Kingston Park is a multi-purpose stadium in

Kingston Park Kingston Park is a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, about north west of the city centre. It is home to several large retailers, the largest being one of Tesco's flagship stores—at 11,055 square metres (119,000 sq ft) which was also t ...

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It is used mostly for

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

and

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

matches and is the home stadium of

Premiership Rugby Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is an English professional rugby union competition. The Premiership has consisted of thirteen clubs since 2021, and is the ...

side

Newcastle Falcons Newcastle Falcons is a rugby union team that play in Premiership Rugby, England's highest division of rugby union. The club was established in 1877 as the Gosforth Football Club. Around 1882 the club merged with the Northumberland Football Cl ...

and

Betfred Championship The Championship, known as the Betfred Championship for sponsorship reasons, is a professional rugby league competition. It is the second-tier competition organised by the Rugby Football League, the governing body for the sport in England, ...

Rugby League side

Newcastle Thunder The Newcastle Thunder are a professional rugby league club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. They play in the Betfred Championship competition, the second tier of rugby league in the United Kingdom. They play their home matches at Kings ...

and Newcastle United Women. From 2007 to 2009 it was home to semi-professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

team

Newcastle Blue Star Newcastle Blue Star F.C. is a football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It was established in 1930 and joined the Wearside League in 1973. In 1978, it won the FA Vase. Having won promotion to the Northern Premier League Premier Divisi ...

The ground

In 1990 Newcastle Gosforth, as the Falcons were then known, moved into their new ground Kingston Park, which they had purchased for £55,000. Prior to Newcastle Gosforth moving in, the site had been the Newcastle Chronicle and Journal Sports Ground. Kingston Park - 1 - geograph-1813157

The stadium has a capacity of 10,200 people. The stadium was built in stages, with the West Stand being the newest and most modern. There are plans to expand the exposed North Stand to give more protection from the elements and to provide more facilities for the fans. The South Stand ( John Smith's stand) is all standing but it has good protection from the elements and facilities for the fans underneath the stand. Through the 2013–14 rugby and football seasons, the stadium had a grass surface. In March 2014, Premiership Rugby approved Newcastle Falcons' plan to install an advanced

artificial pitch Artificial turf is a surface of synthetic fibers made to look like natural grass. It is most often used in arenas for sports that were originally or are normally played on grass. However, it is now being used on residential lawns and commerc ...

during the 2014 close season, and Newcastle City Council approved the plan in May. The new artificial pitch, the second in Premiership Rugby, was installed by SIS Pitches, the company responsible for the Premiership's first such pitch at Saracens' Copthall Stadium. The nearest

Tyne and Wear Metro The Tyne and Wear Metro is an overground and underground light rail rapid transit system serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and the City of Sunderland (together forming Tyne and Wear). The network opened in ...

station is the Bank Foot station.

Northumbria University , mottoeng = A lifetime of learning , established = 1877 - Rutherford College of Technology1969 - Newcastle Polytechnic1992 - gained university status , type = Public , budget = � ...

and the club are to develop the UK's first ever rugby-based Centre of Sporting Excellence at Kingston Park.

Ownership

own the stadium, having bought the ground back in June 2015. The stadium was previously owned by

who bought it in late 2008 for an undisclosed fee. The Newcastle Falcons were leasing the site back from Northumbria University, in a similar fashion to the agreement with the previous owner. Included in the university deal for the site is the rugby stadium, the land around the stadium and the car park. The former owner was the

Northern Rock Northern Rock, formerly the Northern Rock Building Society, was a British bank. Based at Regent Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, Northern Rock was originally a building society. It demutualised and became Northern Rock bank i ...

bank, who purchased it in 2007 for £14,756,646.

Rugby League Internationals

On 28 August 2019, it was announced that Kingston Park would host three games of the

2021 Rugby League World Cup The 2021 Rugby League World Cup (RLWC2021) was a collection of world cups in the sport of rugby league, held in England from 15 October to 19 November 2022. England won hosting rights for the competition on 27 October 2016. The bid received £ ...

(now to be held in 2022). These games were originally planned to be hosted at a new stadium built in

Workington Workington is a coastal town and civil parish at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England. The town was historically in Cumberland. At the 2011 census it had a population of 25,207. Locat ...

but in early July 2019, Allerdale Council announced that they would be unable to host the games as the project to build a new stadium had stalled.

Internationals

References

External links

Kingston Park
at Newcastle Falcons Newcastle Blue Star F.C. Newcastle United F.C. Rugby union stadiums in England Sports venues in Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle Falcons Gateshead Thunder Multi-purpose stadiums in the United Kingdom Sports venues completed in 1990 {{England-sports-venue-stub