Bathurst Showground
Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia
Bathurst Showground, Bathurst, Australia — opened 1878, 6 rugby league games hosted, home of primarily an agricultural showground (livestock shows, trotting since around 1889/1910, circuses) — no rugby league club was ever a tenant; all six recorded matches are a Western Division/Group 10 representative side against touring sides or in country carnival fixtures.
Sourcing caveat: A local news source (Western Advocate) has been observed using "Sportsground" and "Showground" interchangeably in casual references to Bathurst's sporting precinct generally, which is what originally raised the question resolved above — but every source with hard address or origin data treats them as separate venues. Capacity, floodlight and surface details were not found in any source; attendance was not recorded for two of the six matches.
Ground facts
| Opened | 1878 (First used for the 1878 Bathurst Show, on Kendall Avenue off the Great Western Highway — a genuinely different site and address from the separately-published Bathurst Sports Ground (corner of Howick and Havannah Streets), resolving an open question raised when that entry was published: the two are distinct grounds, not name variants of one site, confirmed by independent council and heritage sources plus two entirely non-overlapping 56-year match records.) |
| Home club | primarily an agricultural showground (livestock shows, trotting since around 1889/1910, circuses) — no rugby league club was ever a tenant; all six recorded matches are a Western Division/Group 10 representative side against touring sides or in country carnival fixtures |
| Games hosted (rugby league, on record) | 6 |
| Top recorded crowd | 7,000 |
| Test matches hosted | 5 |
| First rugby league match | 2 July 1914 — Western Division 3-42 Northern Union (Great Britain), 1914 Lions tour (attendance 1,000) |
| Years used | 1914–1959 |
| Location | Bathurst, New South Wales |
Name history
- Bathurst Showground — 1878–present; became "Royal Bathurst Showground" after a 1993 approval from Buckingham Palace
Rugby league history
Bathurst Showground's rugby league history reflects its role as a secondary, occasional sporting venue alongside its primary agricultural-show function — hosting a single 1914 touring-side fixture and then, decades later, a run of representative and "Country Carnival" matches through the 1940s-50s, a format in which several Sydney first-grade clubs played exhibition fixtures against country representative sides at regional NSW showgrounds. This is a genuinely different ground from Bathurst Sports Ground, covered elsewhere on this site, which independently hosted a different set of touring-side matches (1920-1970) at its own separate Howick/Havannah Streets address.
Primarily an agricultural showground, host of the annual Bathurst Show and, historically, trotting and circuses.
Historic Test matches, Cup & Grand Finals hosted
- 8 August 1943 — NSW Group 10 24-8 Western Suburbs, State Championships (2,500)
- 10 June 1945 — NSW Group 10 8-33 Eastern Suburbs, State Championships (attendance not recorded)
- 13 May 1956 — Western Division 20-17 Western Suburbs, Country Carnival (4,000)
- 11 May 1958 — Western Division 13-41 Newtown, Country Carnival (attendance not recorded)
- 17 May 1959 — Western Division 8-56 St George, Country Carnival (attendance 7,000, our recorded top crowd)
Pre-dates the site's structured match-by-match records for these competitions, so listed here as sourced facts rather than linked match pages.
Sources
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
← Rugby League · Champions list · All-time records · Grand Final results · World Cup · All competitions · Teams · Players