Lancaster Park, also known as Jade Stadium and AMI Stadium for sponsorship reasons, was a sports stadium in Waltham, a suburb of

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

in New Zealand. The stadium closed permanently due to damage sustained in the February 2011 earthquake and demolished in 2019. It has since been transformed into a public recreational park with facilities for community sport, and was re-opened in June 2022. The stadium was the venue for various sports including

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competitio ...

and trotting. It is perhaps best known for being the track where

Peter Snell Sir Peter George Snell (17 December 1938 – 12 December 2019) was a New Zealand middle-distance runner. He won three Olympic gold medals, and is the only man since 1920 to have won the 800 and 1500 metres at the same Olympics, in 1964. Snel ...

broke the world record for 800 meters and for 880 yards in a single race in 1962. It had also hosted various non-sporting events including concerts by

Pearl Jam Pearl Jam is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. One of the key bands in the grunge, grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries from the early 1990s, ...

in 2009,

Bon Jovi Bon Jovi is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Sayreville, New Jersey in 1983. The band consists of singer Jon Bon Jovi, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, guitarists John Shanks and Phil X, percussionist Everett Bradley ...

in 2008,

Roger Waters George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. In 1965, he co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd as the bassist. Following the departure of the group's main songwriter Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became ...

in 2007,

Meat Loaf Michael Lee Aday (born Marvin Lee Aday; September 27, 1947 – January 20, 2022), known professionally by his stage name Meat Loaf, was an American singer and actor. He was known for his powerful, wide-ranging voice and theatrical live shows. ...

in 2004, U2 in 1989 & 1993,

Tina Turner Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939 – May 24, 2023) was a singer, songwriter, actress, and author. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", her vocal prowess, raspy voice, and electrifyin ...

in 1993 and 1997,

Dire Straits Dire Straits were a British rock band formed in London in 1977 by Mark Knopfler (lead vocals, lead guitar), David Knopfler (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), John Illsley (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Pick Withers (drums, percussion). Th ...

in 1986 and 1991, and

Billy Joel William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Piano Man" after his Signature song, signature 1973 song Piano Man (song), of the same name, Joel has ha ...

in 1987. However the stadium was primarily a rugby and

ground and was the home of the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

rugby union team, who compete in

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

, and the

Canterbury cricket team Canterbury is a first-class cricket team based in Canterbury, New Zealand. It is one of six teams that compete in senior New Zealand Cricket competitions and has been the second most successful domestic team in New Zealand history. They compete ...

. Its capacity was 38,628.

History

Ownership

In 1880 Canterbury Cricket and Athletics Sports Co. Ltd was established. In 1882, Edward Stevens and Arthur Ollivier, as agents through their company, Harman and Stevens, arranged the purchase of a parcel of swampy farmland which became Lancaster Park. (The actual cricket ground was in low-lying area and sat on a large pool of saturated land.) Benjamin Lancaster, a farmer, was the absentee

vendor In a supply chain, a vendor, supplier, provider or a seller, is an enterprise that contributes goods or services. Generally, a supply chain vendor manufactures inventory/stock items and sells them to the next link in the chain. Today, these term ...

. Canterbury Cricket and Athletics Sports purchased 10 acres 3 rods 30 perches (4.426 hectares) for £2,841 at £260 per acre (

NZ$ The New Zealand dollar (; currency sign, sign: $; ISO 4217, code: NZD) is the official currency and legal tender of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, the Ross Dependency, Tokelau, and a British territory, the Pitcairn Islands. Within New Zeal ...

1284.95/hectare). In 1904 Canterbury cricket would become the sole owner of the ground. Then in 1911 the Canterbury Rugby Union became co-owners with the Canterbury Cricket Association over the ground. An Act of Parliament in November 1919 vested title to Lancaster Park in the Crown, and established the Victory Park Board to take responsibility for its management. JADE Stadium Limited was established in December 1998 to manage the existing facilities on behalf of the Victory Park Board and the Christchurch City Council. A five-member board of directors, drawn from Christchurch's business community and the Christchurch City Council, governed the company.

Official opening

In 1881 the first cricket match to be played on the ground was scheduled for the opening on 8 October, but it was cancelled because of rain. An athletics meeting became the first event held on the ground, on 15 October.

