A Brief History

The Gabba-Stack-a-Thon is essentially a convenient way to combine the joys of watching cricket, drinking copious amounts of beer and competing with ones fellow man for no particular reason.

The competition in its current form has developed over a number of years and has seen many people pull on the honoured ‘wife beater’ and have a go at the title. Dating back to the early to mid ‘90s when Rupert McCall was renowned for his poetry and not his corporate speaking tour and appearances on “The Great South East”, the Gabba-Stack-a-Thon has now become the premier drinking event of the Spring.

Starting the preparation months in advance, competitors nominate for the event by purchasing tickets, the moment they go on sale, for the First Test of an Australian Summer. The competitors then declare who the other member of their team is (teams are made up of 2 competitors) or are allocated teams if they have no pre-defined team.

Training is then purely in the hands of the competitor, or their handlers in the case of bigger teams and it becomes a major part of their focus for the next five months with several lead up events like NFC Straddie, Brunswick Birthday Bash and the less popular Armidale Road Trip. Teams put their competitors through vigorous regimes to try and help them deal with the harsh summer heat and the relentless pace as to which the competition is run. As the training and preparation progresses throughout the year the other part of the training raises its ugly head, The Mind Game.

Sent to the other competitors through the Mass Print Media (MPM) or just as plain old SPAM, teams have been known to stoop to unthinkable levels of SASS to throw the other competitors off their game and to boost the notoriety of their own team and their individual stars. Sparking email wars between the teams the SASS becomes a great indicator as to the ability of each competitor to last the distance and more specifically their mental toughness. The MPM also keeps the gambling public up to date on the progress of each competitor through the lead up events and gives comprehensive analysis of the form all the way up to the Prologue Session, held the night before the first ball is bowled.

From very humble beginnings the Gabba-Stack-a-Thon has developed from year to year to the more notable competitions of recent years like “Viney in Bay 19”, the highly successful break off competition of 2005 the “ICC World 11 Vs Australia-Stack-a-Thon” and the controversial “Tap Out of 2005” where several competitors couldn’t handle the intense heat of a Queensland Summer. With numerous more competitions in coming years (including the much anticipated Viva Le RWC World Cup-Stack-a-Thon in Europe 2007) the competition for 2006 looks to be one of the closest and most hotly contested ever.