Gressbanen
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| Location | Holmen, Oslo |
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| Coordinates | 59°57′03″N 10°40′34″E / 59.95083°N 10.67611°ECoordinates: 59°57′03″N 10°40′34″E / 59.95083°N 10.67611°E |
| Owner | Oslo Municipality |
| Record attendance | 20,000 |
| Field size | 105 m × 65 m (115 yd × 71 yd) |
| Surface |
Artificial turf (summer) Artificial ice (winter) |
| Opened | 1 September 1918 |
| Tenants | |
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IF Ready (1918–) Mercantile SFK (1918–47) Norway national football team (1919–27) Norwegian Football Cup Final (1920–21) |
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Gressbanen is a stadium located at Holmen in Oslo, Norway. During summer it has artificial turf and is used for association football, while during winter is has artificial ice and fields bandy. The complex also contains a smaller training field with gravel during summer and natural ice during winter. Gressbanen is the home venue of IF Ready, whose bandy team plays in the Norwegian Bandy Premier League and who fields 35 recreational football teams.
The stadium was built as a response to the need for a grass pitch for the Norway national football team, as well as to serve as a home to Ready and Mercantile SFK. It opened on 1 September 1918 as the second grass pitch in Norway and the first in Oslo. As such it replaced Frogner Stadion as the home of the national team, for which it was home to seventeen matches. The national team moved to Ullevaal Stadion in 1927. Gressbanen also featured two Norwegian Football Cup Final, in 1920 and 1921. The pitch has been iced and used for bandy since 1935. Mercantile remained a tenant until 1947, when it merged with SFK Trygg. Gressbanen received artificial turf in 2001 and artificial ice in 2004.
During the 1910s there were no grass football pitches in Norway. At the time the only proper football fields in Oslo were Bislett Stadion and Frogner Stadion, the latter which was at first used by the national team. The Football Association of Norway took initiative in 1911 to study the possibility for a grass field and conducted visits to Idrætsparken in Copenhagen and to investigate how the neighboring capitals had resolved the issue. The main concern was that a grass field located in the Norwegian climate would not survive the winter. Also financing was a challenge, as none of the local clubs, nor the federation, had capital to construct a grass venue. In 1914 the Norway national team had lost 7–0 against Sweden on the grass pitch at Råsunda Stadium, with the press stating that "grass has become our ruin", pointing out how the Norwegian players were unable to handle the wet surface.
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