1. The Kia Oval is where every Test series in England traditionally ends – but in terms of English cricket history it’s also the ground where it all began; the country’s first Test took place here in September 1880. England beat Australia by five wickets with three Grace brothers in the team. It was the only time Fred (GF) and Edward (EM) represented their country, but William (aka WG) scored a century, played 21 more Tests for his country and took his beard into cricketing immortality.
2. Two years later, the legend of the Ashes was born at the Oval. Needing only 85 to win, England collapsed from 51 for 2 to 78 all out. The next morning The Sporting Times published its famous mock obituary, noting: “The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. After England won a three-Test series in Australia the following winter, captain Ivo Bligh was presented with a terracotta urn, reputed to contain the ashes of a burnt bail, to symbolise the regaining of “The Ashes”.
3. At the end of the 1971 season, the Oval hosted Goodbye Summer, a concert for famine relief in Bangladesh. The Who were top of the bill, along with the Faces, including Rod Stewart, and other 1970s bands such as Atomic Rooster, Mott the Hoople and Lindisfarne. DJ Jeff Dexter, padded up in cricket whites and carrying a bat, compered.
4. The Oval is one of just two sports grounds in this country to have staged England football and cricket internationals. The other is Bramall Lane in Sheffield. Indeed, the Oval was the venue for the first ever football international, when England and Scotland drew 1-1 in 1870.
5. The history of the FA Cup also began at the Oval. Having staged the first cup final in 1872, when Wanderers beat Royal Engineers 1-0, it was home to the showpiece event from 1874 to 1892.
6. The oval ball game also features in the Oval’s annals. The ground staged seven England rugby union internationals from 1872 to 1879, all against either Scotland or Ireland, and seven editions of the Varsity Match after the dark blues and light blues insisted the rivalry be played out on neutral territory.
7. Aussie Rules has been played sporadically at the Oval since 1972, when Carlton tackled the All-Stars in front of a crowd of 9,000. In 2005 more than twice that number watched the clash between Fremantle Dockers and West Coast Eagles. Six years later another code of football made its debut when the NFL’s Chicago Bears used the ground to prepare for their showdown with Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Wembley.
8. The name of the ground actually pre-dates its use for cricket. In the 1790s an oval road was laid round what was then a market garden. It became a cricket ground in 1845 when Surrey County Cricket Club were granted a lease by owners the Duchy of Cornwall. The transformation cost £300 – a total of 10,000 strips of turf came from Tooting Common.
9. Only six years after it opened, royal intervention was required to save the Oval for cricket. Queen Victoria’s husband Albert, a fan of the game, intervened to stop a plan to build houses on the ground.
10. Both Lord’s and the Oval were requisitioned during the second world war. Although games were still staged there, Lord’s became an aircrew receiving centre with the Nursery Ground used by 903 Balloon Barrage Squadron, part of London’s defences against low-flying enemy aircraft. Play ceased at the Oval, which was earmarked as a prisoner of war camp for enemy parachutists. Since they never came, it was used instead to house searchlights. After the war, the Oval was handed back to Surrey and relaid with turf from the Gravesend marshes in Kent.
11. One of the Kia Oval’s most enduring features is the gasometer situated just outside the ground. It was built in the 1850s and is no longer used but has so far resisted demolition. When plans to remove it resurfaced in 2013, Henry Blofeld leapt to its defence. “In comparison,” the Test Match Special commentator thundered, “pulling down the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace would be child’s play.”
