this revamp is the stadium can no longer host AFL games. It is now an all-seater rectangular stadium with two main grandstands on either side of the playing field.

Unused 4" x 6" continental size chrome.

World Stadiums Postcard Edition