Outsiders, using a logbook of stray travels, justly label Gold Coast’s national sporting history flimsy, shady and, most damningly, a graveyard.

However Gold Coast sporting identities, united by passion and bound by duty, have long insisted those stigmas are a thing of the past … and this time they’re serious.

Call it the “Skase Curse”, terrible culture or just bad luck, the Glitter Strip’s reputation of handling their national sporting teams has repeatedly, sappingly, proven more grand flops than grand finals.

THE HISTORY

In 1987 the Brisbane Bears, hastily organised and unsuitable to the Gabba and its surrounding dog track, were a big-city AFL intruder transplanted to Carrara and left to wilt until their 1993 return “home”.

The almost-comical tale included a 1989 Bulletin story highlighting the “Skase Curse”, a proposed 30-year infliction on the city’s national sides after high-profile businessman and soon-to-be fugitive Christopher Skase forfeited on payments for lights at Carrara Oval.

The Gold Coast-Tweed Giants, meanwhile, were sporting orphans, not at home in Queensland due to the Brisbane Broncos’ sole NSWRL licence clause, nor truly adopted by their NSW family.

Following their 1988 inclusion the Giants (then Seagulls, then Chargers) largely thereafter walked the path of disorder.

By 1989 it was the turn of the Gold Coast Clippers (aka Daikyo Dolphins) in the now-defunct Australian Baseball League.

Within four rollercoaster seasons the money from Japanese real estate development company Daikyo dried up, as did the club’s hopes of building on their 1991/92 national title win.

The 1990 birth of the Gold Coast Cougars NBL side, rebranded the Rollers within a season, collapsed in 1997 when the Carrara Stadium was deemed not up to standard.

Former Cougars owner Owen Tomlinson and current Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate in 2007 helped breath life back into the basketball team, this time the Blaze.

But, drowning in the usual murky financial waters, the dream ended again in 2012/13.

Then there were the Titans, founded on good intentions in 2007 but built with a framework – at least initially – of more straw than bricks.

Their history in the NRL hitherto has been mirrored by that of the Suns men’s side: a litany of off-field missteps and on-field miskicks.

Clive Palmer’s A-League plaything, Gold Coast United, slunk from heavyweights to competition jesters within four torrid campaigns blighted by cost-cutting stadium closures.

They died a tortured death in 2012 in front of a handful of fans, some teasing that even their funeral march may have had restricted access from the cemetary.

RISING SUNS

By 2020 city leaders insisted the introduction of a women’s arm to the Suns brand – with the promise of a Titans repeat in the works – would be the circuit-breaker. 

“These ladies will be at the forefront of women’s sport on the Gold Coast on the national stage – they will shine, they will persevere, they will inspire,” Trina Hockley, founder of Sports Gold Coast and driver of the Women in Sports project, said at the time.

“Sports Gold Coast sees an urgent need to change the national perception that the Gold Coast is a graveyard for national teams to being the women’s sport capital of Australia.”

It’s that female hook, one which eschewed the cultural baggage of previous men’s incarnations, on to which leaders were pinning their hopes.

“Women’s sport is starting from a very low base in terms of cost and salaries and has tremendous upside and profile with better image/branding opportunities,” Sports Gold Coast chairman Geoff Smith said in 2020.

“The timing is perfect as women equality rights are at the forefront across the media worldwide.

Suns bid team member and co-founder Graeme Downie admitted in 2020 sponsorship challenges lie in any regional city, even one as powerfully equipped with 600,000 residents like the Gold Coast.

THAT WINNING FEELING

Joel McInnes spent 30 years as a player and administrator on the Coast, and helped usher in a new era as general manager for state-league basketball line-up the Rollers.

“All Gold Coast sport teams struggle to get the kind of community support and sponsorship needed to survive and have a competitive team,” he said in 2020.

“Gold Coast fans have been long known to be fairweather fans. This could be the lack of second and third generation Gold Coaster’s who make up a very small percentage of the overall population.

“Most people who live here have strong family roots elsewhere and still support those teams of their parents and their youth.

“It could be the lifestyle, with many wonderful natural options for families to do on the weekend, why would they spend their hard earned on a losing team?

“The surf-bum apathetic lifestyle on the Gold Coast will eventually dissipate over the years when the sense of home fosters more pride to local residents.”

Geoff Smith was invited on to the Chargers board in 1997 as well as being a founding member of the Titans’ bid team.

He also helped establish Gold Coast United in the A-League.

“The lesson from the history is the Gold Coast needs to take ownership of its own destiny through a whole-of-city unified strategy on what it wants to be,” he said in 2020.

“There needs to be “skin in the game” from all sectors of the Gold Coast like government, business, education and local sports community.

“... Our city has a wealth of world champion sports stars in disproportionate numbers compared to other cities yet we are tainted by the performance of our national teams."