Hindmarsh Stadium
Adelaide (Hindmarsh), South Australia, Australia
Hindmarsh Stadium, Adelaide (Hindmarsh), Australia — opened not confirmed, 6 rugby league games hosted, home of Adelaide United FC (A-League football), 2003-present; historical soccer tenants West Adelaide (1977-1999) and Adelaide City (1986-2004); the Adelaide Rams (Super League/NRL) relocated their home games here for their sole full top-flight season, 1998.
Sourcing caveat: We were unable to reach Rugby League Project's own venue page for this ground despite several attempts (persistent 404s), so this entry relies on Wikipedia's own sourced match table rather than direct RLP confirmation — though the match count, date range and top-crowd figure all match our internal directory exactly, giving reasonable confidence.
Ground facts
| Opened | not confirmed (A 2,000-seat grandstand was built in 1960 as part of the ground's redevelopment from an earlier form (Hindmarsh Oval) into a rectangular stadium.) |
| Home club | Adelaide United FC (A-League football), 2003-present; historical soccer tenants West Adelaide (1977-1999) and Adelaide City (1986-2004); the Adelaide Rams (Super League/NRL) relocated their home games here for their sole full top-flight season, 1998 |
| Games hosted (rugby league, on record) | 6 |
| Top recorded crowd | 8,547 |
| Capacity | 16,500 today (15,000 seated); original capacity approximately 15,000, temporarily expanded to 20,000 with corner stands for the 2000 Sydney Olympics |
| Test matches hosted | 5 |
| Floodlights installed | originally 6 light towers (mid-1970s) plus 8 smaller roof towers, later replaced with 4 corner-mounted TV-standard towers ahead of the 2000 Olympics |
| Surface | grass, field dimensions 120m x 80m |
| First rugby league match | 3 July 1998 — Adelaide Rams 52-0 Balmain Tigers, 1998 NRL season, the Rams' home debut at the ground (attendance 7,351) |
| Years used | 1998–2009 |
| Location | Adelaide (Hindmarsh), South Australia |
Name history
- Hindmarsh Oval — the ground's original form, pre-1960
- Hindmarsh Stadium — 1960–2013, the name in use throughout the rugby league era described here
- Coopers Stadium — since 2013, under a naming-rights sponsorship held by Coopers Brewery since 2010
Rugby league history
The Adelaide Rams played their entire, sole top-flight season here in 1998 before News Limited wound the club up ahead of 1999, ending South Australia's brief NRL/Super League era. The ground later hosted two further one-off relocated NRL "home" fixtures (Penrith 2006, Cronulla 2009) as part of the league's periodic efforts to test South Australia as a growth market. Cronulla had signed on to play three NRL home games at the venue over three seasons from 2009, as part of a South Australian government-backed push to grow the code there, but were released from that agreement early in the 2010 season, meaning the planned follow-up fixtures never took place — consistent with our directory's recorded last use of 2009.
The long-standing home of Adelaide United FC (A-League football, since 2003); historical home of West Adelaide and Adelaide City football clubs.
Historic Test matches, Cup & Grand Finals hosted
- 26 July 1998 — Adelaide Rams 22-20 Auckland Warriors, 1998 NRL season (7,445)
- 7 August 1998 — Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 32-10 Adelaide Rams, 1998 NRL season, the Rams' own record home crowd (7,459)
- 15 August 1998 — North Sydney Bears 36-0 Adelaide Rams, 1998 NRL season, the Rams' final home game before the club was wound up (7,035)
- 15 April 2006 — Melbourne Storm 40-18 Penrith Panthers, 2006 NRL season, a one-off relocated fixture (7,017)
- 19 April 2009 — North Queensland Cowboys 34-10 Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, 2009 NRL season (attendance 8,547, our recorded top crowd and the venue's all-time rugby league attendance record)
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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