Bice Oval - Christies Beach SANFL history

[Sojourner]

I thought I would bring this one up as an offshoot from a thread about non SANFL venues in the metropolitan area that have been used for SANFL games from premiership points.

This history is as it was told to me by an elderly gentleman who had been a part of the original group of people that got Bice Oval built in the first place, so I would be interested to know if anyone has any further information or knows any more of this story.

Bice oval was originally built to be an SANFL venue at what year I am not sure. Interestingly the committee that built Bice Oval were actually negotiating with the Glenelg Football Club to play some of their games there with the intention of having Glenelg be relocated to Bice Oval.

For whatever reason it fell over and Panther Park at St Marys would become the only Southern Venue for SANFL football in the Southern area for a number of years as a result.

Bice Oval is close to the dimensions of Football Park and although it has been built up around now had enough space set aside around it to make it an SANFL standard venue.

South have played one game there for Premiership Points against Norwood - we won and it was a large crowd as I recall. We also have played several trial games at the venue, I recall one being against Sturt but am not to sure who the other games were against.

Perhaps it is a pity that South were never able to be based at Bice Oval probably due to the density of housing having gone up around the area. With the way that real estate values have gone, the area is approaching the stage where it is out of reach of many first home buyers and much like esplanade type venues closer to the city is becoming a very nice area as well as having skyrocketing real estate values, so it is interesting I suppose to ponder on what might have been!

[LBT]

I thought I would bring this one up as an offshoot from a thread about non SANFL venues in the metropolitan area that have been used for SANFL games from premiership points.

This history is as it was told to me by an elderly gentleman who had been a part of the original group of people that got Bice Oval built in the first place, so I would be interested to know if anyone has any further information or knows any more of this story.

Bice oval was originally built to be an SANFL venue at what year I am not sure. Interestingly the committee that built Bice Oval were actually negotiating with the Glenelg Football Club to play some of their games there with the intention of having Glenelg be relocated to Bice Oval.

For whatever reason it fell over and Panther Park at St Marys would become the only Southern Venue for SANFL football in the Southern area for a number of years as a result.

Bice Oval is close to the dimensions of Football Park and although it has been built up around now had enough space set aside around it to make it an SANFL standard venue.

South have played one game there for Premiership Points against Norwood - we won and it was a large crowd as I recall. We also have played several trial games at the venue, I recall one being against Sturt but am not to sure who the other games were against.

Perhaps it is a pity that South were never able to be based at Bice Oval probably due to the density of housing having gone up around the area. With the way that real estate values have gone, the area is approaching the stage where it is out of reach of many first home buyers and much like esplanade type venues closer to the city is becoming a very nice area as well as having skyrocketing real estate values, so it is interesting I suppose to ponder on what might have been!

Glenelg were gonna relocate to Bice

Must have been having issues with the council/cricket club back then too.

[drebin]

Good write up Sojouner - I always wondered why South never moved to that venue years ago, it would have been ideal.

[Wedgie]

The most important stat Bice Oval holds is it was where I kicked my only goal in 50 games for Noarlunga C Grade.
I ended up with a career tally of 1 goal 13points, but was on 0.12 before that day at Bice Oval.
I did a hamstring celebrating it!

Its a bloody big oval, I boundary umpired there one day and it was harder than any game when I rucked all day I can tell you!

[Adelaide Hawk]

I ended up with a career tally of 1 goal 13points

.... and people complain about Buddy

[Wedgie]

I ended up with a career tally of 1 goal 13points

.... and people complain about Buddy

We're very similar players at a very similar level.

[spell_check]

That's the latest image (not very recent though) on Google of it:

[spell_check]

These have been the two matches for premiership points played at Bice Oval:

Round 20 1991
South 1.3 4.12 8.13 16.16 (112)
Norwood 4.5 5.5 6.7 8.8 (56)
Crowd: 9,714

Round 7 1993
South 4.2 9.6 16.7 21.11 (137)
Sturt 7.1 7.2 10.6 11.8 (74)
Crowd: 3,107

[am Bays]

in 1991 South wanted Glenelg to give up a home game and play South at Bice Oval, for some reason Glenelg said no,,,they played Norwood instead....

