The Gabba's long farewell will see Brisbane grow up into the 2032 Olympic Games, but lose some of itself

In the upper rows of the upper deck on Sunday, surrounded by bodies and concrete and sweat, it felt like a difficult place to miss.

The Brisbane Lions unfurled their AFL premiership flag just before midday amid absurd humidity, and more than 30,000 people were there to see it. Perhaps there was comfort to be found in the corporate boxes, but watching the footy at the Gabba on this day was going to be nearly as much of a challenge as playing it.

It may have been an extreme example but this is what Brisbane has come to expect from the Gabba, our Gabba.

The sun slams the exposed seats, even in the heart of winter, and on the days where the morning rain forebodes a swampy afternoon, the joint transforms into the world's biggest public sauna.

It's tough to get to and often tougher to get out, and the massive train station being built down the road will now arrive just in time for everyone to head somewhere else.

It lacks the modern furnishings of Perth Stadium or Adelaide Oval, the architectural splendour of the SCG or the magnitude and history of the MCG. Instead, it has multi-coloured seats that maybe look like people on TV when empty. Maybe.

But special things happen at this place, memories that will sustain themselves long after the city has packed up and moved over the river to Victoria Park into a bigger, newer and surely more comfortable stadium.

Maybe the magic comes from the discomfort, all of it making for a strange and sticky sense of unity. When you've sweated through an entire day of cricket, and then Peter Siddle takes a hat-trick on his birthday after tea, you can hug the bloke next to you like a brother, because he's been through it all too.

When you've braved the overpacked buses and trains for hours just to watch the Lions fall 52 points down against Geelong, it feels that bit more miraculous when Ash McGrath completes the comeback on the grass in front of you.

You buy a ticket a day at the cricket in the knowledge that the entire outfield could be underwater by lunch, or painted white by a freak hailstorm after tea. But if you're lucky, Steve Harmison will send the first ball to second slip and Ricky Ponting will glide to a faultless century by stumps.

The Olympic Games are coming at just the right time for the city of Brisbane, and though there will be headaches and complications in the seven years ahead, there is little doubt that the city's sporting infrastructure needs to progress.

While the refurbishments at Tennyson are critical for ensuring the city has an international-standard tennis facility, and though Perry Park seems likely to be mostly neglected again in another cruel blow to football's future, the decision about Brisbane's main oval coliseum was to be the pivotal one.

The deterioration of the Gabba had already seen Brisbane stripped of one of its marquee events, with Perth justifiably pinching the first Test of the summer and taking it west.

It might not sound like much, but that Test was always a source of pride for Queensland sport and a date that was eagerly marked on the calendar. There will be no Harmy wide or Rory Burns round-the-legs from the first ball of this summer's Ashes series, at least not a spicy Gabba greentop, anyway.

The initial plan of renovating the Gabba, while convenient and nostalgically satisfying, was impractical and logistically impossible, according to Premier David Crisafulli.

Once all the politicising and electioneering was out of the way, a new build at Victoria Park was the only real option. Upon that site rests an opportunity for Brisbane to own a truly world-class stadium, with a capacity that will allow it to do the Olympic Games justice and see it compete with its interstate contemporaries for years beyond.

How the surrounding precinct is fleshed out will be key, and could see the new stadium separate itself from the likes of Perth Stadium, which remains somewhat deserted. Down the road at Lang Park, Caxton St booms on match days and every event feels like an occasion.

That element ought to be at the forefront of Victoria Park's thinking as, for all of the Gabba's faults, pre- and post-match rituals had been built around its neighbouring bars, clubs and pubs — saying goodbye to a pork knuckle from The German Club will be difficult unless a worthy alternative is forged.

That will all likely come in time, and, as the new ground slowly emerges from the parkland, bringing with it the promise of a new era for sport in the city, the foibles of the Gabba may yet come into sharper focus.

But so too will the last batch of memories the Gabba provides us as it sets off on its seven-year swan song. There is something of the fabled Queensland spirit within those concrete pillars and maroon and green seats, an uncompromising authenticity that will be lost when the new shiny thing comes along.

It's a move the city has to make as part of its growing-up process, but fortunately, there is still time for the Gabba's legend to flesh itself out some more, lest those memories be lost in the rubble when the wrecking ball swings.