About
This site was once part of the land used for a local brewery (run by Thomas Lewis and later Robert Henry Stiles) and private house (now the Riverside Tavern). The brewery gave the sports stadium its name and the street on which it is located along. The stadium is the home of one of Wales’s oldest rugby clubs – The Bridgend Ravens. Several famous and noteworthy players and staff have called this place home including: Johnny Thomas, Ben Gronow, Clem Lewis, Steve Lawrence, ‘Bobby’ Delahay, Bill Moore, A. H. Jones, V. G. J. Jenkins (a double Oxford ‘blue’), Wilfred Bradshaw (who was a famous Chairman) and W. J. Llewelyn (an infamous referee).
Llewelyn’s most famed or most controversial appearance occurred in Paris in 1924 in a match with the New Zealand All Blacks. Little is known about this match, but it led to no Welsh referee being allowed to referee on a Sunday. On 13 December 1978, Bridgend RFC took on the New Zealand All Blacks, drawing a crowd 15,000 where JPR Williams famously returned to the game following a stamping incident where he lost two pints of blood and required 30 stitches to his face. Also used for large community events, singer/songwriter Bryan Adams filled the stands in June 2006 as part of his European Tour.
