CLUB CELEBRATES 50 YEARS Burleigh barrels on
WHEN the Burleigh Boardriders Club was founded in 1965, surfers had to be careful where they caught a wave or they could find themselves in Southport Magistrates Court.
Fifty years on, times have changed.
Today the club – including 12 founding members – will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a race day at the Gold Coast Turf Club.
The club began as boardriders slowly organised for surfing competitions, but surfing created a divide between boardriders and life saving clubs, says founding member Noel Gordon.
“There was the lifesavers and the surfers and they were losing members because blokes were always going surfing,” Mr Gordon said.
He said back in the day, one Gold Coast surf life saving club president even made surfers choose between the two sports.
The club was established on the hill at Burleigh on land that Mr Gordon’s grandfather bought for £50 in the 1930s.
“One sunny afternoon, a bunch of us young people trudged up to the house, came up with the idea and that’s how it all fell into place,” Mr Gordon said.
“There was always friction.
“Me and another bloke got fined $40 for surfing between the flags. We had to front the Magistrates Court at Southport. Other times they’d confiscate your boards.”
In the years that followed, the wave at Burleigh was renowned as the best on the coast.
As the sport grew, it hosted a groundbreaking 1977 Stubbies Classic which attracted more than 20,000 spectators.
The event was the brainchild of Burleigh surfer and 1970 Australian champion Peter Drouyn, now known as Westerly Windina, who invented the man-on-man surfing format, still used by the World Surfing League today.
As the surfing industry began, Gordon Merchant started making durable boardshorts in his Nobby Beach kitchen.
They sold quickly in local surf shops.
The company he started is today the international brand Billabong.
It made the club’s iconic red and white boardshorts, and sponsors the annual Single Fin Classic.
The surfing contest attracts big-name surfers and even rugby league players.
“I remember as a kid watching the Stubbies event on TV and seeing those events in the 1980s so I always wanted to surf Burleigh and never really had an opportunity,” former NRL star Andrew Johns said.
He has an open invitation to the competition, but has only surfed in the event twice and was taken to hospital both times after coming off second-best on the infamous rocks on the headland.
The colourful history of the Burleigh Boardriders will be shared between those who call the world-famous barrels at Burleigh home at the turf club today from 11.30am.