Financial difficulty

In 1912 a "Floral Fete", a festival, was held to raise funds to clear the debt of £2,000 in order to prevent the ground being cut up into building sites. The financial difficulty the ground faced was so great that during New Zealand's involvement in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

in 1915 the main oval at Lancaster Park was ploughed up and was used as a potato field in an attempt to raise more revenue.

Expansion

The embankment was expanded in 1957, increasing the capacity to 33,000. Two new stands were opened in 1965 further increasing the capacity to 38,500. In 1995 the Hadlee Stand opened in tribute to the successful cricketing family which came from Canterbury. The Hadlee stand was the first stand to be demolished due to earthquake damage. In 2000 saw the demolition of the embankment and No. 4 stand and the opening of the DB Draught stand (renamed the Tui stand in 2006) and the Paul Kelly Motor Company Stand (West Stand). Both stands sustained severe slump damage during the earthquake in 2011. Although deemed repairable it is unlikely they will be as the cost would be too expensive. As part of a $60 million redevelopment for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, the Eastern Stands (No. 1, 2 and 3 stands) were demolished and replaced with the new Deans Stand. The Stand was designed to reflect the newly completed Western Stand. The total capacity was 38,500 and was to be raised to nearly 45,000 with temporary seating for the

2011 Rugby World Cup The 2011 Rugby World Cup, was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The World Rugby, International Rugby Board (IRB) selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japa ...

, in what would have made it the second largest stadium in New Zealand after Eden Park.

Deans Stand

On Tuesday, 22 April 2008 a press release was issued announcing that the new East Stand, built to replace stands demolished in 2007, as part of a redevelopment of the Ground, was to be named the Deans Stand when it was officially opened in January 2010. The Deans Stand had a seating capacity of 13,000. The stand was severely damaged in the earthquake when the piles it stood on were violently forced up and then down in a wave motion. It was slated for demolition. The Deans name has been a part of rugby at the stadium for more than a century.

Bob Deans Robert George Deans (19 February 1884 – 30 September 1908) was a New Zealand and Canterbury rugby union footballer. In 1905, Deans entered New Zealand rugby folklore for his disallowed try against Wales in the famous '' Match of the Century''. ...

was an All Black and also captained the Canterbury rugby team, Bruce and

Robbie Deans Robert Maxwell Deans (born 4 September 1959) is a New Zealand rugby union coach and former player, currently the head coach of Japanese club Saitama Wild Knights. He was head coach of the Australian national team between 2008 and 2013. Deans prev ...

were both All Blacks and members of the Canterbury team with Robbie also coaching the Crusaders, Bob's brother

Colin Colin may refer to: * Colin (given name) * Colin (surname) * ''Colin'' (film), a 2008 Cannes film festival zombie movie * Colin (horse) (1905–1932), Thoroughbred racehorse * Colin (humpback whale), a humpback whale calf abandoned north of Sydney, ...

played rugby at the ground, Bruce & Robbie's father Tony played cricket on the ground, and in the sixth generation of the family Milly Deans is a member of the Canterbury women's rugby team. The name Deans is also the family name of the first successful settlers in the city with brothers John and William Deans building their house in 1843.

Earthquake damage

The stadium was closed because of the severe damage sustained during the February

2011 Christchurch earthquake A major earthquake occurred in Christchurch on Tuesday 22 February 2011 at 12:51 p.m. New Zealand Daylight Time, local time (23:51 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC, 21 February). The () earthquake struck the Canterbury Region ...

. Seven

matches scheduled for the stadium in September were moved to other venues. Demolition of the stadium was largely completed by September 2019. In 2025, the new stadium named Te Kaha is proposed to be finished for games within Christchurch's Four Avenues inner city boundary. In the meantime, games would be played in the site of

Rugby League Park Rugby League Park is a sports stadium in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is currently known for sponsorship reasons as Apollo Projects Stadium, and non-commercially as Christchurch Stadium. The stadium was originally known as the Addington Sho ...

Naming

Formerly known as Lancaster Park, the stadium was renamed Jade Stadium in 1998, after the naming rights were sold to Jade Software Corporation Limited. In 2007, the naming rights were sold to AMI Insurance Limited and the stadium was renamed AMI Stadium. The park on which the stadium stands has always been called Lancaster Park, so the formal name for the venue was "AMI Stadium at Lancaster Park".

