#GUFC60 #Flashback Friday

The Beginning – The Clubhouse.  During the first year, unofficially, rules were made with Council to sell the old School of Arts at Gymea Bay and have it transported to the grounds at the Oval.  This is now the first Club house on the Oval (made of timber).  The idea was that Council sell the ground where the old School of Arts was situated and half the proceeds be spent on the Gymea Bay Oval and the remainder in transporting  the School of Arts to its present position and to renovate it.  This was done in the following year but we met with a lot of opposition  from local residents in that some did say that the School of Arts blocked their view of Botany Bay and there were one or two attempts to set fire to it.  This was seen by Mr. Doug Tribe who was then Ranger and Ground Controller. It is interesting to note that people going to work early one morning from Gymea Bay found that the whole of the road was blocked up with the transportation of the School of Arts to the Oval.  No one had known that it was moved except a few of us – which we did keep very quiet as we may have had Opposition from various fields on its removal.  I think that it was a move in the right direction as it gave the Gymea Soccer Club a room and the main object of this building was that it provided an outlet for all young people and junior sports clubs to raise money at a reasonable rental.

Credit: Mr. C.J.O’Neill (Founder and Foundation President of the Soccer club)

#GUFC60 #Flashback Friday

1965 – The Field
In those days the field at the back end of the Oval was the highest point and the corner of Gymea Bay Road was the lowest and if you stood a corner post there you could not see a person standing on the top of the field as the slope of the ground did not permit. The whole area was covered in small stones which would be dangerous to play on so it was decided that we would have a field day at which we asked parents and boys to turn up with rakes and rake the whole of the field. This they did & consequently we showed some effort on which we could bring pressure to bear on the Council to have the field levelled, grassed and ready for match play next season. This, I can assure you, took a ·lot of work to get the Council to do it but once they did see that the people and the parents were in favour of this they did do the work and came up with the field as it is now. Of course they grassed it, which died off in the winter. They used turf and this didn’t take due to the lack of watering, so over years after that the soccer club itself have provided parents to water the fields.

Memories of planting buffalo grass on the oval which we brought from our back yards onto the oval (Andy Watson, Life Member)

Credit: Mr. C.J.O’Neill (Founder and Foundation President of the Soccer club)