Founding president John Hines was one of the small group of football lovers that first met in a Noosaville café with the idea of starting a soccer club in 1973.
A public meeting at St Mary’s Hall in Tewantin later that year set the wheels in motion for the formation of what is now known as the Noosa Lions Football Club.
The club is celebrating its 50th year on 13 May with the announcement of their 50 year men’s and women’s team. The celebrations will be at the Girraween Sports Complex with the main game against Buderim (men) and Gympie (women) kicking off at 6pm. All past and present members and supporters are encouraged to come along and be part of the festivities.
What is now the largest club in the Sunshine Coast Region competition, Noosa Lions started its life as the Noosa River Soccer Club fielding their first junior teams in Under 8, 10, 12 and 14s competitions wearing a brown and gold strip.
In recent weeks, a group of club legends have been carefully selecting the club’s best performing men and women senior players since the club entered the first division men’s competition in 1976. That team was undefeated premiers in their inaugural year, only to go down in the grand final.
The club first ran on to its own fields in 1978, three years after council allocated space at Sir Thomas Hiley Park, now the Noosa District Sports Complex. It was a successful year with Under 12s becoming the first of many teams to win a grand final, beating Coolum 2-1.
The 1980s was a successful decade for the club starting in 1981 when Noosa became the first club on the coast to win both the premiership and the championship in both first and reserve grade men’s competitions, achieving the same feat again in 1983.
That was also the year that the first women’s team took to the field. The women went on to become premiers and champions in 1982. Under 9 Div 1 boys, reserve grade and 3rd div men all won the premiership in 1982 with the thirds going on to win the Grand Final. In the second time in the vlub’s short history, Noosa won both the first and reserve grade men’s competitions in 1983. Playing in blue and white in a legendary grand final, the firsts won 5-4 in extra time. Wearing black and gold, the firsts won the grand final again in 1988.
It was 1983 when captain of the U 13 champions team, and now life member, Michael Cookman was the first Noosa player to be selected in a Queensland representative side. Thirty-one years later his son Nick, now a centre back in the premier men’s side, was to achieve the same recognition representing Queensland in the U19 Australian schoolboys championship in 2017.
Former Noosa junior, Larissa Crummer, was the first player in the club to make a senior national side being selected in the Matildas at the beginning of their surge to world recognition in 2015.
The club almost scored a world record in 1984 when Steve Walsh kicked 17 goals in a 21-0 defeat of Nambour. It was the highest recorded for an official game at the time but was struck out when it was identified that Nambour played two unregistered players.
The 1990s saw the opening of the clubhouse at the Tewantin Sports Complex. Clubhouse founders included longstanding secretary Alice Daw and her husband Keith, the Cookmans as well as parents of Sunshine Coast Football Hall of Fame inductees, the Dobson brothers. Relaunched as the Noosa Blues in 1995, with the support of a local publishing house of the same name, the senior men dominated the next few years with the firsts winning premierships in 1996 and 1997 and championships in 1996 and 1998. The women’s team wound up the decade with a grand final win against Beegees in 1999.
The club started the new millennium with the first division men’s side taking out the championship in a penalty shoot-out. Noosa’s Over 35 men’s side won the grand final in 2006 in the start of an era which saw them make the championship round for 11 successive years. With a strong core throughout the whole era, Noosa took out the championship in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2015.
As players matured the end of season, Sunshine Coast Masters Tournament became the competition of choice for those not up to a full season. Club president Brian Stockwell lifted the prestigious Over 45s crystal trophy high at the end of the competition in 2014, in a team that included club legend and octogenarian Old Bobby Chalmers and his son.
Noosa has a proud history in women’s football with a number of mums of recent first division and U23s players, having taken out the Noosa or Sunshine Coast Women’s Footballer of the Year award in their younger years. Starting with Rebecca Noble, now life member with husband Mark Whisker, whose son Josh is a gun defender in the Under 23s. The award was then won in 1998 and 1999 by Sandra Upton, mother of Dan, who scored the crucial goal in the 2017 premier men’s semi inal. A Matilda’s alumni, Alex Jancevski, mother of talented Chris and Andre and up and coming U 23 midfielder Nicholas, took out the Sunshine Coast gong in 2000.
Former Welsh International and Leeds United player Kevin Aherne-Evans took on the role of captain coach in 2010 and guided the firsts for two years. In the final game at the Tewantin grounds Kev scored a hat trick which, along with long term first grade golden boot Matt Thompson’s, let the club exit from its home of 25 years in style.
A $2 million purpose built facility at the Girraween Sports Complex became the club’s new home in 2013. Player numbers almost doubled overnight with around 500 players registered across 46 teams. First grade captain Ben Cahn took over the reins as coach the following year. The club’s entry into the FFA Cup took it to the brink of national stardom in 2014. Record crowds of around 2000 people were at the Lions Den to cheer the side on – first in the Sunshine Coast Regional win over NPL side Sunshine Coast Fire and then in a victory against the Wide Bay Region’s winners from Hervey Bay. If it wasn’t for a missed penalty with only minutes to go, the club could have been in the national round of 32.
Kevin Aherne-Evans returned as technical director and premier men’s coach in 2017. In a season which shattered previous Sunshine Coast Competitions records, Noosa took out the premierships in the premier men, reserve and third grades. Part of the key to the success was talented premier men’s defender Taj Suffolk who was subsequently selected in the Australian U19 team to tour the UK.
The next three years saw the club winning the premiership in 2018, 2019 and the vhampionship in 2020 under Kev’s guidance. In 2019 the premier men boasted the longest running undefeated streak in the nation racking up 26 wins and three draws over two seasons. The women’s side were the next to achieve a long run, going through the 2022 seasons undefeated that earned them the Queensland Community Team of Year Award.
The club has produced many referees from its junior and senior ranks over the years, with Ellie Jones the first to officiate in an international match when the Matildas took on China in 2022.
In 2021 the club received the highest honour from Football Queensland – taking out the Queensland Community Club of the Year. The judges gave the Noosa Lions the maximum score on every criteria taking into account on-field success, sportsmanship and respect.
The 50 year celebration will acknowledge the contributions of our most talented players, but none of this would have been possible without five decades of volunteers putting their hands up to coach, be on the committee, officiate and help out in the canteen.
