The
Brisbane Cricket Ground, commonly known as
The Gabba, is a major sports
stadiumA modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...
in
BrisbaneBrisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, the capital of
QueenslandQueensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
. It is named after the suburb of
WoolloongabbaWoolloongabba is an inner suburb of Brisbane, Australia located 4 km south of the Brisbane CBD.Experts are divided regarding the Aboriginal meaning of the name, preferring either 'whirling waters' or 'fight talk place'...
, in which it is located.
The land on which the ground sits was first set aside for use as a
cricket groundA cricket field consists of a large circular or oval-shaped grassy ground on which the game of cricket is played. There are no fixed dimensions for the field but its diameter usually varies between 450 feet to 500 feet...
in 1895. The first cricket match was held on the site on 19 December 1896 between Parliament and The Press. The Gabba was not used for interstate or international cricket until 1931. The first Sheffield Shield match scheduled for The Gabba was to be played between 31 January 1931 and 4 February 1931. However, it was washed out without the captains' even bothering to toss a coin. The first
cricket TestThe cricket test or Tebbit test was a controversial phrase coined in April 1990 by the Conservative politician Norman Tebbit in referring to the 'loyalty' or 'lack of loyalty' of immigrants and their children from certain parts of Asia and the Caribbean to the England cricket team...
match at The Gabba was played between Australia and South Africa between 27 November and 3 December 1931.
Over the years, The Gabba has hosted athletics,
Australian rules footballAustralian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
,
baseballBaseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
,
concertA concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
s, cricket,
cyclingTrack cycling is a bicycle racing sport usually held on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using track bicycles....
,
rugby leagueRugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
,
rugby unionRugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
, soccer and pony and
greyhound racesGreyhound racing is the sport of racing greyhounds. The dogs chase a lure on a track until they arrive at the finish line. The one that arrives first is the winner....
.
Between 1993 and 2005, The Gabba was redeveloped in six stages at a cost of A$128,000,000. The dimensions of the
playing fieldA playing field is a field used for playing sports or games. They are generally outdoors, but many large structures exist to enclose playing fields from bad weather. Generally, playing fields are wide expanses of grass, dirt or sand without many obstructions...
are now 170.6 metres (east-west) by 149.9 metres (north-south). The
seating capacitySeating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
of the ground is now 42,000. In its appearance the Gabba now almost resembles a mini
Melbourne Cricket GroundThe Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...
complete with light towers and a gigantic modern grandstand ringing the ground providing an intimidating and noisy atmosphere for visiting teams.
Cricket
The First Test between Australia and England is played nowadays at BrisbaneBrisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
. Nobody seems to know why, and all sorts of arguments are ventilated for and against more cricket Tests on the Woolloongabba ground. I am all in favour of robbing Queensland of its greatest cricketing occasion, for the ground depresses. It is not a cricket ground at all. It is a concentration camp! Wire fences abound. Spectators are herded and sorted out into lots as though for all the world this was a slave market and not a game of cricket. The stands are of wood and filthy to sit on. The dining rooms are barns, without a touch of colour or a picture on the wall. Everywhere there is dust and dirt...Forgive me if I am bitter about the Woolloongabba ground...the city has many good points, and the people who live there are generous and hospitable to the highest degree, but once one goes to the cricket ground the advantages are overwhelmingly lost in the mass of rules and regulations... – John Kay, 1950-51 Ashes series
The Gabba is used from October to March for cricket and is home to the Queensland Cricket Association, the Queensland Cricketers Club and the
Queensland BullsThe Queensland cricket team, nicknamed the Bulls, are the Brisbane-based Queensland representative cricket team in Australia's domestic cricket tournaments:*Sheffield Shield, 4-day matches with first-class status, since the 1926/27 season...
cricket team. The venue usually hosts the first Test match of the season each November in addition to a number of international one-day matches usually held in January. The pitch is usually fast and bouncy.
The Gabba was notorious for its basic amenities, especially in comparison with the other Australian cricket grounds, which were greatly improved in the 1980s.
Test cricketTest cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
was first played at the ground in November 1931, the first Test of the series between
AustraliaThe Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...
and
South AfricaThe South African national cricket team represent South Africa in international cricket. They are administrated by Cricket South Africa.South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council, also known as ICC, with Test and One Day International, or ODI, status...
. In December 1960, Test cricket's first-ever
Tied TestTied Test refers to a rare result in Test cricket. Only two ties have occurred in the 2,000 Tests played since 1877. The first was in 1960 and the second in 1986...
took place at the ground when
Richie BenaudRichard "Richie" Benaud OBE is a former Australian cricketer who, since his retirement from international cricket in 1964, has become a highly regarded commentator on the game....
's Australian team tied with
Frank WorrellSir Frank Mortimer Maglinne Worrell is sometimes referred to by his nickname of Tae and was a West Indies cricketer and Jamaican senator...
's
West IndianThe West Indian cricket team, also known colloquially as the West Indies or the Windies, is a multi-national cricket team representing a sporting confederation of 15 mainly English-speaking Caribbean countries, British dependencies and non-British dependencies.From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s,...
side. Queensland clinched its first-ever Sheffield Shield title with victory over
South AustraliaThe South Australia cricket team, nicknamed the Southern Redbacks and known as the West End Redbacks due to their sponsorship agreement with local brewers West End, are an Australian first class cricket team based in Adelaide, South Australia, and represent the state of South Australia...
in the final at the ground in March 1995.
