Mat Rogers can still hear “Lemonade” Tom’s words ringing in his ears three decades later.
It was 1988 and, along with the Brisbane Broncos and Newcastle Knights, the Gold Coast-Tweed Giants were contesting their inaugural season in what would become the National Rugby League. Having settled on the Gold Coast after a career that saw him anointed a Cronulla Sharks “Immortal”, Steve Rogers was keen to run his eye over the city’s newest sporting stars and young Mat was more than happy to tag along.
“We were chatting with ‘Lemonade’ Tom [Feehan], the club’s strapper, and I told him I wanted to play for the Sharks when I grew up and I’ll never forget what he said to me,” Rogers recalls. “He said ‘No, you want to play here, mate. What player wouldn’t want to live on the Gold Coast? We’ve got the footy schools, the juniors, the beaches, the lifestyle. We’ll be winning plenty of comps up here’ and I thought ‘You know what, he’s right’.”
Rogers then states the obvious. “But it just hasn’t happened.”
That’s one way of putting it. Another is to rattle off the numbers. A mere five finals campaigns across 26 seasons. Zero premierships. Zero grand finals. Five wooden spoons. Not to mention five different incarnations (Giants, Seagulls, Gladiators, Chargers and Titans) and a six-year hiatus when the city wasn’t deemed worthy of a spot in the national competition.
And the scary thing? Those numbers aren’t bad compared to the Gold Coast’s AFL teams.
Across six seasons from 1987, the Brisbane Bears (yes, a Gold Coast team so insecure it called itself Brisbane) failed to get within cooee of a finals match. Then, after almost two decades in the AFL wilderness, the Gold Coast Suns rose over the city in 2011, only to record a season-best finish of 12th in the years since.
That’s right – 17 collective seasons, zero finals and three wooden spoons. Meanwhile, the GWS Giants, which entered the AFL a year after the Suns, have played finals in five of the past six seasons and graced the grand final stage in 2019 (albeit suffering an ungracious 89-point defeat).
At least the Suns and Titans are still standing, unlike football’s Gold Coast United (2009-12) and basketball’s Cougars (1990), Rollers (1991-96) and Blaze (2007-12), all of which fleetingly contested national leagues before being added to the city’s pile of sporting carcasses.
It’s enough to make fans cry and leads to the question that has puzzled locals since one-time Bears owner Christopher Skase was hiding out from Australian police in Majorca – what is wrong with Gold Coast sports teams?
Where blue skies are a mixed blessing
“This city is a different footy market to anywhere else in Australia,” says Peter “Spida” Everitt, a St Kilda hall of famer who played almost 300 AFL matches but is more well-known on the Gold Coast as a Triple M breakfast radio host.
“There are so many factors that make the Gold Coast great – lifesaving, surfing, beaches, theme parks – but that means the players don’t always have the heat on them when it should be. In Melbourne you’re in the spotlight every day but up here footy is just one part of the pie.”
The challenge that presents for the city’s footy teams is illustrated by the words of Wayne Hickson, a long-time sports event organiser who lives in fear of spectacular weather more than grey clouds.
“A sunny day with clean waves can kill your crowd,” says Hickson. “In other cities people will wait to see if it’s going to rain before committing to an event but Gold Coasters wait until the last minute in case it’s a sunny day.
“It’s not unusual to have Titans or Suns games when half the city’s kids are at surf carnivals and the young blokes who might normally head to the footy are surfing because the waves are pumping.”
Knuckling down in Australia’s playground
Amateur sports psychologists like to suggest the Gold Coast’s lack of on-field success is because its footy teams mirror the city itself. That players treat it as a holiday destination. Style trumps substance, and hedonism outweighs ambition. At times they have been right. Warwick Capper, anyone? Or then there was rugby league international Brent Todd who, when asked at a press conference why he had signed with the then Gold Coast Seagulls in 1992, said: “Because the sheilas are good-looking and I want to [expletive] them all.”
But as a foundation Titan who played 77 matches for the reborn club, including a preliminary final in 2010, dual rugby league/rugby union international Mat Rogers is adamant those days are long gone.
“That culture is dead and buried in the professional era,” he says. “If you think you’re getting a holiday, you’re kidding yourself.”
That may be so but what about the subconscious effect of representing a community that does not appear overly fussed to identify as one? Geographically dispersed, many residents here are more passionate about living in Burleigh or Main Beach than “the Gold Coast”. The lack of a geographic heart can make all-of-city events a hassle for some and a no-go for many. Then, of course, there’s the fact the city overflows with people who arrived already touting a favourite team.
Demographer Bernard Salt once quipped that on the Gold Coast “everyone is from somewhere else”. “If you’re at a barbecue in Melbourne or Sydney, the question you might be asked is ‘what school did you go to?’ or ‘which company do you work for?’ or ‘where do you live?’,” Salt continued. “I’ve noticed on the Gold Coast the social question that is quite legitimately asked of everyone is ‘where are you from?’.”
Certainly the Gold Coast struggles to attract crowds to match those in smaller cities. In 2019, the last time a season didn’t come with a Covid asterisk, the Suns drew an average crowd of 11,417, the AFL’s lowest, while the Titans attracted 11,085, the NRL’s second lowest.
Compared to like-for-like regional clubs such as NRL sides Newcastle (19,055), Canberra (14,864) and North Queensland (13,658); and the AFL’s Geelong (33,405), the numbers speak for themselves. Other regions simply appear far more emotionally invested in the fortunes of their footy teams.
“I can host a function on the Gold Coast and not one person will mention the Suns to me,” says Everitt. “Whenever you go to a function in Melbourne, the fans know more about your career than you do … people are talking footy all day, every day, and it’s the same in Adelaide or Perth.”
People love a winner
For the Titans at least, the tide appears to be turning. Last season, on the back of their first finals appearance since 2016, average home crowds climbed to 12,439 and the side is widely considered to be on the up.
The picture is not as bright at the Suns, who finished 16th of 18 teams in 2021 and continue to provide ammunition for the people Everitt believes would love nothing more than to see them follow in the long-vanished footsteps of the Bears, Giants, Seagulls and Chargers.
“The rest of the AFL aren’t invested in the Suns being a success,” he says. “They’re always saying that the Gold Coast doesn’t deserve an AFL team, that the city isn’t built for one, and it should be in Tasmania or Cairns … but there is definitely a place for them.”
He then adds a fact that is both blindingly obvious and oh-so-difficult to achieve.
“It’s just a matter of winning.”
By the numbers
NRL
Gold Coast (Giants, Seagulls, Gladiators, Chargers, Titans) 26 seasons, five finals campaigns (19%)
Melbourne Storm, 24 seasons, 21 finals campaigns (87%)
Brisbane Broncos, 34 seasons, 27 finals campaigns (79%)
Newcastle Knights, 34 seasons, 15 finals campaigns (44%)
North Queensland Cowboys, 27 seasons, 10 finals campaigns (37%)
New Zealand Warriors, 27 seasons, eight finals campaigns (29%)
AFL
Gold Coast (Bears, Suns), 17 seasons, 0 finals campaigns
GWS Giants, 10 seasons, five finals campaigns (50%)
Brisbane Lions, 29 seasons*, 14 finals campaigns (48%)
Port Adelaide Power, 25 seasons, 12 finals campaigns (48%)
Fremantle Dockers, 27 seasons, six finals campaigns (22%)
*Four as Brisbane Bears
