By Lyn Collingwood, Bulletin 10/2025, December

Stephen Harold Gascoigne was a Sydney Cricket Ground barracker, famous as ‘Yabba’ for his raucous, witty interjections. His tall, burly figure is commemorated by a bronze statue in the Victor Trumper Stand built over The Hill, the public grassy space where he had a permanent spot in front of the scoreboard. For much of his life Yabba lived in Glebe near Parramatta Road.

Stephen Harold was born on 19 March 1878 at Redfern to Catherine and Amos Clarence Gascoigne who married in 1871. The couple lived in Raglan Street Waterloo and ran a grocery in Castlereagh Street in the city before moving to Redfern, where they set up shop in the area bound by Pitt and Albert Streets.

It was common practice for parents to name children after others who were deceased.  Their first-born, and the first Stephen, died aged three on 20 October 1875. Stephen Harold’s other siblings were Mary Alice (1874–1940), Harriet Deborah (1876–1943) and Amos Clarence junior (1883–1961). Amos senior died on 20 June 1884. In 1885 the birth of Florence Gascoigne, mother Catherine and father unknown, was registered at Redfern. All her children were married adults when Catherine Gascoigne married Glebe labourer Henry Syer in 1907. The couple lived at 27 Franklin Street before moving to 72 Cowper Street. After Catherine died in November 1914 her widower placed annual memorial notices in newspapers until his own death in 1919, an apparent suicide. Henry Syer was found, with a bullet to the temple and a gun beside him, near the North Sydney gasworks.

As a six-year-old chatterbox, Stephen was given his nickname by a Mrs Murphy who kept a depot in Glebe where he exchanged empty bottles for money. The name stuck, as did his way of making a living. A registered ‘dealer’, he drove a cart around Glebe and Balmain selling rabbits and collecting empty bottles for sale and reuse. He developed his lung power capacity: his ‘Rabbo! Wild rabbo!’ and ‘Bottle-o!’ resonated far and wide.

Yabba gave his occupation as ‘groom’ when he married Ada Florence Rodgers (1880–1952) in 1899. Henry Clarence (died 1961) was born the same year, followed by Violet Margaret May (1905–1969) and Catherine ‘Kitty’ Harriet (1916–1983).  Yabba claimed to have fought in the Boer War; his son enlisted a month before the end of the First World War.  In the period 1902 to 1919, the family lived at 72 and 47 Greek Street, and at 27 Grose Street. In 1920, they moved to 108 Nelson Street Annandale which became their permanent address. 

In 1912, Ada charged her husband with assault and the couple appeared in Glebe Court. In response to the former’s claim – that he had struck her with a hammer, lamp, saucepan, teacups and saucers and whatever else was to hand – the latter argued at length that she had thrown a clock and kettle at him. Yabba was ordered to keep the peace for six months, the magistrate commenting that if his behaviour at home was anything like his behaviour in court, he deserved it. In 1931, Yabba was fined £2 for ill-treating his horse, despite his defence that cutting a sweat boil with his pocket knife was on the advice of a vet.

Yabba followed first class cricket from the age of eleven. A knowledgeable judge of the game, his quips at the SCG were legendary. ‘Get a bag!’ when a fieldsman dropped a catch. ‘I could play you with a toothpick!’ to a poor bowler. ‘Call nurse Mitchell (a well-known abortionist) to get the bastard out!’ when runs were slow. ‘Send him down a piano. See if he can play that!’ to a poor batsman. As Bill O’Reilly walked out to the crease, Yabba pointed to the scoreboard: ‘The O might be in front of your name now, son, but have a look where it is on your way back!’. The Sydney crowd relished his heckling of Douglas Jardine, unpopular because of his Bodyline tactics: ‘I wish you was a statue and I was a pigeon!’, and when the English captain brushed away insects that were bothering him: ‘Here, Jardine, you leave our flies alone!’.  When Yabba’s voice began failing in the late 1930s, he saved it for a single word: ‘Wide!’.

Stephen Gascoigne died at Lidcombe Hospital on 8 January 1942, survived by Ada, their children and five grandchildren. Sporting bodies sent telegrams and wreaths, the NSW Cricket Association held a minute’s silence, and hundreds of Annandale locals gathered to watch the funeral cortege leave for Rookwood. His death was reported in newspapers Australia-wide, as far afield as the Army News published for troops stationed in Darwin.

Sources:

Australian Dictionary of Biography; https://adb.anu.edu.au/

National Archives of Australia; https://www.naa.gov.au/

NSW cemetery records; https://www.library.gov.au/research/family-history/family-history-research-guide/cemetery-records

NSW electoral rolls; https://elections.nsw.gov.au/elections

NSW Registry of Births, Deaths, Marriages; https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/births-deaths-marriages

Sands Directories; https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/

Trove website; https://trove.nla.gov.au/