To my knowledge Glenelg never had plans to move there, certainly wasn't raised in The Pride of the Bay...

[Sojourner]

Hi Tassie,

I think that you are right in that the Bays never had even remotley any plans to move to Bice Oval, yet I think that the commitee that created Bice Oval had that intention on thier side of the coin and lets face it if you are going to create a football oval in a community, why wouldent you aim for the highest level!

Glenelg probably did look into it and simply rejected it, who really knows!

[TigerBoss]

I've had a bit to do at Bice Oval over the years...the missus used to play a lot of her soccer matches there, and I would use the cricket nets almost nightly for a bit of a bash with the mates...not the greatest clubrooms in the world, but it was OK for quiz nights and the like.

I was at both of those SANFL games, but I recall the 1991 clash, as for some reason, I found myself in the player's changerooms after the game, and as an 11 year old kid, who was wearing his Bays gear, I walked around the changerooms and had conversations with Gary Cameron, and I seem to recall meeting David Kappler, Darren Trevena, Peter McIntyre (I think) and several other players. Something tells me that Bickley was playing in this game too...but I could be wrong.

I still to this day don't know how or why I got in the rooms following the game...

[Sojourner]

The interesting this is that I dont think it would actually take all that much work to make the ground up to SANFL standard! It is IMO a better location than where Hickinbotham oval sits, although I concede that there simply would not have been the room there to put up all the things that the club has at Hickinbotham, yet it still could have been a great SANFL venue given the chance!

I too was at both of those games, I am not surprised at the Crowd figure for the Norwood game as I do recall it having been packed out - the Amatuer league played on the day as well for a bit of promotion of the SFL and I have always thought it would be great to see the odd Amatuer league game played before an SANFL game for a bit of cross promotion!

[stampy]

in 1991 South wanted Glenelg to give up a home game and play South at Bice Oval, for some reason Glenelg said no,,,they played Norwood instead....

To my knowledge Glenelg never had plans to move there, certainly wasn't raised in The Pride of the Bay...

i wonder why we didnt as our home games were at footy park that year

[am Bays]

in 1991 South wanted Glenelg to give up a home game and play South at Bice Oval, for some reason Glenelg said no,,,they played Norwood instead....

To my knowledge Glenelg never had plans to move there, certainly wasn't raised in The Pride of the Bay...

i wonder why we didnt as our home games were at footy park that year

$$$$ have you seen the corporate facilities at Bice Oval compared to Footy Park even for 1991 standards?????

The move to Footy Park was all about corporate $$$$, too bad about the average fan who lived in the Glenelg zone....

[abber]

I'm pretty sure the photo of Bice Oval on Google was taken on the 8th or 9th of January this year during a BankSA Shield mid week match. Probably Southern V Sturt because I can see my car and the ex's and we're not there very often together.

In the clubrooms there is an aerial photo of a packed Bice oval for the South V Norwood match.

[Pseudo]

The move to Footy Park was all about corporate $$$$, too bad about the average fan who lived in the Glenelg zone....

I thought the move to FP was more due to the GFC being screwed by the then Glenelg council over costs of renting the oval for home games.

20 years on and the council is still screwing the GFC - some things never change!

[stampy]

in 1991 South wanted Glenelg to give up a home game and play South at Bice Oval, for some reason Glenelg said no,,,they played Norwood instead....

To my knowledge Glenelg never had plans to move there, certainly wasn't raised in The Pride of the Bay...

i wonder why we didnt as our home games were at footy park that year

$$$$ have you seen the corporate facilities at Bice Oval compared to Footy Park even for 1991 standards?????

The move to Footy Park was all about corporate $$$$, too bad about the average fan who lived in the Glenelg zone....

the facilities are magnificent!, my eldest lad has played there since he was 8, now at u18 level, i was the Bs TM from 02-04, hence my hiatus from the mighty gfc, have watched many an A grade game from up on the southeastern hill with the "boys", great socialising and carrying on, unfortunately not much success to get carried away with since the stellar year of '94 for the saints