Gold Coast United: The Rise and Fall of Clive Palmer's A-League Team

With a rich owner and an excited city, everything seemed like it would go great for Gold Coast United. So why did they get kicked out of the A-League after three seasons?

Written by Lachlan Sherriff

This is Clive Palmer.

Clive is an Australian politician and businessman. But we’re not here to talk about that. Palmer had an interest in football, or as it’s called in Australia, soccer. And on the sixth of June, 2008, Clive Palmer got to own a football team. Clive and the FFA made an agreement to introduce Gold Coast United into the A-League. It was an exciting time for sport fans living in the Gold Coast. The Titans had joined the NRL a year ago, while the Suns were a few years from their inclusion in the AFL. And now the city had an A-League team. With a rich owner and an excited city, everything seemed like it would go great for Gold Coast United. So why did they get kicked out of the A-League after three seasons?

The A-League’s first season was in 2005-06, as a replacement to the demised NSL. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Australia’s national team, the Socceroos, qualified for the World Cup for the first in 32 years midway through the season. This drummed up a nice viewership for the A-League. The average attendance for games over the season was 10,000, and 41,689 people went to the Grand Final match between Sydney FC and the Central Coast Mariners. The A-League was on the right track. Clive Palmer saw this and wanted in on it. His first attempt was to start a team called Gold Coast Galaxy FC in March 2008, but his entrance was denied as the current eight teams were against a nine team league. It was around this time that Palmer sold ten percent each of the then semi-professional club to three of his friends in Victoria, as he did not expect the club to join the pros. However three days later, his submission was accepted, as local realtor Fred Taplin had started his own team, the North Queensland Thunder. The Thunder and Gold Coast United were both accepted in the comp, making it a ten team league. Palmer was now no longer full owner of the club, but he recovered, and decided to invest himself into this.

Gold Coast had about six months to prepare a team before it would make its professional debut. The team would continue to play in Queensland’s amateur league until then. United wasted no time assembling a strong side. Former Queensland Roar manager Miron Bleiberg would stand in the dug-out, while the playing side was upgraded with experienced goalkeeper Scott Higgins and Brazilian attacking midfielder Felipe both joining the team. Clive Palmer then announced that his squad had what it took to go undefeated in their first ever season in the A-League.

Okay.

This is where things get slightly murky. The FFA had decided to delay the expansion of Gold Coast United by a year. This won’t be the first time the FFA and Clive Palmer disagree, by the way. Due to the delay, all the signed contracts were declared null and void, as the team wasn’t professional. This resulted in Felipe leaving the club without playing a single game, though Bleiberg and Higgins still stayed around. I couldn’t find the NSL results anywhere for the Gold Coast 2009 season, but let’s just assume they did well.

United’s long awaited entrance lived up to the hype. Clive Palmer managed to get the rights to host home matches at Robina Stadium, an arena that can hold 27,400 people, making it the fourth largest stadium in the A-League. The side had made exciting signings, the biggest being Jess Vanstrattan, who had played at European giants Juventus the season prior. Jason Culina also joined from PSV, a side who had just played in the Champions League, while Palmer also raided through other A-League sides, bringing in players from Wellington, Newcastle, Adelaide, the Mariners, Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar. United even pulled in Shane Smeltz from Wellington, who had won the A-League’s best player in the former season, and was the league’s top scorer with twelve goals. Incredibly, the team went undefeated throughout ten pre-season games, with three 5-0 wins against different opponents, victories against fellow A-League sides North Queensland Fury and Perth Glory, and even a 2-1 win against Premier League side Fulham. United then took this form with them into their first ever A-League game. In a Queensland derby against Brisbane Roar, United won 3-1, with Shane Smeltz, Jason Culina and Robson Alves da Silva scoring the club’s first three professional goals in their history. Against another Queensland team, the North Queensland Fury, Smeltz scored four goals in a 5-0 win which was the first home game played at Robina Stadium for United. You could just feel something brewing with the team, and the fans loved every minute of it. The rest of the season had its ups and downs. United still got results, but had their off days as well, including a 6-0 loss to the Wellington Phoenix, and a 4-0 loss to Melbourne Victory. Still, the team persevered, and actually had a chance to finish as the minor premiers, being equal on top of the table with Melbourne Victory, with just two games left to play. Unfortunately, losses to Wellington and the Fury put Gold Coast in a disappointing third, missing out on the AFC Champions League, as well as the double chance the top two teams get. That double chance would’ve been handy for United, as they crashed out in Week One of the finals to the Newcastle Jets on penalties. But despite their end of season collapse, things were looking great for United. Shane Smeltz was the most dangerous striker in the league, with an incredible nineteen goals to win his second Golden Boot in a row. The defense had great players like Michael Thwaite, Bas ven den Brink and Kristian Rees, while Brazillian duo Anderson and Robson pulled strings in midfield. It wasn’t quite the undefeated team that their owner had bragged about twelve months ago, but it still looked like it could go far in the future. And then Clive Palmer sold the team.

