Southport Throws Weight Behind New Gold Coast Club
The Age
Monday March 17, 2008
JUST two years ago, the Southport Sharks were the team most likely. Cashed up and furnished with the sort of facilities and financial investments that were the envy of many an AFL club, they were widely seen as the next cab off the rank in a new-look AFL competition, whether solo or as part of a merged entity with the Kangaroos.
With the Kangaroos having finally rejected any possibility of a move north and the AFL having received the stamp of approval from the 16 clubs to go ahead with an 18-team competition, the seemingly most obvious step would be for Southport to enter the competition as the AFL's 17th licensee.But that's not going to happen. And that's where the role of the Sharks in all this becomes even more intriguing, especially given the involvement of its long-serving president, Alan Mackenzie, in a consortium with ex-Lions chairman Graham Downie and lawyer John Witheriff to bid for the new licence. As previously reported, the name Gold Coast Football Club has already been registered.The Sharks, meanwhile, will remain part of the AFL Queensland competition.Mackenzie's reasoning for his club backing away from what it has coveted for two decades is simple. "The bid really should represent the whole of the Gold Coast community," he said. "We think it'll get better acceptance that way. Having it as a wholly (members) owned club representing the whole of the Gold Coast is felt to be the best model at this stage."Yet, almost bizarrely, it can be revealed that Southport will almost certainly be represented on the new club's board, with a serious financial stake in its operation. Confused? There's more. For 2009 and 2010, Southport is likely to be competing on the field against this new entity.Mackenzie is unfazed by the prospect. "Any arrangement that brings (the new club) into the AFLQ as early as next year is obviously only an interim thing and I'm sure there wouldn't be any great problems with that, even if we were competing against them."The reason for an immediate entry to the AFLQ is to ensure that, by 2011, the Gold Coast Football Club will not be full of 18 and 19-year-olds readied for slaughter in the big league. Nor will it be a cobbled-together transplant operation, as the Brisbane Bears were in 1987.Rather, the best talent on the coast - along with whoever else might be lured by dollars and the temptation to be a part of AFL history - will be given time to find their feet in a lower grade.One might presume the prospect of priority access to Gold Coast players would antagonise the Brisbane Lions in particular, but the club seems prepared to take the long view for the betterment of the competition and, more immediately, for the marketing opportunities presented by a local rival."They've got to start getting players from somewhere," Lions chairman Tony Kelly said. "That might be something we've got to live with, for a short period of time ... I think in the medium and longer term the Lions will benefit, absolutely."
© 2008 The Age
