Why State of Origin at Suncorp Stadium is a game unlike any other

June 2, 1987. A night I’ll never forget. My first time… at a State of Origin game at Lang Park.

I wasn’t totally wet behind the ears, having spent some time on the Cauldron’s cement terraces in the early ’80s – most memorably when a Wally Lewis-led Wynnum-Manly destroyed Mal Meninga’s Souths 42-8 in the 1984 BRL grand final.

But this? Even for a 10-year-old who was just starting to believe he knew everything, this was something else.

A communal feeling of maroon-coloured love, channelled into hate for 13 men in sky blue (plus referee Mick Stone), witnessed from the wooden-slat seating of the Frank Burke Stand, halfway up and adjacent to the Milton Road end in-goal.

It was intense. A full-body endorphin rush that had me coiled like a spring. Every fibre of my being was focused on the action, which ebbed and flowed across 79 minutes. And just as the climax looked set to see the mighty Maroons and evil forces of NSW finish level for the first time, this happened…

A crowd of 33,000 let out a collective gasp. Men roared. Women wept. Some people lit post-siren cigarettes, because you could light up everywhere in 1987, and the red and gold sponsorship signs around the ground essentially said “Well, life sometimes sucks.”

Me? I was emotionally exhausted, and instantly hooked.

All of the schoolyard rumours were true. State of Origin at Lang Park was as good as life gets, and it somehow only got better.

May 20, 1992. The Frank Burke Stand still sported a corrugated iron roof and timber seating, but now had some corporate boxes sprinkled around the halfway mark.

Not that we were anywhere near the hoi polloi, having several years earlier moved across to now traditional seating on the concrete terraces, some 45 degrees up and back from the dead ball line.

Unfortunately the heavens tumbled down on the 31,500 crowd from before kickoff, the torrential rain testing the Queensland spirit of all concerned until a 78th minute, 54-second slugfest broke out.

But first, this happened…

And it was poetic; mesmerising. A kicking duel as balletic as anything hosted at QPAC across the river at Southbank, before or since. We roared ourselves hoarse. A patron in a sky blue jersey got showered with plastic cups and friendly verbal abuse. The world seemed perfectly aligned on its axis.

And just as the climax looked set to see the mighty Maroons and evil forces of NSW finish level for the first time, Allan Langer did something for the first time.

Waterlogged Queenslanders leapt from their waterlogged cement terraces into the sky. Blues fans slunk quietly out of the stadium while everyone was distracted. Families felt closer in that moment than in a hundred dinnertime conversations across meat and three veg. 14-year-old boys got hugged by older women, both complete strangers then and since, who’d sat tensely beside them until that point. That one, magical point that got the good guys own.

And those are just two magic moments of many to unfold upon the hallowed Lang Park/Suncorp Stadium turf.

The PA announcement that Wally was playing his last Origin which inspired the crowd roar the team home. Locky sending Lote the length of the field from a kick return. Matt Bowen’s intercept. Billy Slater’s miracle try. Cooper Cronk’s field goal.

I’ve been to Origin at other grounds – two named ANZ Stadium in different cities, and at the MCG in the very near future – but nothing beats the arena that King Wally, Big Mal, Geno, Petero and Thursto have ruled for over three decades now. It’s the happiest place in Brisbane, and an Origin game is the best time to be there.

And even when it’s very, very bad – like the time Joey’s Blues weathered a Maroon storm before exploding on July 6, 2005 – the experience is never any less than very, very good.