When England’s cricketers step out onto the field at The Gabba on Thursday for the second Test, they will know they are on borrowed time. Not just to wrestle the series momentum away from Australia after a crushing opening defeat in Perth, but also to improve their record at the famous Brisbane ground.
After this one, there will be just one more men’s Ashes fixture at a venue dubbed The Gabbatoir for its typically terminal effect on English hopes of victory. That will come in the 2029-30 series, a couple of years before the stadium is demolished as part of the masterplan for the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane.
For a venue with 130 years of history staging not just cricket but also Aussie rules football on a regular basis – as well as both codes of rugby, football, athletics, baseball, greyhound racing and concerts by stars such as Adele – there has been relatively little sentiment about reducing The Gabba to rubble.
Lachie Neale, co-captain of the Brisbane Lions AFL team who play their home games at the ground, said “I love the Gabba – it’s got that old-school atmosphere and feel to it” but said he favoured moving to a bigger stadium. “When we come up against big Melbourne clubs, The Gabba’s probably a little bit too small.”
That bigger stadium is set to be the 63,000-seater venue slated for construction in the Victoria Park region of the city. It will serve as the centrepiece of the Brisbane 2032 Olympics and, afterwards, become the home of the Lions and cricket’s Queensland Bulls and Brisbane Heat. But that wasn’t always the plan.
U-turn over Gabba 2032 Olympics role
When Brisbane was anointed by the International Olympic Committee as host of the 2032 Summer Games four years ago, it was The Gabba that was meant to be its beating heart. It was to undergo a AUD1bn (£495m) renovation to ready it for that starring role but those plans quickly ran into trouble and projected costs spiralled to AUD2.7bn (£1.3bn).
The Gabba was deemed to be at its “end of life” and “not well maintained”, there were concerns about possible concrete degradation and its location – hemmed in tightly by neighbouring streets and a school – made the scale of redevelopment that had been conceived to get it Olympic-ready made it not only expensive but also logistically difficult.
In March this year, following a 100-day review, Queensland premier David Crisafulli announced that a Gabba rebuild would take too long and that they would press ahead with a new AUD3.8bn (£1.85bn) stadium in Victoria Park – despite it breaking one of his election pledges. “I have to own that and I will and I am sorry,” he said.
If there was little pushback at The Gabba demolition plan, the same cannot be said of the proposals for Victoria Park, which is also set to house a new 25,000-seat national aquatics centre for Brisbane 2032. Multiple groups oppose the Olympic transformation, moves that could at the very least delay the timeline.
Save Victoria Park, a campaign group that has raised more than AUD140,000 in funding, wants the site to be legally designated “a protected area in perpetuity”. It has attracted support from across the political spectrum, with a former Queensland premier from the centre-right Liberal National Party even volunteering to take “direct action”.
Brisbane set for new stadium, despite protests
Adding to concerns about the loss to Brisbane of precious green space, indigenous First Nations people launched a legal appeal in August to block building works on Victoria Park due to fears a site historically known as Barrambin could contain “ancestral remains” as well as “ancient trees, artefacts and very important eco-systems”.
Authorities have moved to dismiss legal challenges by exempting Olympic venues from many state laws and Queensland minister for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Tim Mander, appeared to put the writing on the wall when he said: “They can protest. We’ll continue to progress forward with what needs to be done at Victoria Park.”
Back at The Gabba, meanwhile, debate continues over what will be done with the site of the Brisbane Cricket Ground post-2032. It looks likely to be turned into housing, although some local residents, such as the group Rethink The Gabba, oppose high-density projects in favour of retaining some green space.
Until then, there is still time for England to come a cropper at the venue on at least two more occasions. The iconic stadium may also get a fitting swansong as host of the cricket competitions if the sport is retained for the Brisbane Olympics, before the bulldozers roll in and do to The Gabba what Aussie bowlers have historically done to English batting orders.