Revealed: The full story behind the policeman and the Gabba pig
Some of the biggest moments in world sport have happened at the Gabba. But none of them compare to the day a pig invaded the field. From the sneaky trick to get it inside to the animal’s eventual fate, finally we have the full story.
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Enough of the porkies. It’s time to tell the full story of Australian sport’s most mysterious pitch invader … the Gabba pig.
COVID-enforced cutbacks have meant that Broncos strapper Ken Ragh has had to end his 32-year career at the club which stretches all the way to its first match against Manly in 1988.
But for sheer quirkiness and national notoriety nothing that happened to him in that time quite matched up to the day when a pig was let loose on the Gabba during a 50 over match between Australia and England in the 1982-83 summer.
With “Botham” written on one side and “Eddie’’ on the other in reference to spinner Eddie Hemmings and a Union Jack flag stuck to its rump, it emerged just as Botham was out caught slashing to the deep.
Ragh can speak with some authority on the incident because he was the policeman who caught the four legged intruder as it trotted around the fence. Catching it was easy. Wrestling it to the ground a greater challenge.
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“The hill in those days was a place where you copped a lot of abuse and they were throwing cans at me,” Ragh said.
“I thought ‘what am I going to do here?’
“So when I caught it I put my policeman’s hat on it to try and create a bit of light relief and the crowd erupted and some of them ran down to the fence to try and give me a beer. It was hilarious.
“Luckily for us the pig was drugged because we just didn‘t want to be running around the field after it.”
Video footage of the pig remains a YouTube classic but three questions about it remain the subject of much debate – who brought it into the ground, how did they get it in and what happened to it later?
Ragh claims he can confirm the widely held suspicion that a group of vet students were the architects of the incident.
“My wife and I went to a golf club presentation night a year later and the subject of the pig came up and people started laughing because they knew the guys who got it in.
“They were vet students who anaesthetised the pig and were initially planning to toss it over the wall at the Gabba behind the hill but realised that was too cruel. They ended up putting it in an Esky and putting ice and a heap of vegetables around it which they bought at the last minute from a shop at the Gabba.
“They brought it through the main gate and when asked to show what they had they showed the pig with an apple. The security guys apparently said ‘He didn‘t cook very well’ and they said, ‘That’s the way we like it’ and they got him through.
“When it woke up they taped a Union Jack to its tail and put it over the fence.”
At the time most cricket fans thought the incident was comedy gold but the world now takes animal cruelty far more seriously and there would be a dimmer view of it today.
Ragh said the pig went to a happy home.
“We took it to the Woolloongabba police station and put it into one of the holding vehicles out the back. We joked that we would have a hangi that night but there was so much publicity we rang the RSPCA and they came and took it away.
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“Later I found out a family down Logan way took it to their farm and it trotted around as a pet for a few years but I heard it was gored by another pig on the property and killed. It still had a long, happy life.”
Botham has always said he laughed off the incident but portly spinner Hemmings took it more personally.
Hemmings’ mood darkened ever further when he was driving a team car over the Story Bridge on the way back to the team hotel and Botham quipped “mate would you mind putting your trotter on it.’’
Originally published as Revealed: The full story behind the policeman and the Gabba pig