Davis Cup (tennis)

The 1911 Davis Cup was played at Lancaster Park, where

Australasia Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...

as the defending champion was challenged by the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Rain delayed the beginning of the games scheduled for 29 December 1911, and the 1911 Davis Cup event was held between 1 and 3 January 1912. Australian

Norman Brookes Sir Norman Everard Brookes (14 November 187728 September 1968) was an Australian tennis player. During his career he won three Grand Slam singles titles; Wimbledon in 1907 and 1914 (the first non-British born individual to do so) and the Au ...

beat

Beals Wright Beals Coleman Wright (December 19, 1879 – August 23, 1961) was an American tennis player who was active at the end of the 1890s and early 1900s. He won the singles title at the 1905 U.S. National Championships. Wright was a two-time Olympic g ...

in the opening match. Rodney Heath increased the lead for Australasia by beating

William Larned William Augustus Larned (December 30, 1872 – December 16, 1926) was an American tennis player who was active at the beginning of the 20th century. He won seven singles titles at the U.S. National Championships. Biography Larned was born ...

. Australasia retained the Davis Cup through a win in the doubles, with Brookes and Alf Dunlop being successful over Wright and Maurice E. McLoughlin. The fourth match was defaulted by Wright, and Larned stepped aside to give the younger McLoughlin the opportunity to play Brookes. McLoughlin led 2 sets to 1, but Brookes came back and won the match, and gave Australasia a clean 5–0 victory.

Rugby union

The venue hosted 48

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks, is the representative men's national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of New Zealand, which is considered the country's national sport. Famed for th ...

test matches from 1913 to 2010.

2011 Rugby World Cup

The Stadium was scheduled to host five pool matches and two quarter finals at the 2011 Rugby World Cup and would be referred to as Stadium Christchurch owing to the IRB's advertising rules at venues for the Rugby World Cup. Owing to damage suffered from the earthquake that hit Christchurch and surrounding areas on 22 February 2011, Christchurch lost its rights to host the seven world cup games as the city was too damaged to host.

Super Rugby

AMI Stadium was home to the Crusaders

franchise. They have hosted four Super 12/Super 14 finals in 2002, 2005,

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

and in

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

. Due to damage AMI Stadium sustained in the

, the Crusaders moved to

in Addington, renamed Christchurch AMI STADIUM to be used as their home ground for the foreseeable future. The ground has been rebuilt to 18,600pax. Despite AMI claiming massive expenses, they still were able to buy naming rights to Crusaders temporary stadium. In the recent years, it has been renamed to Orange Theory Stadium.

NPC/ITM Cup

The stadium was home to the

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

team A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to in ...

in the

ITM Cup ITM may stand for: Education * ITM Law School, one of the professional graduate schools of ITM University * ITM-IFM, Mumbai, India * Institut Teknologi Mara, a public university in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia * Institute for Information, Tel ...

(now the Bunnings National Provincial Championship). The team moved to Rugby Park for the 2011 season but joined their fellow Crusaders franchise at the new AMI STADIUM, the former League ground in Addington for the 2012 season.

Ranfurly Shield

have a proud Ranfurly Shield history. One of their most memorable moments was when they successfully retained the

Ranfurly Shield The Ranfurly Shield, colloquially known as the Log o' Wood, is a trophy in New Zealand's domestic rugby union competition. First played for in 1904, the Shield is based on a challenge system. The holding union must defend the shield in challenge ...

against

Waikato The Waikato () is a region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipā District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton City, as well as Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsula, the nort ...

in 1954 with a last minute try. The conversion was never taken as the crowd rushed the field before the game could be completed.

