Redcap's BRL

Brisbane Cricket Ground (the Gabba)

Games: 775

Span: 1909-1957

Grand finals: 30

Notes: The old Fiveways Ground hosted the first game and the first Grand Final in 1909. The pick of its games was arguably the dramatic decider between Brothers and Valleys in 1935. There were a number of issues with access and rent in the mid-1950s which hastened the league’s development of Lang Park as its own base.

North Ipswich Reserve

Games: 90

Span: 1910-1992

Notes: Originally the home of the champion Ipswich district team of 1910, then Ipswich West End and Starlights in 1916. Went 70 years between BRL games before becoming the home of the Jets from 1986-92.

Brisbane Exhibition Grounds

Games: 526

Span: 1910-1967

Grand Finals: 9

Notes: The Showground and No. 2 oval were regular venues until the 1940s, hosted the first Sunday BRL games in 1942 and the first floodlit semi-final in 1954. Became an alternative venue and preferred setting for mid-week/catch-up games thereafter.

New Farm Park

Games: 30

Span: 1910-1943

Notes: Used primarily in 1942 and ’43 while the Gabba was commandeered by the military.

Melrose Park, Kalinga

Games: 1

Span: 1910

Notes: Used once during a ground availability crunch in 1910. At the time it was a holding paddock for the Melrose family’s livestock. The North Brisbane and Toombul players may have landed in some interesting spots that day.

Queen’s Park, Brisbane

Games: 1

Span: 1910

Notes: Used as part of the 1910 crunch also involving Melrose park. The game was played at the far end of what is now the City Botanic Gardens, then a public football and recreation ground.

Wondall Road/Kougari Oval

Games: 197

Span: 1914-1995

Notes: Hosted the very first game of the very first version of Wynnum back in 1914. The ‘Seasiders’ returned in 1967 and renamed the ground ‘Kougari’ in ’71.

Bulimba Memorial Park

Games: 6

Span: 1914-1945

Notes: There was some interest in developing the ground as a home for Valleys in the late ’30s, but the idea never progressed beyond very occasional visits.

Land’s Paddock

Games: 1

Span: 1914

Notes: Land’s Paddock was a large parcel of land around the western end of Waverley Rd, Indooroopilly and traversing part of what is now the Western Freeway, so it’s unclear exactly where this was played. A strong possibility is Moore Park, a 19th-century sheep quarantine ground which became a cricket ground, and there are some records of lower-grade games being played there in the 1920s, so it seems a good bet. Moore Park is still there and is home to the Indooroopilly Districts Cricket Club.

Toowong Memorial Park

Games: 3

Span: 1926-1927

Notes: There’s an alternate reality where the BRL and Wests went after Toowong Memorial instead of Lang Park, and sozzled supporters now march down Sylvan Rd from the Regatta, instead of down Caxton St. Its now home to the Wests Rugby Club.

Oxenham Park, Nundah

Games: 388

Span: 1933-1970

Grand finals: 1

Notes: Despite the location, it wasn’t exactly Norths’ home ground. Oxenham Park was a long-time second venue for the BRL, hosting the games deemed unlikely to draw a crowd at the Gabba, Ekka or Lang Park. Even so, it did host the 1942 Brothers-Souths Grand Final.

It made some sense – Nundah railway station is a 20-second walk away, so even when teams from other part of town were drawn to play there, it wasn’t too much of a hassle.

Lang Park, Milton

Games: 1312

Span: 1941-1995

Grand Finals: 38

Notes: After it was the North Brisbane cemetery, the cauldron-to-be was an athletics and football ground. Wests and the BRL took the first top-grade game there in 1941, before a gradual increase in fixtures in the early 1950s, then redevelopment through the late ’50s and ’60s. The greatest moment was arguably Souths’ last-minute win over Redcliffe in the ’81 Grand Final – the BRL’s Darren Albert moment.

Owen Park, Southport

Games: 8

Span: 1952-1953

Notes: The first top-flight team on the Gold Coast was not the Giants or Seagulls, it was South Coast in 1952-53. They mostly played in Brisbane but did get a few home games at Owen Park, a pretty little ground which has also been used in the Queensland Cup.

Kitchener Park, Wynnum

Games: 22

Span: 1952-1962

Notes: The original home of Wynnum-Manly (the third version of Wynnum) from shortly after their re-emergence in 1951. It’s still used by the club’s juniors. There were plans in 2022 to redevelop the ground as an alternative to Kougari, but they seem to have been shelved.

Hamilton Oval / Shift-workers Ground

Games: 15

Span: 1952-1954

Notes: The old Shift-workers ground was much as it sounds – a place where company teams played each other, as well as a haven for gambling and other activities. I’m still not sure where it was located. Descriptions suggest it was part of, or nearby, Northshore Park, between the river and the old industrial zone. It was done-up for BRL games after the Shift-workers League came under the BRL aegis in ’52.

Ballymore, Herston

Games: 1

Span: 1955

Notes: Yes, Ballymore. This was before the local rugby unionists set up shop under a DOGIT, and it had previously hosted some preseason games, as well as being a training base for Brothers. The one BRL game was Brothers vs Wynnum-Manly in July ’55.

