warren smith

This year will be the biggest yet, with the Dolphins and their brand new tribe, or should that be pod of fans, ready to join the party in hope of celebrating a ‘Phins Up’ win over the Sharks. If they do manage a victory over the in-form Sharks they may well head up the road to celebrate at the most famous watering hole in the known rugby league world, The Caxton. The stories about the pub that is literally around the corner from Suncorp Stadium are legendary, and you only have to walk past it before a State of Origin fixture or big game for the Broncos to know that when it comes to tales tall and true, you can believe every word you’ve ever heard about this Brisbane institution.

The boffins at the

Australian Rugby League Commission must have looked at the punters spilling out the door on these big occasions and thought to themselves if only we owned a place like that we could fund every team’s salary cap from here until the end of the millennium. But the Caxton Hotel hasn’t been on the market for over a quarter of a century, and given the profits that flow from the XXXX taps lining its many bars, it may not change hands in this lifetime or the next.

Well, as the old saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. Thinking outside the square, the commissioners at the ARLC did a 180 degree turn, literally, and snapped up another institution in the River City that sits directly across the road from The Caxton that hadn’t been up for sale since its doors first opened almost 70 years ago.

Gambaro Hotel began life as a fish shop back in the mid-1950s, but on the back of its famous mud crab dishes the business grew to the establishment it is today, and the prospect of making it the foundation stone of a property portfolio was too mouthwatering for the ARLC to turn down.

So what do you do when you suddenly own a five star hotel that’s two minutes walk from old Lang Park?

You announce that all of the rooms will be named after rugby league greats, and while that process is still in the works, we can reveal that the most exclusive room at Gambaro’s is the MG Suite.

The former owners will tell you that MG stands for Michael Gambaro, the son of the original owner and the man who turned a fish shop into an empire, but we know better.

In the footy world there’s only one MG, and with the Panthers the reigning premiers when the ARLC ventured into the property business, it’s only fitting that best room in the best pub on Caxton Street is named after a man who could crack crabs the way he used to crack defensive lines, the one and only Mark Geyer!