Cricket

Cricket has long been played at Lancaster Park, which was built as a cricket ground. It staged the first

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film) ...

in New Zealand on 10 January 1930, which was also the first Test played by New Zealand, in the 1929–30 series against England. Day/night cricket was made possible after the lighting towers were added in 1996—the first in a major New Zealand stadium. These were first put to use in 1997 when New Zealand played England in front of a crowd of 25,000. It was the ground where

Richard Hadlee Sir Richard John Hadlee (born 3 July 1951) is a New Zealand former cricketer. Hadlee is widely regarded as one of the greatest all-rounders in cricket history, and amongst the very finest fast bowlers. Hadlee was appointed an MBE in the 1 ...

picked up the most 5-wicket hauls in New Zealand, his second century (151* against Sri Lanka) and his 400th Test wicket and where Nathan Astle scored 222 against England in a losing effort, including the fastest double-century in Test cricket. Brendon McCullum scored the fastest Twenty20 century against Australia at Lancaster Park, and a one-day-match fundraiser for Boxing Day Tsunami relief was held there in 2005, New Zealand against a World XI. Because of the February

, and the

liquefaction In materials science, liquefaction is a process that generates a liquid from a solid or a gas or that generates a non-liquid phase which behaves in accordance with fluid dynamics. It occurs both naturally and artificially. As an example of t ...

of the ground,

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

s could not be played in the city until the upgrade of the

Hagley Oval Hagley Oval is a Cricket field, cricket ground in Hagley Park, Christchurch, Hagley Park in the Christchurch Central City, central city of Christchurch, New Zealand. The first recorded match on the ground was in 1867, when Canterbury cricket te ...

in preparation for the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup as this was the only ground that had the capacity to host them. First-class matches have been moved to

Rangiora Recreation Ground Rangiora Recreation Ground (also known as the MainPower Oval through a sponsorship deal with local company MainPower) is a cricket ground in Rangiora, Canterbury, New Zealand. The Recreation Ground is recorded as being in existence since the ea ...

and

in Christchurch.

Rugby league

Lancaster Park has hosted matches for a number of clubs from the Australasian

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

competition. The

Wests Tigers The Wests Tigers is an Australian professional rugby league football team, based in the Inner West of Sydney and South Western Sydney. The Tigers have competed in the National Rugby League (NRL) since being formed at the end of the 1999 N ...

and

Sydney Roosters Eastern Suburbs District Rugby League Football Club, known as the Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs (Sydney), Eastern Suburbs. The club competes in the National Rugby Lea ...

, who are both based in Sydney, have hosted matches at the ground. The 2011 ANZAC rugby league Test match was originally scheduled to be played at the stadium but was moved to the

Robina Stadium Robina Stadium, commercially known as Cbus Super Stadium, is a multi-purpose rectangular stadium in Robina, a suburb of Gold Coast, Queensland. It is the home ground to the National Rugby League's Gold Coast Titans, this venue sometimes hos ...

on Australia's Gold Coast because of the damage from the 2011 Canterbury earthquake.

Rugby league test matches

Lancaster Park has hosted three

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

rugby league internationals since 1920.

Soccer

Lancaster Park hosted an

A-League A-League Men, also known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional soccer league in Australia and New Zealand and the highest level of the Australian soccer league system. Established in 2004 as the A-League by the ...

match between

Wellington Phoenix Wellington Phoenix Football Club is a professional football club based in Wellington, New Zealand. It competes in the Australian A-League Men, under licence from Football Federation Australia. Phoenix entered the competition in the 2007–08 ...

and

Adelaide United Adelaide United Football Club is a professional men's soccer club located in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. The club was one of the eight founding members of the A-League Men and have competed in it concurrently since its formation, u ...

on 30 January 2010. The match attracted 19,276 which was, at the time, a record home league attendance for the Wellington team, prompting suggestions Christchurch may be able to sustain an A-League team of its own. In the next A-League season the stadium was used again, for the same opponents encounter on 5 December 2010. A 14,108 crowd was the season-best record for Phoenix.

Concerts

Lancaster Park has hosted a number of concerts including U2 (1989 & 1993),

(1993 & 1997),

(1986 & 1991),

(1987),

(2004),

(2007),

(2008) and

(2009).

Religious events

In 1954 Lancaster Park held a Roman Catholic prayer rally drawing a large crowd.

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

also held a public mass on the oval in 1986, attracting about 25,000 people.

References

External links

*
AMI Stadium Official Site
{{Authority control 1881 establishments in New Zealand 2019 disestablishments in New Zealand Rugby union stadiums in New Zealand Test cricket grounds in New Zealand Defunct rugby league venues in New Zealand Sports venues in Christchurch 2011 Christchurch earthquake Defunct cricket grounds in New Zealand Sports venues demolished in 2019 Buildings and structures demolished as a result of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake Parks in Christchurch