GOLD COAST FOOTBALL ORIGINS
Piecing together the origins of football and the early history of British Association Football on the Gold Coast.
1898
The first record of the game here on the Gold Coast appears in a photograph of the original Recreation Grounds in Southport, with a full size football goal photographed on the main oval space. The site — located at Lawson, Scarborough and Garden Streets in Southport — is nowadays home to Woodroffe Park, the Southport RSL and the Victoria Towers high rise building.
The photograph shows several buildings including the then School Of Arts and Drill Hall, a rotunda, a cricket pitch and a soccer goal erected on the sporting field. Faded in the distance in the Broadwater estuary and sandy island backdrop of what was likely to be the southern tip of Stradbroke Island at the time.
Several figures appear in front of the goal however it is unclear if they are using the space for football at the time, and it is presumed that another goal would have been present out of frame at the other end of the field, making up a full size a soccer field.
Whilst there’s no doubt that other relaxed and informal incarnations of the game were probably played socially in the region prior to these goals being built, this photograph represents what is likely the first instance of recreational football games being played on the Gold Coast — marking the heart of the Southport CBD as the birth place of the game here.
Brisbane had already established a small yet robust football culture emerging at the time, with governing bodies formed and prominent foundation clubs from Ipswich to Brisbane already engaged in regular competition.
1902
In 1899, Reverend Horace Henry Dixon migrated to Queensland after being recruited by Brisbane’s Bishop, William Webber. Arriving in Brisbane in 1899, he was assigned to the parish Southport, which at the time recapitulated the entirety of the region known today as the Gold Coast.
Dixon was already an experienced teacher and community leader, and quickly recognised the need for a formal school to be built in the area. In 1901 he raised the issue with key persons including his local parliamentarian E. J. Stevens, and support for the idea grew. He was soon able to acquire access to several existing buildings on the banks of the Nerang River. Known then as ‘Government House and Estate’, the lots and dwellings had been previously used as a summer residence by governors of Queensland, but were no longer in use.
Dixon secured a one-year lease of the property rent free, so long as he paid for repairs and upkeep, with an option to purchase the allotment after three years for the sum of £1000. Webber was sympathetic but the diocese was unable to finance the scheme and it was eventually arranged that Dixon would accept personal responsibility. If the school proved successful, the Church would take it over as soon as possible as a diocesan school for boys.
founding of The Southport School (TSS) would signal the birth of the very first organised football team for the Gold Coast — an assembly of students including Dixon himself — who would occasionally make the long trip to Brisbane to challenge against reserve grade and youth teams from established clubs such