Well he didn’t, those rumours eventually broke down. But it made fans nervous. Sure, Palmer made stupid over-confident takes and was unliked by pretty much everyone, but he was also the wealthiest man in Queensland, and him leaving would put the club at risk of folding. But when Palmer announced that he would remain majority owner of the club, he once again got busy in the transfer market. Bruce Djite signed a three year deal with the team, while attacking midfielder Peter Perchtold was loaned in for a year. The problem was that there were many clubs chasing Shane Smeltz’s signature, including teams in Europe. Eventually the Kiwi striker was signed by Shandong Luneng in China on an undisclosed fee. After passing his medical, however, Smeltz changed his mind on living in China. There was talk of him returning to Gold Coast, but he instead signed a contract in Turkey with Gençlerbirliği S.K. But even without Smeltz, United still held up strong. Yes, it was ugly football, with only one win before December having a higher margin than one goal, but a 3-0 winagainst Melbourne Heart and a 2-0 win against Wellington Pheonix before Christmas showed that Gold Coast may have what it took to go all the way. However, United didn’t win any of their next five matches and also lost Peter Perchtold after only ten games over a disagreement in his contract.

Then Shane Smeltz came back after six months in Turkey on a free transfer.

No seriously. It happened.

The return of Smeltz couldn’t have come at a better time for United. They won their next game against North Queensland 4-0, with Smeltz grabbing a goal in the 52nd minute, and then beat the Newcastle Jets 5-1 a couple of games later, with Smeltz scoring once again. Gold Coast United had a shot to qualify for the double chance, but once again, they blew it away at the end of the season, only picking up four points from a possible fifteen. The end results from the last two seasons would end up proving costly, as we will see later.

United knew they had to find form in the finals, as a repeat of last year’s early exit would’ve been terrible. Luckily, they did. In the first semi final against Melbourne Victory, United defended strongly throughout the entire game before center back Dino Djulbic headed home the late winner in the 91st minute. Gold Coast had their first ever finals win, and the home fans were loving it. The next week in their second semi final they travelled to South Australia to play Adelaide United. Shane Smeltz gave Gold Coast the lead in the 38th minute, before Adelaide scored two goals in thirteen minutes, which gave the home side a 2-1 lead with twenty minutes left. Bruce Djite then pulled one back two minutes later, before Shane Smeltz stuck a penalty in the net to give Gold Coast their second ever finals win, and put them one game away from the Grand Final. Gold Coast’s preliminary final match against the Mariners a tight fought game with not too many chances. However, it was Central Coast who broke the deadlock, as Adam Kwasnik scored the winner to end Gold Coast’s championship dreams. It was a tough loss to take, but things were still positive for United. They were one game away from the championship, they had the best attack in the league, things were looking fine. And then Clive Palmer sold the team. Are you starting to see a pattern here?

Once again, Palmer was interested in selling Gold Coast. He actually got close to doing it too, but the deal fell through. Meanwhile, the players had had enough. With all the unsettling rumours around the club, squad members submitted transfer requests in order to leave the sinking ship of a football club. Shane Smeltz went to Perth Glory and didn’t come back this time, Bruce Djite went to Adelaide United after only one season in Gold Coast, and Anderson was more willing to play for a team in Cypriot then stay in Gold Coast. It was bad. The season got underway and Gold Coast, who made the preliminary final a season prior, picked up five points in eight games, and four losses in a row. The bright spot of the season, if you could call it that, was the Christmas period, where Gold Coast got consecutive wins against Adelaide and Brisbane, while also picking up 0-0 draws against Sydney and Central Coast before and after the two wins. The luck would run out as Gold Coast went winless in their next eight games. This takes us up to Febuary the 17th, 2012. Gold Coast has an away match against Melbourne Heart, and club captain Michael Thwaite was injured. You’d assume vice-captain Khristian Rees would take the captain’s armband, right?

Nope.

