Floods heavily impact Brisbane sport

Queensland's premier football venue, Suncorp Stadium, resembled an oversized
swimming pool as sport also felt the full brunt of Brisbane's worst flood in 118
years.
The 52,500-seat stadium was closed indefinitely on Wednesday as its surface, hailed
one of the best draining grounds in the country, went under water by nearly two
metres.
The astonishing flooding also contributed to a fire at the former Lang Park due to a
small explosion in an isolated transformer room but fortunately damage was minimal.
With rows of sideline seating submerged, Suncorp Stadium's damage has caused
A-League leaders Brisbane Roar's home match against Wellington to be postponed for a
fortnight.
The match is now set to be rescheduled for Australia Day after Brisbane's best
alternative venue, the Queensland Sports and Athletic Centre, was converted into an
evacuation centre on Wednesday.
Brisbane's W-League match against the Victory on Saturday has also been switched to
Melbourne's Epping Stadium on Sunday.
The deluge saw other major venues, including the Queensland Tennis Centre which
hosted the Brisbane International last week, submerged.
Saturday's $4.3 million Magic Millions horse racing carnival is also in grave doubt
after stewards declared the Gold Coast track currently unsafe.
The Queensland Reds had 19 players man a council depot handing out sandbags for more
than six hours after first assembling at Ballymore to safeguard their headquarters.
Three days before a Twenty20 cricket match at the Gabba, Queensland fast bowler and
policeman Luke Feldman was conscripted onto the front line of the disaster zone.
Fellow Bulls pacemen Ben Cutting and Scott Walter waded through rising waters as
they helped Walter's family move out of devastated West End.
Showing how families have been cut off, motor racing champion Craig Lowndes' wife
Natalie has been stranded on their Kilcoy property due to roads in the area being
cut.
While the Roar-Phoenix clash has been postponed, Gold Coast's A-League match against
North Queensland is still expected to go ahead at Robina on Friday night and cricket
officials remain hopeful the Gabba will be playable for the Bulls-NSW T20 match on
Saturday night.
"We'll have (a pitch) ready for them," curator Kevin Mitchell Jnr told AAP.
"It might not be a million bucks but we'll have something that's playable."
Rare Brisbane sunshine for much of Wednesday lifted hopes of both going ahead but
more rain is still forecast ahead of the weekend.
The flooding has forced pre-season training for the city's three major football
teams - the Brisbane Broncos, Brisbane Lions and Queensland Reds - to be called off.
But the Reds, including Wallabies James Horwill, Quade Cooper and Saia and Anthony
Faingaa, dug deep distributing sandbags for the public at Stafford.
Reds skipper Horwill said they switched their resources to the council depot before
9am after ensuring Ballymore would be safe from the swollen Enoggera Creek.
"It just wasn't us there, there was a lot of people just wanting to come down and
lend a hand so it's great to see the community banding together," he told AAP.
"We just wanted to help in any way we could."



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