‘It won’t work for the Olympics’: Queensland sport heavyweight reveals the secret AFL past of Brisbane’s maligned QSAC stadium
A Queensland sport visionary has revealed that QSAC could have been the home of the AFL in Brisbane, but says it won’t work for the Olympics and backs building a new stadium, writes SHANNON GILL.
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One of Queensland’s most respected sporting minds has joined the chorus for a new Olympic Stadium at Victoria Park in Brisbane.
John Brown, a sports industry heavyweight pivotal in building the Australian Open into its Grand Slam status and the establishment of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, says the city, the Olympics and the Lions deserve a new stadium.
“Build it and they will come,” he says echoing the classic Hollywood film ‘Field of Dreams’.
“For the long term for Brisbane, a new stadium is what I would like to see happen.” Brown says.
“If they build a brand new state-of-the-art, fifty-to seventy-thousand seat venue, they’ll come.”
Yet it’s Brown’s revelation of what the current QSAC Stadium, underwhelmingly slated to be the main Olympic Stadium by the current state government, could have been that will surprise sports fans.
Back in 1986 Brown put together a consortium of blue chip entrepreneurs to bid for the licence to operate a new Brisbane VFL (now AFL) team.
All bases were covered when compared to its main rival spearheaded by actor Paul Cronin; the money was guaranteed and it had the best contacts in Melbourne to build a team or even lure a whole club north.
And most importantly, it had a stadium in Brisbane.
That stadium? The same controversial QSAC stadium, then known as ‘QEII’, ironically now a thorn in the side of the AFL Lions, and cricket, today.
“The Gabba still had the greyhound track and was the wrong shape so it didn’t stack up as a venue for AFL,” Brown says.
QSAC had been barely used since the 1982 Commonwealth Games and was becoming a white elephant, so the Brisbane City Council played the quiet role of matchmaker.
“They said ‘do you know that it’s exactly the same size as the MCG?, so it seemed the logical place.”
The athletics track would need to be ripped up, which made athletics bodies apoplectic, but Brown had the ear of power.
The consortium he’d put together included high-flying concert and arts promoters Michael Edgley and Kevin Jacobsen along with sporting and political movers and shakers Harvey Lister and Leo Williams.
All were board members of Queensland Leisure who were managers of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre and owners of Ticketworld (now Ticketek). Their collective influence ran deep.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Sallyanne Atkinson, despite opposition, guaranteed that the fledgling footy team had a home at QEII.
“Sallyanne basically said, ‘look, if you get the footy team and want to play at QEII, you’ll have my support.“
That same guarantee wasn’t available for the unknown quantity that was the rival bid.
Brown then brought VFL boss Jack Hamilton up to Brisbane to check out the new team’s likely home.
“He said ‘why hasn’t anybody told me about this before? Can you get access to this over Athletics?’”
“I said ‘It’s done’.”
Brown’s plan was the league Commission’s recommendation, but history says that the VFL clubs who had the final vote were instead seduced by the Christopher Skase-backed Cronin proposal of a bigger license fee.
Brown’s more conservative plan offered less money to the AFL clubs individually and proposed greater investment in setting up the club and its new stadium.
Self interest won the day, and Brown’s bid was cast aside to the eternal regret of AFL officials.
“QEII would have worked,” Brown says.
“It might not have been the best option (as opposed to a refurbished Gabba) but it was the default position.”
That QEII could have been the home of the Bears then Lions is one of the great sliding doors moments in Queensland and Australian sport.
First, the newly established Bears wouldn’t have been marooned on the Gold Coast for its first six years of existence, amid financial disaster, chaotic ownership and national joke status.
Conversely, the Brisbane Broncos would not have had QSAC as an alternative venue that it used from 1993-2002 to leverage redevelopment at its original home Lang Park (now Suncorp Stadium).
It may have also changed the future of the Gabba.
If the Bears/Lions had been able to build a home at QEII, perhaps the AFL would never have needed to go there and rip up the greyhound track.
The dishlickers could still be running around today, though there would be major queries on whether the Gabba could have survived as a cricket venue without a winter tenant like the Lions.
Regardless of what could have been, Brown says the ground that he once saw as the home of the AFL in Queensland is not the answer when Brisbane goes on the global stage in 2032.
“I’m not deep into what goes on, because there’s so many personal agendas involved, but QSAC will not work, it’s just impossible from an access point of view for everybody,” he says.
“It won’t work for the Olympics, full stop.”
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