Historic cycle racing in ~1943 on the sports field then known as Sarawai Park. More well known for its later speedway track around 1950 and national football stadium through the 1960’s & 70’s.

Less notable for cycling than Blandford Park on the other side of the Auckland Domain is Newmarket Park. The gulley was first used as a rubbish dump by early European settlers. Originally known as Sarawai Reserve (note difference to spelling of the street name, and often cited as Saraway), having been named after George Sarawai who was “one of the first [Christian] converts of Melanesia” who was ordained an Anglican priest at the nearby St Paul’s Church in 1873 and spent his later years on the island of Mota, Vanuatu. Further reading

In the late 1930’s, an unemployment scheme (like those used to build other cycling venues in that era) created a flat area on the higher western slope of the gulley, approximately half-way up to the railway line (Sarawia St dropping down from Parnell Rd on the other side). With concrete terracing constructed up to the rail tracks (forty-six terraces of ~180 m in length, estimated to be able to accommodate up to 50,000 people). It was first used for a range of sports, including football, hockey, a greyhound racing club. See Sarawai Reserve and Sarawai Park on Papers Past.

In August 1948, John Sydney Cormack obtained a license from the Newmarket Borough Council to carry out racing in the park September to June over a five-year period. Thus the park became the location of a speedway track. The surface was a sand and clay mixture saturated with used oil.

The track was raced by just motorcycles on October 22nd in the 1948-49 race season (with complaint). For the 1949-50 season the track was renamed Olympic Park (not to be confused with the Olympic Park Velodrome to the west of Auckland in New Lynn). The 1950-51 season bought about 4 race meetings to the track at the beginning of the season, before Jack (Cocky) Cormack, who built Olympic and was the promoter, took over the running of the Western Springs Stadium track and closed Olympic down. The speedway racing at Western Springs eventually forced cycling out after having huge events which had combined cycling, speedway bikes and midget cars.

The lease of the park was taken over by the Auckland Football Association in 1962 (who had previously been based at Blandford Park) and became known as Newmarket Park. It was developed into the national football/soccer stadium with many international games being played here. In 1979 there was a major landslide carrying part of a grandstand away and football ceased to be played at the venue. It was left derelict before being redeveloped into a recreational park in the 1990’s and further remediation work around 2010.

Sources

• Olympic Speedway by Taranaki Historic Speedway Association
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newmarket_Park
• Papers Past
• https://www.friendsoffootballnz.com/2021/06/01/memories-of-newmarket-park-aucklands-former-home-of-football/