Neil Cadigan
In many ways he’ll stand there as the patriarch of the Ben Campbell Building Group Tweed Heads Seagulls ‘old boys’ gathering at Piggabeen Sports Complex on Sunday.
It’s not a mantle that would sit comfortably with Tom Searle, but he is a man whose heart has never left the Seagulls.
He is a link back to days that precede the leagues club being built, before the Gulls entered the Queensland Cup, to times when the back and whites took on the best of Northern NSW and the pioneers of Gold Coast rugby league.
And on Sunday he will revel in the good old times with mates that he played with, coached or were in the ranks when he was president for many years. And when the Seagulls were represented in rugby league’s premier competition, then called the Winfield Cup, from 1990-94.
“The Seagulls have been a big part of my life and I owe a lot to the club,” he said. “I’ve got lots of lifetime friends from my time here. I bought our first block of land right across the road from the leagues club and here’s a lifetime of great memories, and some tough ones.”
Searle headed to the Tweed Heads in 1972 to captain-coach the Seagulls at age 23, on a deal of $2000 a season.
The previous season he’d represented NSW Country from Tamworth, playing against City at the SCG in his first season after spending three years in the English top flight with Yorkshire club Keighley. He knocked back offers to play in Sydney with Cronulla and Norths but preferred to head to Tweed Heads.
He took the team that had come from last in 1971 under local legend Barry Muir to the grand final. He went on to lead the Seagulls into eight grand finals as a back-rower (he came to the club as a centre) in the days when Tweed played in the Group 18-Gold Coast competition.
In those times there were many strong clubs like Cudgen, three Murwillumbah teams – Old Boys, Brothers and Souths – Mullumbimby, Byron Bay, Cudgen, Seagulls, Nerang, Gould Coast (Southport) Tigers and Burleigh Heads – littered with former or future first graders from Brisbane and Sydney.
Games were played at Chris Cunningham Field, adjacent to the leagues club that slowly sprawled out of a three-story disused motel towards the river. As the club grew, so did the ‘stadium’ into having a large stand on the left and seating that eventually replaced the big grassed hill on the other side.
Sadly, as the leagues club’s trading was hit by a 45 percent negative impact after poker machines were introduced to Queensland in February 1992 and it could no longer fund a team in the NSWRL premier competition, the ground was sold and the local council welcomed developers who built the current house precinct.
By that stage Tom’s playing and coaching days had passed and he was on the board. And the perceived millionaires of league became financially strapped.
He was president when the Seagulls applied to enter the Queensland Cup in 2002 but were told to address some key criteria and come back. A year later, after the Logan Scorpions had dropped out of the state league, he led them to new horizons and in their fifth season the Class of ’07 had won the title.
He retains many great memories. “I saw the world through the Seagulls and those end of season trips are wonderful memories, but winning grand finals is the pinnacle, there’s nothing better no matter what grade and I was fortunate to win four in a row,” he said.
“We started the trips at the end of my first season when we went to Papua New Guinea. In following years we went to New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii and mainland USA (see picture above, the team about to board for PNG … Tom is back row, eighth from right)
“The toughest period was being on the board at Seagulls when we went through hard times.
“The saddest thing I experienced was the stadium going, the council sold it off after banks sold it up to them. Club sold because maintenance costs to high.”
The club greats he played with or coached?
“There were many but I’ll always remember Steve Hage and Peter and Mick Ryan who went on to be successful in Sydney.
“Bob McDermott from Newcastle was a great five-eighth/halfback and Phil Sawtell one of the best halfbacks I’d seen play in country footy.
Searle can remember the leagues club in its heyday when busloads of patrons would cross the border.
“I remember watching from home opposite the lake and counting 37 buses parked there one night, people from Queensland came down to play poker machines or attend shows,” he recalled.
Tommy will be one of many Seagulls heroes from the past who will be there to cheer the Intrust Super Cup side onto the field when they play Souths Logan Magpies in the crucial game on Sunday.
With him will be the likes of former NSW five-eighth Bill Bischoff, 2007 Queensland Cup winners Brad Davis and Tim Maccan, Tom’s son Micheal Searle, a 17-year-old Seagulls A-grader and founder of the Gold Coast Titans, plus former favourites Peter O’Neill, recently retired James Wood and current president Ian Paton who was a tough front-rower in the 1980s-90s.
Related Posts