The Gabba was the first Australian venue to host an International
Twenty20Twenty20 is a form of cricket, originally introduced in England for professional inter-county competition by the England and Wales Cricket Board , in 2003. A Twenty20 game involves two teams, each has a single innings, batting for a maximum of 20 overs. Twenty20 cricket is also known as T20 cricket...
cricket match.
In November 1968
Colin MilburnColin Milburn was an English cricketer, who played in nine Test matches for England, before an accident led to the loss of much of his sight and prompted his retirement....
scored 243 - in the two-hour afternoon session he scored 181- in a Sheffield Shield match for Western Australia vs. Queensland
For the first day of the first Test of the
2010–11 Ashes seriesThe 2010–11 Ashes series was played in Australia as part of the England cricket team's tour of Australia during the 2010–11 cricket season. Five Tests were played from 25 November 2010 to 7 January 2011...
between Australia and England the Gabba was almost sold out.
England's
Alastair CookAlastair Nathan Cook, MBE is an English international cricket player. He is a left-handed opening batsman who plays county cricket for Essex and International cricket for England, where he is their ODI captain. Cook played for Essex's Academy and made his debut for the first XI in 2003...
holds the record for number of runs scored in one Test innings at The Gabba with 235 not out, breaking the previous record set by Sir
Donald BradmanSir Donald George Bradman, AC , often referred to as "The Don", was an Australian cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time...
.
Australian Rules Football
Since 1993 The Gabba has been the
home groundIn team sports, the term home advantage describes the advantage–usually a psychological advantage–that the home team is said to have over the visiting team as a result of playing in familiar facilities and in front of supportive fans...
for the
Brisbane BearsThe Brisbane Football Club, formerly nicknamed The Bears was an Australian rules football club and the first Queensland-based club in the Victorian Football League . The club played its first match in 1987, but struggled on and off the field until it made the finals for the first time in 1995...
(to 1996) and (from 1997)
Brisbane LionsThe Brisbane Lions is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League . The club is based in Brisbane, Queensland. The club was formed from the merger of the Brisbane Bears and the Fitzroy Lions in 1996...
AFLThe Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
teams. The record crowd for an
Australian rules footballAustralian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
match is 37,224 between the
Brisbane LionsThe Brisbane Lions is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League . The club is based in Brisbane, Queensland. The club was formed from the merger of the Brisbane Bears and the Fitzroy Lions in 1996...
and Collingwood.
Australian football has a long association with the ground. The Queensland Football League (a precursor to
AFL QueenslandAFL Queensland is the governing body of Australian rules football in Queensland. It was formed in 2000 after the previous governing body for the sport in Queensland, the Queensland Australian Football League , went into voluntary liquidation...
) played matches at The Gabba from 1905 to 1914, 1959 to 1971, and in the late 1970s and early 1980s. AFLQ matches resumed in 1993 as curtain-raiser events to AFL games, along with occasional AFLQ
Grand FinalGrand Final is a predominantly Australian sport term used to describe a match that decides a league champion.It originated in Victoria and South Australia and has become specifically significant Australian culture...
s.
Interstate games, including the 1961 national carnival have also been played there, as was a demonstration game during the
1982 Commonwealth GamesThe 1982 Commonwealth Games were held in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia from 30 September–9 October 1982. The Opening Ceremony was held at the QEII Stadium , in the Brisbane suburb of Nathan. The QEII Stadium was also the venue which was used for the athletics and archery competitions during the...
. In 1991 the Gabba was host to Queensland's only victory over a Victorian side.
Association football (Soccer)
During the 1950s and 1960s The Gabba hosted soccer matches for English
first divisionThe First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....
clubs including Blackpool FC, Everton FC and Manchester United.
The ChineseChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and South African national teams also played at the ground. During the
2000 Summer OlympicsThe Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
, The Gabba hosted
association footballThe football tournament at the 2000 Summer Olympics was the 20th official Olympic football tournament. A women's tournament was held for the second time.-Medal winners:-Venues:*Olympic Stadium, Sydney*Sydney Football Stadium, Sydney*Bruce Stadium, Canberra...
group games.
Rugby league
On 8 May 1909 the first match of rugby league was played in Brisbane at the Gabba.
NorthsThe Northern Suburbs Devils, Norths for short, are a rugby league club representing the northern suburbs of Brisbane, Australia. The team colours are sky blue, navy blue and gold. They play in the Queensland Wizard Cup, and, through their predecessors, are one of the oldest clubs in...
played against Souths before a handful of spectators at the ground.
The Gabba hosted its first rugby league Test match on 26 June 1909, when Australia defeated New Zealand 10–5. The Kangaroos continued to play Tests at this venue until 2 July 1955, when a ground record crowd of 47,906 people saw Australia play Great Britain. From 1932 to 1959 The Gabba was also used to host interstate matches and Brisbane Rugby League grand finals.
Rugby union
The Gabba has hosted six rugby union Test matches.
| Year | Result | Crowd |
| 1907 |
Australia lost to New ZealandThe New Zealand men's national rugby union team, known as the All Blacks, represent New Zealand in what is regarded as its national sport....
14–5 |
not known |
| 1914 |
Australia lost to New Zealand 17–0 |
not known |
| 1950 |
Australia lost to the British LionsThe British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...
19–6 |
not known |
| 1951 |
Australia lost to New Zealand 16–6 |
not known |
| 2001 |
Australia lost to the British and Irish Lions 29–13 |
37,460 |
| 2002 |
Australia beat South Africa 38–27 |
37,258 |
See also
External links