Boxer Stadium (also known as Matthew J. Boxer Stadium) is a soccer stadium in

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. Located in Balboa Park, the stadium has a capacity of 3,500. It is owned and operated by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department and is the only public

soccer-specific stadium A soccer-specific stadium, mainly in the United States and Canada, is a sports stadium either purpose-built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multi-purpose stadium whic ...

in San Francisco. Boxer Stadium is the primary home of the century-old

San Francisco Soccer Football League The San Francisco Soccer Football League or SFSFL, established in 1902, is "the oldest American soccer league in continuous existence." The SFSFL is a men's semi-professional and amateur soccer league consisting of teams from San Francisco, Cali ...

History

Boxer Stadium opened September 27, 1953 as the Balboa Park Soccer Stadium at a cost of $150,000. The concrete bleachers were added later after the November 1953 Proposition G bond passage. The stadium was renamed in honor of the late SFSFL President, Matthew J. Boxer in the 1990s. Boxer Stadium served as the main venue of the 1982 Gay Games. Boxer Stadium hosted the California Rugby League Championship Game in 2021. East Palo Alto Razborbacks won the championship

Tenants

The stadium is home to the

, the Golden Gate Women's Soccer League, and the

San Francisco Unified School District San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), established in 1851, is the only public school district within the City and County of San Francisco, and the first in the state of California. Under the management of the San Francisco Board of Edu ...

CIF high school and middle school soccer. For the 2013 season the

San Francisco Stompers FC East Bay FC Stompers is an American soccer club currently playing in the National Premier Soccer League. Founded in 2012 in San Francisco as San Francisco Stompers Football Club, since the 2016 season it has been based in Hayward, California. Th ...

of the

National Premier Soccer League The National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) is an American men's association football, soccer league. The league is officially affiliated to the United States Adult Soccer Association (USASA) and has automatic qualification for the U.S. Open Cup. ...

played their home games at Boxer Stadium. The San Francisco Glens of

USL League Two USL League Two (USL2), formerly the Premier Development League (PDL), is a semi-professional soccer league sponsored by United Soccer Leagues in the United States, forming part of the United States soccer league system. The league will featu ...

played at Boxer for their first two seasons in the league (2018-19). High school

Lacrosse Lacrosse is a contact team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game w ...

teams from SHC also use Boxer Stadium. Rugby and

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sports, amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional Irish sports o ...

teams had used Boxer Stadium until the opening of Ray Sheeran Field on

Treasure Island ''Treasure Island'' (originally titled ''The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys''Hammond, J. R. 1984. "Treasure Island." In ''A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion'', Palgrave Macmillan Literary Companions. London: Palgrave Macmillan. .) is an adventure a ...

in 2005. In 2016, Boxer Stadium was the home pitch for the San Francisco Rush professional rugby team in the new

PRO Rugby The Professional Rugby Organization, known as PRO Rugby, was an American professional rugby union competition. PRO began play in April 2016 with five teams and ceased operations by January 2017. The competition was sanctioned by USA Rugby and b ...

competition in the United States, however, the team was folded by the league after one season citing an unsuitable venue.

USA Internationals

Boxer Stadium has hosted 16 USA Eagles international rugby union matches. It was the unofficial home of the Eagles from 1996 to 2000, hosting 12 of their 17 test matches. The results are as follows: ''Updated 30 April 2021''

References

External links

SF Recreation & Parks Department
{{Premier Development League stadiums Soccer venues in San Francisco Rugby union stadiums in San Francisco Sports venues completed in 1953 1953 establishments in California Ultimate (sport) venues