Michael Searle and father Tom part of rugby league's rich history on the Gold Coast

[DIEHARD]

Michael Searle and father Tom part of rugby league's rich history on the Gold Coast

WHEN Tom Searle arrived at Tweed Heads in 1972 the famous old Seagulls club was coming off one of their worst seasons.
With legendary former Test halfback Barry Muir as captain-coach, Tweed Seagulls failed to win a game in 1971 in the Group 18 Gold Coast competition.

Searle, who had played for NSW Country against City at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1968 from Tamworth, had not long returned from a three-year stint in England with Keighley when he accepted the Seagulls job.

In 1972 he took the Seagulls to the grand final, only to beaten by a Gold Coast Tigers outfit which included 17-year-old Steve Rogers in the centres.

The following year Rogers played in a Sydney grand final for Cronulla and toured Britain and France with the Kangaroos.

Tomorrow night Steve's son Mat will play for the Gold Coast Titans against the Sydney Roosters in the first of the NRL preliminary finals for 2010, with Tom in the stands hoping for another Rogers-inspired win.

This time Tom will be beside his son Michael, the Titans' managing director, whose passion for league and the Gold Coast has put the city on the map as a place to be taken seriously in terms of team sport.

"I see a lot of Steve in Mat and Mat's boy Jack who is on a scholarship with us," Tom said.

"I played with Steve as well as against him. It was what was called the Anthony Shield between the Tweed and Richmond at Murwillumbah.

"He was a champion player and was too good for us in that '72 grand final."

It has been a tough year for the Searles, with doubts about the club's financial viability, investigations by the NRL's salary cap auditor and court wrangles over the construction of the club's centre of excellence.

Tom, the Titans' junior recruitment manager, never had any doubt that Michael and the Titans would emerge stronger than ever. "There have been good and bad times, and sometimes good things come out of bad," he said. "Michael has been pretty resilient with all the dramas he has had this year. It's difficult as a father to see what he was going through, knowing you're in the right.

"But I thought he handled it very well under a lot of pressure. And to see the results is enormous. We have a good footy side and I think we can probably win it. I think we will play St George Illawarra in the grand final."

Searle was not involved with the Gold Coast in their first foray into the big time as the Giants in 1988-89, but when recruitment manager Billy Johnstone, the inaugural skipper, left, the then Gold Coast Seagulls chief executive, Don Furner, who had coached Searle in the NSW Country side, asked him to take over.

Later Searle was with the Chargers, until their demise in 1998, and then he joined the Australian Training Company and did sporting traineeships.

"After eight years of doing that, my son gave me a job here," he said. "Junior talent on the Gold Coast and the Northern Rivers is great and my job is not that hard. Plenty of parents tell us how good their kids are, but we go and look. It's a good role."

Tom, one of the gentleman of the game, also points out that Barry Muir, a Tweed Seagulls junior, was the last coach before the club had the backing of a licensed premises.

Source: http://www.goldcoast.com.au

[DIEHARD]

I thought this was a fantastic article. Well done to Michael and Tom and thank you for everything you have done for Rugby League on the Gold Coast.

[Titanic]

Agree ... excellent article.

[hully gully]

To get to the harbour in Mackay you travel along TOM SEARLE DRIVE is it named with Tom in mind?

[Titanic]

I think you'll find that's Ron Searle Drive named after the Chairman of the Mackay Port Authority.