The cash-rich Queenslanders want to stake an NRL claim, not as a feeder club, or as a partner in a new Brisbane franchise, but as a team in their own right

Seventy years ago, on the evening of 27 February, 1947, a group of men gathered at the Redcliffe Council chambers, 40km north of Brisbane. After two hours of nominations, motions and lively discussion about everything from membership fees to jerseys, grounds and fixture lists, Redcliffe Peninsula Rugby League Football Club was born.

Tom Maule was 22 then, living in nearby Scarborough and playing second row for the mighty Brothers club from Brisbane. Now 92, he believes that he is the sole surviving member from that inaugural club meeting.

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“I played all 1947 with the Brothers club in the Brisbane Rugby League, and on Sunday with Redcliffe in the Sandgate competition,” says Maule. “To give you an idea of the toll it took, at the start of the season I was at 16 stone 10, and I finished it at 12 stone six. I started out with one not-completely healed shoulder and finished the season with two bad shoulders. I played every game. I made a promise: I was born here in Redcliffe and I would have walked over broken glass to play here to get them started. I’ve been connected with the club ever since in one way or another.”

The club, now known as Redcliffe Dolphins, has grown into the most successful side in all of Queensland and one of the largest enterprises in the Moreton Bay region, with a shopping centre on the premises and more than 200 employees.

This year promises to be a big one for the Dolphins, and not only because of the 70th anniversary celebrations. With financial support from local, state and federal governments, the club is currently building a $15m boutique stadium that former player and current president Bob Jones believes will secure the Dolphins’ future.

And with this combination of the new stadium, a plush leagues club, a recognisable brand and a history of success, Jones now believes the club is ready to enter the National Rugby League competition. Not as a feeder club, or as a partner in a new Brisbane franchise, but as a team in its own right.

“If we were going to go in the NRL, it would be as the Dolphins,” said Jones. “We’ve had quite a few meetings with the NRL, just to let them know that we were keen and ready to go. Whenever they’re ready.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest James Ackerman of Redcliffe Dophins takes on the defence during the InTrust Super Cup grand final against Wynnum Manly Seagulls in 2012. Photograph: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Redcliffe Dolphins currently play in the InTrust Super Cup, a competition that meanders up Queensland’s east coast from the southern-most point in Tweed Heads, through Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and across the Arafura Sea to Papua New Guinea. Since the competition was established in 1996, Redcliffe have qualified for 11 grand finals, lost six and won five. Such is Redcliffe’s dominance that it could be described as both the perennial bridesmaids and the powerhouse of the competition.

Indeed the Redcliffe Dolphins are one of the great survivors of Australian rugby league. Before the Brisbane Broncos, the club was a member of the thriving Brisbane Rugby League competition. But when the Broncos entered the expanded New South Wales competition in 1988, the BRL went into extreme decline.

“I went to see Brothers play Redcliffe in the 1987 BRL grand final, and it was packed,” remembers Greg Mallory, a Brothers supporter and the author of Voices from Brisbane Rugby League. ‘They reckon there was more than 35,000 people there. Then I went to the grand final in 1988 and there were 13,000. So that’s dramatic – it was a whole change of culture.’

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, as Brisbane rugby league fans found a new loyalty for Broncos, iconic clubs such as Brothers and Fortitude Valley were forced to merge and many others had to fight to remain relevant. The Redcliffe Dolphins hung on and in 1994 won their first premiership in nearly three decades. The president at the time, Des Webb, called it “the greatest day in the club’s history”, while the current president, Bob Jones, believes it marked the beginning of a golden era that lasted until 2006.

In his book A man’s gotta have a hobby: Long summers with my dad, Redcliffe supporter and actor William McInnes remembered the BRL as the expression of “a different Brisbane; a little rougher maybe, certainly more of a small town, but a town that was richer in the way its people interacted”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Arthur Beetson played 56 game for Redcliffe. Photograph: Redcliffe Dolphins

McInnes, who now lives in Melbourne, returns home often to watch the club play. Redcliffe’s team manager and number one supporter, Jon Sloan, sends him updates and memorabilia, and McInnes regularly watches grainy old footage from the BRL on YouTube. He returns time and time again to the video of Bevan Bleakley’s try in the 1975 grand final. “It’s a way of reconnecting with friends and remembering where you come from,” he says.



“It was the big thing in town, most people had a team, and it was the way Brisbane defined itself. I know Redcliffe really defined itself through its league team. The way that club has grown, it’s not just a sporting club, it’s a community. My mother used to go to the trivia nights – I’d go with her some nights – and my sister uses the aqua aerobics facility. The great thing about the club is that they put so much back into the community. I think they’re quite aware of their position in Redcliffe and on the Sunshine Coast.”

Redcliffe is also a club that treasures its history and traditions. Dozens of jerseys worn by Dolphins alumni adorn the walls of the clubhouse, from Tom Maule’s tattered old representative jumper to the Queensland and Kangaroos jerseys of the modern era.

Many of Queensland’s most iconic players and coaches passed through the club, including Barry Muir, Dick “Tosser” Turner, Bryan Niebling, Peter Leis, Adam Mogg, Daly Cherry-Evans, Wally Fullerton-Smith, Brent Tate, Petero Civoniceva and, of course, the late, great Arthur Beetson – a man once described as the “tribal elder” of the Queensland State of Origin side.

