Gold Coast Football Club

Gold Coast Football Club
Nickname(s)	Suns
History
Joined AFL	2011
Minor Premiers	—
Premierships	—
Runners-up	—
Wooden Spoons	2011, 2019
Other Information
Matches	Metricon Stadium
Training	Metricon Stadium & Gold Coast Sports and Leisure Centre

The Gold Coast Football Club, nicknamed The Suns, is the Australian rules football club based on the Gold Coast, which began playing in the AFL competition for the first time in 2011. The club is the product of a sole consortium, formerly known as "GC17", tendering against established criteria for a licence to be the 17th club in the AFL competition. The club played its first game as a part of the AFL in the pre-season NAB Cup competition in February 2011 before beginning the 2011 AFL season proper in April 2011.

Since it's establishment the Suns have been disappointing, and are yet to make a finals appearance. Despite a couple of promising campaigns in 2013 and 2014 the Suns have failed to live up to the hype. There marquee singing of Gary Ablett put the Suns on a strong foothold to make a finals push in the 2014 season, though after a serious injury in round 16, the club stumbled and lost out on a position in the 8. Since then Ablett has been unable to relive some of his magic and was eventually shipped back to Geelong. Since 2015 the Suns have been in and around the bottom 4 and are yet to make a serious finals push.

Following their disappointing end to the 2010's some have called for Gold Coast to fold and make way for a Tasmanian based club, although this looks unlikely. Gold Coast is known for being the "graveyard" of Australian sport. With both basketball and soccer franchises lasting less than 5 years and an NRL club struggling, this is believed to be the main reason that the Suns have struggled to remain hold of top talents.

Rivalries

• Brisbane Lions

The rivalry nicknamed the "Q-Clash" is between the two sole Queensland clubs. The Suns historically won the opening Q-Clash by 8 points. The award for "Best-On Ground" is known as the Marcus Ashcroft Medal, named after a former junior Gold Coast player who played 318 games for Brisbane before joining the Suns coaching staff.

• GWS Giants

Despite not actually being a formal rivalry game, the two latest expansion clubs are often compared with eachother and played out some intense games during the clubs early years. Despite their similar characteristics the Giants are often seen as the superior and more successful expansion and thus the rivalry has died out somewhat.

External Links

Club Website: https://www.goldcoastfc.com.au/