Page "The Gabba" Paragraph 6

The First Test between Australia and England is played nowadays at Brisbane.

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