It was where fearsome fast Australian pair Denis Lillee and Jeff Thomson were first unleashed in international cricket, where the Mayor of Brisbane once tended the pitch, and where bowlers operated from the splendidly named Vulture Street End.

The announcement was made last week by the Queensland State Governement.

The Woolloongabba Cricket Ground, known by cricket fans worldwide as "The Gabba", will be completely demolished and rebuilt for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

It should raise eyebrows on a number of levels.

It’s not just the eye watering price tag of AUD$S2.7 billion (£1.54 billion/$1.86 billion/€1.74 billion) that the whole enterprise will cost, or that the new state of the art stadium will still only accommodate 50,000.

Politicians have insisted that "completely rebuilding the Gabba is cheaper than trying to bring it to a truly accessible, modern standard,"

Yet the demolition of a stadium which was deemed of a high enough standard to host football during 2000 Olympics staged in Sydney, widely hailed as "the greatest Olympics" would seem to fly in the face of the policy of sustainability and making the most of existing facilities.

This is particularly true in a region with an abundance of sporting venues as a legacy of the 1982 and 2018 Commonwealth Games.

"It’s no secret that Queensland is losing out on major sporting events already because The Gabba is not up to scratch." Queensland State Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk claimed as she unveiled the controversial plan.

“It must be upgraded to maintain our competitiveness for international sport and events, when it’s done, this stadium will shine for Queensland,"

It does, however, seem very sad that such an historic sporting arena should be swept away as a result.

It has happened before, too many times to recount them all.

Around the time that the Gabba was last being renovated, the Athenians had also set about a major re-building of their showpiece stadium at Maroussi for the 2004 Olympics.

It had originally been built for the 1982 European Athletics Championships, albeit with the endgame of hosting the 1996 Centenary Olympics, a dream which went unfulfilled.

Even so, when International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch announced that Athens had been chosen to host in 2004, the Athens Stadium was still only 15 years old.

Athenian newspapers at the time described the stadium as "ageing", a statement which did rather seem to give the word a whole new definition.

An expansive, not to say extravagant arch, designed by renowned architect Santiago Calatrava was to be erected above the stadium, at an estimated cost of €130 million (£115 million/$137 million).

The whole project was only completed a month before the Games were to begin.

It prompted then International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge to liken the hectic activity in those last months to a Syrtaki, the Greek folk dance which gets faster and faster.

By this time, Atlanta’s showpiece stadium for the 1996 Centennial Olympics had been already re-configured for baseball.

The adjoining Fulton County Stadium had become part of baseball history when Hank Aaron struck his 715th career home run.

It broke a record previously held by "Babe" Ruth.

Such an historic moment did not spare a stadium from demolition in 1997 to make way for a carpark.

The previous year it had hosted Olympic baseball and did not seem at all outdated. 

It was after all, little more than 30 years old and had been built in 1964.

The use of heritage buildings from the Tokyo Olympics of that year had been a major selling point of the city's Olympic bid for 2020.

The main stadium was where Yoshinori Sakai lit a highly symbolic Flame. 

He had been born on the very day 19 years before, when the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima.

The stadium itself had originally been constructed for the 1958 Asian Games.

It was also the setting for the never-to-be forgotten 1991 World Athletics Championships in 1991 when Bob Beamon’s World long jump record was finally eclipsed by Mike Powell in an epic contest with compatriot Carl Lewis. 

Architect Zaha Hadid was asked to design a completely new stadium for the return of the Olympic Games to the Japanese capital.

This was eventually shelved in favour of an alternative design, but another historic Tokyo stadium bit the dust to make way for it in 2015.

The new stadium is undoubtedly magnificent but was the cost of rebuilding it, estimated at approximately $2billion(£1.68 billion/ €1.89 billion) really justified?

Such huge sums can only be afforded by the very richest of nations.

It renders it impossible for smaller and developing countries to even contemplate staging the Games.

When Los Angeles last staged the Games in 1984, they were privately funded and no new major stadium was built,

An innovative and colourful look transformed each venue for the television cameras and visiting spectators, the Games did not suffer.

In fact they turned a profit of around $223 million (£186 million€211 million)

The Coliseum, which was completed exactly 100 years ago, had undergone modification over the years.

Mercifully, the signature peristyle at one end of the stadium remains intact. 

Elsewhere in the world, there are many other venues have served their citizens very well for over a century.

Old yes, but past it? never!

Stockholm, who have just announced an interest in the 2030 Winter Games, built their Olympic Stadium for the 1912 Summer Games.

It had been designed by Torben Grut, who produced a distinctive and instantly recognisable building.

Even allowing for 112 years of inflation, the construction costs are remarkable. 

"The cost of the Stadium itself with its fittings and apparatus would,it was calculated, amount to 235,000 Kronor (£13,050/$65,250)" the Official Report said, although extra funding was later forthcoming.

It was used as a multisport hub and staged athletics, gymnastics, football, equestrian  modern pentathlon, tug of war and wrestling.

It also hosted  the Olympic equestrian events in 1956 when they were reassigned from Melbourne after problems with Australian regulations on quarantine.

In 1958 the European Athletics Championships were also held at the Olympic Stadium.

Then in 1967, an annual athletics meeting known as the "Galan" was launched and still held every summer to this day.

Apart from floodlights and a modern all weather track, the Stadium appears little changed from the golden days of what were dubbed "Sunshine Games," a shining example of sustainabilty.

There is of course one Olympic venue which trumps all the others in terms of legacy.

In 2004, Athens organisers had the inspired idea of holding the shot put events in Ancient Olympia.

Competition therefore took place in on a field which had formed the stadium for the Olympic Games of antiquity from at least 776 BC.

Now that's what you call a legacy venue.

Organisers of other sports could take a leaf out of the same book.

If the 2030 bid for the FIFA World Cup by Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay should prove successful, it may well incorporate Montevideo's Estadio Centenario.

Let us hope they don't modernise it too much and keep the essential character of a stadium which hosted the very first World Cup final in 1930.

Perhaps it is time for sporting events across the board to consider a simpler and more down to approach.