Redfern Oval

G’day Charles Touma here and today I’m at the iconic Redfern Oval, where our local legends, the South Sydney Rabbitohs played their home games between 1948 and 1987, now used as their training base though of course they are currently based up in North Queensland in a bubble. Locals often refer to this as the “Holy Land”. The land that became Redfern Oval, part of Redfern Park, was described as a “pestiferous bog” when it was first designed in the 1880s as what was known as a Victorian Pleasure Ground. No they didn’t get the State wrong, Victorian referred to the Victorian era. Previous to that it had been known as “Boxley’s Lagoon” and “Nathan’s Cow Paddock”. Originally cricket was the main sport played here and in 1903 Victor Trumper, who was one of the best Australian batsmen of his time, was batting for Paddington against Redfern.

He famously hit a six that went through the window of a boot factory across the road. The building has since turned it into an apartment building, I hope the developers managed to commemorate the six in some way. Footy matches started happening here in around 1911, then the Redfern All Blacks, the oldest Aboriginal Rugby League Club in Australia, were established here in 1944. Until 1948, the Rabbits had been playing their home matches at the Sydney Showground, now part of Olympic Park and the Sydney Sports Ground at Moore Park on rotation. However in 1946 they made an application to base themselves here, which led to the installation of spectator seating and a hill, playing their first games here in 1948. The all time record gate here was 24,219 on 26 March 1967 in a pre-season cup double header where the Rabbits played St George and Balmain played Manly-Warringah. The highest gate for a premiership match was just over 23,000 in 1987 and that was against Manly.

In 2005, the local legend George Piggins put a plan together to redevelop the Oval into a 20,000 seater stadium where the Rabbits could use as their home ground, it was rejected by Clover Moore which led to the site being upgraded to a training facility in 2009 with an investment of $19 million from the Sydney City Council. Sadly for us locals the mighty Rabbits will be moving soon to a new base at Heffron Park in Maroubra, but our hearts will still bleed red and green. I’ll bring you some more stories about the Rabbits and Redfern Oval next week. Now I’ve been selling in Redfern and Surry Hills for over 20 years, and one of my recent sales is 291 Chalmers Street, just up there from my right. We sold that property for our magnificent client Kate and we sold the property for just over $2.7 million. I’ll be following up with more stories about the Redfern Oval including the Rabbits next week, I’m passionate about retaining our local stories and history. My name’s Charles Touma, my office on Thurlow Street is always open for you to come in and have a chat.