An inspiring win to the scale of the SUNS’ victory over Sydney on Saturday can have a rippling effect.
It resonates through the playing group, the club, the membership base and the wider community.
One passionate member, who made the trip to Sydney with his equally-fanatical son, recounts the historic win in a letter addressed to CEO Mark Evans and the club.
You can read his account of
Dear
Just a very quick note of thanks for providing my wife and
As you can see from the attached photo, Zane (and dad in the background) attended the SCG last Saturday.
Our son’s 8th birthday was last October, and as is our family tradition, our kids get to have an experience rather than a present.
All he wanted was to go to a SUNS match interstate.
When the draw came out at the start of the year, we went through it, and up popped the Swans match at the SCG, so that was locked in.
Come five weeks ago, Zane’s parents are wavering.
We have just witnessed the Saints run us down at Metricon. Do we really want to go all the way to Sydney on a Saturday morning, watch the game, and come back on Saturday night?
We have been explaining to our kids ALL year about resilience and supporting our team no matter what… so it’s agreed. Zane and Dad will head to Sydney for the game.
Decked out in every piece of SUNS merchandise we can wear, plus flags, we set off. (We leave the SUNS doona cover, the SUNS bath towels and the SUNS toys at home).
We get to the match and look forward to the game. We are surrounded by Swans supporters who think it is novel that these two interlopers have arrived from the GC.
We stand, cheer and wave our flags at the first goal. The Swans supporters snicker, but politely admire our enthusiastic support of our team.
We recruit two “grandmothers” who advise they can’t stand the Swans, but their grandchildren love coming to the game.
We provide each with a scarf to wear for the day. There is now four of us in our section.
As the game unfolds we cheer raucously, wave our flags vigorously, and start chants of “Gold Coast!” supported by our four lonely voices.
It provides plenty of laughter to the Swans supporters. The rest is history.
But to the point of my letter, upon arriving back at the airport imagine my son’s absolute delight to find out we are on the same flight home as our mighty giant-killing SUNS!
Imagine his further joy, as not one, but at least six players and officials approached him directly to say thanks for coming and supporting, many staying to chat with him about his own football highlights.
Finally, upon arriving home at Coolangatta, well after his bedtime, the SUNS supporters had come to cheer the players home, and he felt completely part of it.
These are lifetime memories for an 8-year-old.
You just need to know that everything you do behind the scenes to build a club culture comes out in those moments.
Congratulations to players
But a huge congratulations to all of the executives, administrators and support staff who make the Gold Coast SUNS such a wonderful and joyous team to follow.
We all love to win… but a club with no soul, spirit and joy attached is not a “club” at all.
Thank you, and may we all have a few more reasons to sing our club song this year.
Kind regards,
Derryn
(Father of Broadbeach U9 Whites #5)