“Big Artie”, who played 56 game for Redcliffe, was a key figure in the club’s first ever premiership win in 1965. Redcliffe beat Valleys 15 points to two that day with Kevin Yow Yeh, an explosive Indigenous winger from Gladstone, scoring two tries.

Beetson and Yow Yeh roomed together at Redcliffe and in 1966, when both men were signed by Balmain, their transfer fees helped Redcliffe finance the construction of their clubhouse. But while Beetson would go on to become Queensland’s first captain in State of Origin and the first Indigenous captain of Australia, Yow Yeh died in the watch house at Mackay jail in 1975.

To this day Redcliffe Dolphins maintain a connection to the Indigenous community as the host of Queensland’s annual Murri Carnival, which is run by Beetson’s sons at the Arthur Beetson Foundation, and over the years the club has been home to many Indigenous players.

Waverley Stanley of the Redcliffe Dolphins. Photograph: Redcliffe Dolphins

One of those players was Waverley Stanley, the founding director of Yalari, a not-for-profit Indigenous education organisation. Between 1986 and 1996 Stanley played 113 first-grade games for the Dolphins and captained the club to the premiership in 1994.

“I played all my senior football at Redcliffe,” says Stanley. “I never wanted to play for another club. Being an Indigenous person didn’t make any difference, you were just accepted for who you are and for your ability as a rugby league player.”

The people of Redcliffe are a slightly different breed, removed from the rest of Brisbane by the bridge that spans Bramble Bay. Historian Greg Mallory believes that geographic separation is one of the reasons behind Redcliffe Dolphins’ survival and recent success, while Bob Jones reckons it has given the club a distinct character.



“Redcliffe still has a bit of a country feel about it,’ says Jones. “It’s big enough for people not to know all your business, but small enough for you to know a lot of people. Redcliffe people have always been very parochial, our supporters are long-term and we’ve always had our own identity. We learnt from our coach Barry Muir – who was also the Queensland coach – that other teams hated coming across that bridge. They knew they were in for a really torrid time. Once we heard that, Barry Muir said, let’s not disappoint them.”

Over the years the club has embraced more skilful players, not just the hard men, but one thing has stayed the same: Redcliffe people are loyal to their own. When William McInnes’ mother died, one of the club’s star players, Peter Leis, turned up unannounced. “I knew your mum loved her footy,” Leis told McInnes simply.

“Redcliffe Dolphins have great supporters,” says Stanley. “A lot of the elderly ladies supported the club year in, year out, whether we were getting flogged or winning premierships.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A youthful Petero Civoniceva before he went on to become an NRL great. Photograph: Redcliffe Dolphins

Bob Jones, who grew up in Gunnedah, left Redcliffe to play in Sydney in the late 1970s, but came straight back after one season. He’s been with the club ever since. Beetson also returned to Redcliffe as player-coach in 1981, and for years ran the local Moreton Bay Hotel. When he died in 2011, the funeral was held at Dolphin Oval.

At the service that day was Queensland and Kangaroos star Petero Civoniceva. The big prop forward grew up just over the road from Dolphin Oval, went to the local schools, jumped off the famous old jetty, progressed through the junior ranks at the Dolphins and described Redcliffe in his autobiography as “my heartland”.

Civoniceva was in the Under-19s for the club’s famous premiership victory in 1994, and when he retired from the NRL in 2012 after more than 300 top-flight games, he went back to Redcliffe for one final season. He still lives in the area and his young sons, Jacobi and Kaden, now play for the Dolphins in the Under-9s and Under-10s respectively.

“Growing up through the club, I got to meet guys like Bob Jones and Des Webb, and they were really instrumental in my childhood and junior football,” says Civoniceva. “Redcliffe are a very successful club and they certainly have got the facilities and the talent pool to warrant an NRL bid. Obviously there’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into that, but I’m sure a club like Redcliffe will give it a really good go. It would be great to see them one day realise those dreams of becoming an NRL team.”

Although Bob Jones concedes that expansion is not a high priority for the NRL, he also believes the market is saturated in Sydney and that there is room for a second team in Brisbane. Despite all the mergers and expansion over the past three decades, the competition is still heavily stacked in favour of NSW, and more than half of the current NRL clubs are from Sydney.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Redcliffe Dolpjhins Under-8s team in 1997, featuring current Manly and Queensland player Daly Cherry-Evans, holding the ball in the front row. Photograph: Redcliffe Dolphins

Over the past few years there has been talk of a Brisbane Bombers franchise, although nothing has come to fruition. But with stage two of Redcliffe’s new stadium set for completion later this year, Jones believes the club will have better facilities than many of the NRL sides.

For now, Redcliffe Dolphins are set to open the 2017 season with a grand final rematch against Burleigh Bears. The club has lost three grand finals in the past decade, and has not won the competition since 2006. “Redcliffe,” jokes McInnes, “have always had a great way of losing premierships”. A win this season, then, would be a fitting way to celebrate 70 years.

As for the club’s long-term aspirations, Tom Maule doesn’t know if he’ll ever see his beloved Redcliffe Dolphins play in the national league. But if the NRL do eventually come calling, he is convinced his club “can stand the heat in the kitchen”.

He says “99% of the people involved in the Redcliffe club are givers, not takers. I was the auditor there for 30-odd years, and Redcliffe has never ever not paid a bill. Redcliffe has always paid its way.”