Berea Park
Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Berea Park, Pretoria, South Africa — opened September 1882, 2 rugby league games hosted, home of a multi-sport venue — cricket (Northern Transvaal/Northerns, 1937/38-1984/85), soccer (Berea Park F.C.), and rugby union (Berea RFC, from 1926); no rugby league club was ever tenant — two one-off international fixtures 30 years apart.
Sourcing caveat: Both matches are well corroborated, each independently by two sources with matching figures. Capacity, floodlight status and playing surface were not found for either era. Wikipedia's own coverage is internally inconsistent on South Africa's rugby league governing-body history (one article dates its founding to 1991, a separate article on a differently-named body to 1998) — noted here rather than resolved.
Ground facts
| Opened | September 1882 (Dedicated as a cricket field in 1882; already known as "Berea Park" by 1892. Berea Rugby Club (union) formed there in 1926; Berea Park F.C. (soccer) became tenant in 1935.) |
| Home club | a multi-sport venue — cricket (Northern Transvaal/Northerns, 1937/38-1984/85), soccer (Berea Park F.C.), and rugby union (Berea RFC, from 1926); no rugby league club was ever tenant — two one-off international fixtures 30 years apart |
| Games hosted (rugby league, on record) | 2 |
| Top recorded crowd | 10,000 |
| Test matches hosted | 2 |
| First rugby league match | 23 August 1962 — South Africa 30-49 Great Britain, first of a 3-match South African leg of the 1962 Great Britain Lions tour (also including Kingsmead, Durban and Ellis Park, Johannesburg) (attendance 10,000, our recorded top crowd) |
| Years used | 1962–1992 |
| Location | Pretoria, Gauteng |
Name history
- Berea Park — the only name found, from its 1882 dedication onward
Rugby league history
Berea Park's rugby league history spans two isolated occasions three decades apart. The first, in 1962, was part of the touring Great Britain Lions' short South African leg, in an era when the code had almost no organised presence in the country. The second, in 1992, reflected rugby league's tentative post-apartheid opening-up in South Africa — the South African Rugby Football League had been established in 1991 to promote the amateur game, rugby union authorities lifted their own ban on the code in 1994, and South Africa made its Rugby League World Cup debut in 1995; the 1992 CIS tour (a composite Soviet-bloc successor side) fell right in this reopening window.
A historic multi-sport ground for cricket (Northern Transvaal/Northerns), soccer, and rugby union in Pretoria.
Historic Test matches, Cup & Grand Finals hosted
- 23 August 1962 — South Africa 30-49 Great Britain (10,000)
- 20 November 1992 — South Africa 19-22 CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States, a composite touring team of former Soviet-republic players) (3,000)
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.
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