Wellington Basin Reserve Stadium Through the Years

Cricket might as well be the second official pastime for New Zealanders. Today, fans gather at state-of-the-art fields to cheer on their heroes. However, many thanks and homage should be paid to the grandfather, or in the case of the White Ferns, the godmother of cricket stadiums – Wellington Basin Reserve.

More than just the birthplace of modern-day cricket, Wellington Basin Reserve Stadium is part of New Zealand’s fabric. Celebrate this national treasure with the top highlights of its 120+ year history.

• The dock and canal down Kent and Cambridge Terraces had featured on plans, but uplift in the 1855 earthquake left the reserve on its knees, thus making it a recreational ground.  Prisoners added a landfill in 1863, and three years later, it became an official cricket site.  By 1868, the first Wellington cricket match was held.
• By the 1900's, the ground had been transformed into an international sports field.  Thousands attended events there, especially cricket. The first test was played in 1930, between England and New Zealand, and with this, the Basin Reserve became the world’s 19th test venue.
• In August 1870, the Basin Reserve hosted the first game of rugby played in the North Island. While Athletic Park and the Wellington Regional Stadium were no strangers to elite rugby competition, 1870 marked a turning point in the regularity of high-caliber rugby matches. The Basin is currently the home of the Old Boys University club and is used for regular training.
• Lacrosse isn’t as widely popular as football, cricket, and rugby, but in Wellington it has a long history, with reports of it being played here dating back to 1888. Like most sports, it found a home at the Basin Reserve, where regular club matches were being played before World War I.
• Before the construction of the National Hockey Stadium in the 1980s, the Basin Reserve hosted infrequent international hockey contests. The match between New Zealand and the English women’s team in 1914 was the first hockey Test ever played in New Zealand.
• The first rugby league match at the Basin Reserve was played in 1914, when England defeated Wellington 14–7. However, the formation of a national rugby team hit many rough patches since the transformative match, because Wellington couldn’t find a permanent home stadium. However, the ground became the home of rugby league in Wellington in 1919, when the City Council’s initial decision against their use of the Basin Reserve was overturned.
• The 1920s heralded the start of its rise to prominence as New Zealand’s premier football ground.  Dating back to 1923, the Chatham Cup remains the premier trophy in New Zealand domestic football, with countless fans following it on local media, social media, and the rush of new betting sites. In 1926, the final was first held at the Basin Reserve, and the team would play there until 1972.
• Of the American sports played in New Zealand, baseball perhaps benefited the most. In Wellington, the first recorded baseball game was played between Wellington and the Hick’s Sawyer Ministrels at the Basin Reserve in 1889. The first national provincial softball championship was played for the Beatty Cup at the Basin Reserve in 1939.

Even with a storied history, the Basin is not yet finished changing. In 2012, the Museum Stand was yellow-stickered, following a negative earthquake assessment in the aftermath of the Canterbury 2010/11 quakes. Its future is still up in the air. No matter its ultimate, the Wellington Basin Reserve will always be the national stadium.