Redcliffe Showgrounds

Games: 107

Span: 1960-1978

Notes: The Seagulls (not yet Dolphins) hosted Easts in their first home game in April 1960. They lost their first couple of games at the old ground, before beating Wynnum-Manly in the seaside derby on 26 June.

Neumann Oval, Albion

Games: 240

Span: 1960-1995

Notes: While it wasn’t as pretty as its current incarnation (Allan Border Field), the ground originally named after the ultimate Diehard, Fred ‘Firpo’ Neumann, was at last a home of sorts for Valleys.

Some Valleys supporters still claim the club has never played a home game (i.e never played in Fortitude Valley), but that’s not really true. New Farm Park, Bulimba Memorial, the Exhibition, Hamilton Oval and, of course, Neumann Oval were all within their catchment area at some or all times between 1933 and ’67.

Corbett Park, Grange

Games: 146

Span: 1964-1988

Notes: On the site of an old dairy and rather prone to flooding, Brothers’ Corbett Park home was one of Australia’s quintessential suburban rugby league grounds. In dire financial straits, Brothers were forced out in 1988 and the site is now a residential area. There is still a ‘Corbett Park’ near the Kedron Brook dog-walking super-highway.

Bishop Park, Nundah

Games: 192

Span: 1971-1995

Notes: Bishop Park emerged with little fanfare or even comment in ’71. It became fondly/fearfully known as Bash-Up Park, though to be fair Norths had been clobbering people for years. Now they had their very own theatre of pain.

Purtell Park, Bardon

Games: 174

Span: 1974-1995

Notes: Finally, Wests had a true home. They’d tried a few places around the inner west in the early years. Lang Park became a base of sorts, but the club relinquished part of their interest to the QRL in the ’60s.

Legendary hooker of the 1930s Tom Purtell was the driving force behind a $300,000 ($3.5 million in today’s money) investment in a new club house and playing ground on an old rubbish dump at Bardon.

Purtell Park was opened by Lord Mayor Clem Jones amid much interest in 1973, with the first premiership game played against Brothers in March 1974. Wests won 21-10 on opening day.

The ground is still there, discreetly tucked away in the Mount Coot-Tha foothills, though Wests are much diminished, having departed the Queensland Cup in 2003. Despite vowing to return one day, it hasn’t happened and probably won’t now.

Dolphin Oval, Redcliffe

Games: 136

Span: 1979-1995

Notes: Dolphin Oval wasn’t an easy venture. It was another old rubbish dump in a largely unserviced area of town. Extensive and expensive works were needed to make it functional. How bad must the old Showground have been? Reporting on opening day, Rugby League Week remarked that “the new home ground… is destined to become one of the best sporting complexes in Australia”.

Well, not quite, but Redcliffe’s sound investments over many years, including in the ground and it’s surrounding amenities, have made them one of Australia’s leading rugby league clubs.

Cahill Park, Gatton

Games: 1

Span: 1986

Notes: Usually the home of the Gatton Hawks, Cahill Park hosted a BRL/State League game between Easts and Norths in early ’86. The ground has since hosted four Queensland Cup fixtures.

Shark Park, Caloundra

Games: 1

Span: 1986

Notes: A Couple of weeks later, Valleys beat Wests at Caloundra. I’m not entirely sure it was at the Caloundra Sharks ground, but it seems likely.

Meakin Park, Slacks Creek

Games: 79

Span: 1988-1995

Notes: 1988 wasn’t a happy year for the BRL, but it did welcome the Logan City Scorpions. Their debut was a 0-26 defeat to Norths at Meakin Park, and things rarely got much better for the Scorpions, who’re now part of Souths Logan. Meakin Park is now the home of Football Queensland

Brandon Park, Acacia Ridge

Games: 1

Span: 1991

Notes: Next-door to Archerfield airport, and located between the Coopers Plains industrial estate and the vaguely post-apocalyptic delights of Willawong, Brandon Park has been home to Souths juniors since the ’70s. It hosted Logan City’s 23-18 win over Souths in July ’91.

Briggs Road, Ipswich

Games: 33

Span: 1993-1995

Notes: The home ground of the Ipswich Jets for the last few seasons of the BRL, and briefly in the Q-Cup. Briggs Rd has been linked with the Ipswich/Western Corridor NRL bid, though that’s looking increasingly unlikely.

Les Hughes Fields, Bray Park

Games: 26

Span: 1993-1995

Notes: Another chapter in the sad decline of Brothers. They moved north to Bray Park in the dying years of the BRL and were known as Pine Rivers Brothers in their final years at the senior level in the Queensland Cup.

QEII Jubilee Sports Centre

Games: 11

Span: 1994-1995

Notes: The Broncos ran a reserve team in the BRL in 1994 and ’95 and they played 11 games at the now not-to-be Olympic stadium, generally as curtain-raisers for NSRWL/ARL games. As a confession, the only BRL game I ever attended (as an 11-year-old mind you) was Logan City vs Broncos at QEII, the curtain-raiser for the Broncos-Dragons ARL game on Easter Monday 1995.

Fulcher Road, Red Hill

Games: 1

Span: 1995

Notes: I suppose it’s fitting our stroll through the history of BRL grounds finishes at the home of the Broncos. Their reserves beat Souths 22-14 in August ’95, just over a month before the last BRL Grand Final (not counting the zombie finals of ’96 and ’97).