Stephen Harold Gascoigne, better known as Yabba, (19 March 1878, Redfern

Redfern, New South Wales

Redfern is an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Redfern is 3 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney...

, Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 - 8 January 1942 in Lidcombe, Sydney) was an Australian sports fan, remembered as a heckler

Heckler

A heckler is a person who harass and try to disconcert others with questions, challenges, or gibes.Hecklers are often known to shout disparaging comments at a performance or event, or interrupts set-piece speeches, for example at a political meeting, with intent to disturb its performers or...

 at Sydney Cricket Ground

Sydney Cricket Ground

The Sydney Cricket Ground is a sports stadium in Sydney in Australia. It is used for Australian football, Test cricket, One Day International cricket, some rugby league and rugby union matches and is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team and the Sydney Swans of the Australian...

 cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 and rugby league

Rugby league

Rugby 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...

 games in the early part of the 20th century. Yabba was known for his knowledgeable witticisms shouted loudly from "The Hill", a grassy general admissions area of the SCG

Sydney Cricket Ground

The Sydney Cricket Ground is a sports stadium in Sydney in Australia. It is used for Australian football, Test cricket, One Day International cricket, some rugby league and rugby union matches and is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team and the Sydney Swans of the Australian...

. In Yabba's era, cricket matches were watched like tennis matches, and spectators at the SCG were much quieter than today. This is the reason Yabba's comments were so clearly heard by players and other spectators.

"The Hill" area was replaced with seating in the early 1990s. The new area was then formally named Yabba's Hill in honour of his colourful comments, several of which have passed into cricketing folklore. In 2007 the Doug Walters

Doug Walters

Kevin Douglas Walters MBE in Dungog New South Wales, known as Doug Walters, is a former Australian cricketer. He was known as an attacking batsman, and also as a typical ocker.-First-class career:...

 Stand and Yabba's Hill were demolished to make way for the new Victor Trumper

Victor Trumper

Victor Thomas Trumper was an Australian cricketer known as the most stylish and versatile batsman of the Golden Age of cricket, capable of playing match-winning innings on wet wickets his contemporaries found unplayable. Archie MacLaren said of him, "Compared to Victor I was a cab-horse to a Derby...

 Stand. On 7 December 2008 a bronze statue of Yabba, sculpted by Cathy Weiszmann, was unveiled at the Sydney Cricket Ground in The Hill area of the new stand. It depicts Yabba in a characteristic pose, one hand acting as a megaphone, in the act of delivering one of his famous interjections.

Yabba was portrayed by Paul Chubb

Paul Chubb

Paul Chubb was an Australian film and television actor primarily in genres of comedy and drama. He was born Paul Dunford in Arncliffe, Sydney....

 in the 1984 mini-series Bodyline.

Insults

Some of Yabba's best remembered insults include:

• "I wish you were a statue and I were a pigeon."
• Telling a fly-swatting English cricket captain, Douglas Jardine
  Douglas Jardine
  Douglas Robert Jardine was an English cricketer and captain of the England cricket team from 1931 to 1933–34.When describing cricket seasons, the convention used is that a single year represents an English cricket season, while two years represent a southern hemisphere cricket season because it...
  
  , to "Leave our flies alone, Jardine. They're the only friends you've got here."
• "Send 'im down a piano, see if 'e can play that!"
• "Oh for a strong arm and a walking stick!" (at bad bowling; leg spinner Arthur Mailey
  Arthur Mailey
  Arthur Alfred Mailey was an Australian cricketer who played in 21 Test matches between 1920 and 1926....
  
  , a regular victim of this one, quotes it several times in his book 10 for 66 and All That)
• "Those are the only balls you've touched all day!" (To an English batsman adjusting his box in between overs).
• "Put a penny in him, George, he's stopped registering" (To an umpire who read gas meter
  Gas meter
  A gas meter is used to measure the volume of fuel gases such as natural gas and propane. Gas meters are used at residential, commercial, and industrial buildings that consume fuel gas supplied by a gas utility. Gases are more difficult to measure than liquids, as measured volumes are highly...
  
  s and emptied the cash boxes for a living, when a batsman at the crease was scoring slowly)
• "Your length's lousy but you bowl a good width!" (To an opposition bowler)