Gold Coast Suns: It takes time for generations of fans to develop

Remember the Chargers, the Blaze and the Seagulls? The Gold Coast glitter strip remains the graveyard of sports teams and their coaches.

The Chargers were one of the franchises to have a crack at the rugby league market before the Titans> Here, Kris Currie tries to brush past Wests’ Kevin McGuinness back in 1996.

Footy fans are born not made in marketing departments. Which is why the Gold Coast glitter strip remains the graveyard of sports teams and their coaches.

They are born into families who have supported the same team for generations, born among kids who saw someone off their street or from their suburb make it on the big stage, born in communities entwined with footy clubs.

Stretching from Southport in the north to Coolangatta in the south and from the beach across burgeoning residential suburbs inland, the Gold Coast is now Australia’s sixth-biggest city, with a population of more than 600,000. The economy, based on tourism and real estate, is purring along nicely enough and is estimated to be worth more than $25 billion a year.

The perfect spot, you would imagine, for any ambitious sporting code intent on expansion.

And plenty have tried, of course. Rugby league tried and failed with the Chargers, the Giants and the Seagulls, before gaining a tenuous foothold with the Titans. Australian football had a crack in the 1980s with the Bears, who eventually relocated to Brisbane and merged with Fitzroy to form the Lions.

Who can forget the Gold Coast Blaze?

The A-League tried with Gold Coast United, but that fell over with a little help from Clive Palmer. And who remembers the brief appearance of the Gold Coast Blaze in the NBL? Baseball, rugby and ice hockey have all tried to establish professional teams on the Coast without success.

Now the AFL’s Gold Coast Suns are holding down 15th place on the ladder and coach Rodney Eade, who had found some success at two other clubs, has become the latest victim. And over at the Titans, there are whispers about Neil Henry’s future.

Truth is, the Gold Coast is a relatively new community, established in the 1960s and 1970s, and the soil is still too shallow for the roots that football teams need to thrive.

More than half the 600,000 people who live on the Coast grew up somewhere else and had already established their football allegiances before they arrived.

There are probably more Collingwood fans on the Gold Coast than Suns fans — and more supporters of South Sydney than of the Titans.

The Western Sydney Wanderers tapped into a community soccer culture. Picture Craig Greenhill

A brilliant illustration of this phenomena can be found a few hundred kilometres south in Western Sydney. The Western Sydney Wanderers, plonked in the city by Football Federation Australia in 2012, have thrived because they tapped into a soccer culture long established in the area.

The AFL’s Greater Western Sydney, however, have done well on the field, strengthened by good coaching, millions of dollars in AFL support and generous draft concessions. But their crowds remain small and their connection with the community is limited.

On the Coast, the connections to fans that allow teams to prosper will come. The Titans and the Suns have survived this far and the AFL and the NRL are keen to hang on to the ground they have fought so hard for.

Gold Coast Suns coach Rodney Eade. Picture: AAP

But it will take time as the Coast becomes a proper city rather than just a holiday and retirement destination. Time for generations of Suns and Titans to develop, time for kids to see athletes from their street in Ashmore, Benowa or Burleigh Heads to make it to Metricon and Cbus stadium.

And Eade may not be the last coach to try and fail to make a success of a Gold Coast footy team.