The Riverbank Arena was a stadium in the Olympic Park, in Hackney Wick, London, United Kingdom, containing a water-based astroturf.
The Riverbank Arena was built with two venues for field-hockey competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics with capacities of 15,000 and 5,000, respectively, and venues for the football 7-a-side and football 5-a-side competitions at the 2012 Summer Paralympics.
The budget for the stadium was £19 million. After the Olympics, the venue will be scaled down to a 5,000-seat arena and a training pitch and moved north to Eton Manor, a sport and leisure venue in Leyton, Waltham Forest. In January 2011, Leyton Orient F.C. expressed an interest in moving into the stadium after the games.
In May 2012, it opened with a test event, a men's and women's invitational hockey tournament.
Riverbank Arena was dismantled following the conclusion of the 2012 Games. The Eton Manor venue on the Olympic Park, now known as the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre, will host the 2015 EuroHockey Nations Championships. The facility reopened in June 2014 and is the current ground of Wapping Hockey Club.
The Riverbank Arena was one of the stand-out venues on Olympic Park. Its blue artificial pitch with its pink run-off areas was nicknamed the ‘smurf turf’ and really caught the eye, particularly from the air. Its colours were chosen to reflect the colours of the London Games.
Hockey’s legacy venue at Eton Manor is expected to play host to major domestic finals, the annual Investec London Cup and other major international tournaments. Day-to-day, it will be brought to life through community use including local hockey clubs, who have traditionally struggled to find appropriate facilities.