Mitch Cooper was a seventeen year old kid playing for Gold Coast United’s youth team. He was watching TV after playing an away match for the U18’s team in Newcastle when Clive Palmer told him he’d be making his debut on the weekend in Melbourne, and that he’d lead the team out. At training the next day, manager Miron Bleiberg told Cooper what the club’s owner meant. Clive Palmer had picked a seventeen year old kid to captain the team on his debut. Yes, this all actually happened.

See this was Clive Palmer’s problem. He didn’t care about being a good owner, but when it came time to pick a captain or do something else outside of his job description?

Yeah. He’d do that.

Gold Coast lost that match 1-0, but what happened off the pitch was the final nail in the coffin for Gold Coast.

In his pre-match interview, Miron Bleiberg told the media that it was more of a symbolic move, and that the more experienced players would still lead on the pitch. Clive Palmer, however, did not make the move symbolically, and suspended Bleiberg for the upcoming match, instead letting assistant manager Mike Mulvey manage the side. A few days after the match, Bleiberg resigned from his role as manager, saying that Palmer’s actions had hurt him and he could no longer work with him. And without a proper manager and an undercommited owner, you can probably see where this is going.

Not long after Bleiberg’s departure, Palmer officially gave up on Gold Coast. He couldn’t sell the team, but he managed to simply depart his role. If you remember back to the start of the story, I mentioned that Palmer had actually sold 30% of the club’s ownership to three of his mates, however, they failed to keep the club alive. And on the 29th of Feburary, the A-League pulled Gold Coast United’s license.

United had four games left for the season, which they were still allowed to play. The first two matches were away games against Wellington and Newcastle, where United picked up a 2-0 loss and 1-1 draw respectively. The last two matches were at home, where the remaining loyal Gold Coast United fans piled into Robina Stadium, something they had done every other week for the last two years. On the 18th of March, 2012, Gold Coast United kicked off their second last game in existence against Perth. Amazingly, against a strong Perth Glory side, United did incredibly well. In the seventh minute of the match, Zac Anderson scored to give the home team a 1-0 lead. When Perth left back Dean Heffernan got sent off, United took advantage. James Brown doubled United’s advantage with an 83rd minute goal, beforing scoring again in stoppage time.

Gold Coast United, three, Perth Glory, 0.

A week later, Gold Coast were ready to play their last ever game against crosstown rivals Brisbane Roar. The stadium had been three quarters shut for the whole second half of the season due to a fan throwing a flare, but United still had their second biggest turnout, as 6,102 fans walked into Robina Stadium for a Gold Coast United game for the last time ever. Brisbane Roar were the second best team in the league that season, and were only two points of first, but one thing became clear to them quite quickly. United weren’t going down without a fight. United got the first chance of the game as Daniel Bowles ran on top of a through ball and this happened.

United were 1-0 up.

Scenes then broke out at Robina Stadium. After such a tough month, and a tough three years for Gold Coast fans, they finally were celebrating. United tried to hold on, but it wasn’t to be. Nicholas Fitzgerald got an equaliser in the 58th minute. It looked to be a draw, until heartbreak occurred. George Lambadaridis struck a ball into the top corner that no one could stop. Brisbane Roar, two, Gold Coast United, one.

The mood around the stadium was dejecting. Gold Coast fans were shattered, but still stayed around to clap their players off the pitch, one last time.

In case you were wondering, this wasn’t the last time we saw Gold Coast United. In 2017, United returned to the NSL, the semi-proffesional league they played in before the Clive Palmer era. They finished eighth in their most recent season, and in 2019 Gold Coast legend Shane Smeltz came out of retirement to play for United. There’s always been a bit of discussion about Gold Coast returning to the A-League, but I don’t see it.

So where did things actually go wrong for United? It’s obviously easy to place the blame on Clive Palmer, and it's true, he does deserve some of it. But here’s the thing. Clive Palmer was not a bad football owner. Sure, he made his mistakes, but to be able to sign players from top European clubs, as well as the Brazillian partnership in Anderson and Robson and one of the greatest A-League players of all time in Shane Smeltz, was brilliant. The problem with Palmer was that he only saw United as a business, not a club. He didn’t care about revenue the team was making because he was already the richest man in the state. Palmer saw United purely as a business job that he could dump whenever he felt like it, which he clearly did quite a bit. But if only United took that next step and made the AFC Champions League. The money and popularity that comes with international matches is game-changing, and it's something United would’ve experienced had it not been for those end-of-season collapses. But United had something special, you couldn’t deny it. And if a few things went differently, then United could still be in the league today. It truly is one of the greatest what-if stories of all time in the A-League.