Join the celebration at Coledale RSL on 27 July, writes Jen Harris

The Waves started with about 54 primary school children in 1994.

“Soccer for all” was our motto, we built the association so that every child could play with their friends and make new friends on the pitch and off, plus friendship among the other parents and carers who stand on the sidelines. Best of all, the kids loved being in a jersey that was the same as their friends’, a team.

It worked, too. Within three years we’d grown to about 250 players, both boys and girls up to the under 16s. 

In 1994 a small team of locals (Debbie Galloway, James Walker, Jennifer Harris, Lachlan Harris, and Anne-Marie Lawless) met to discuss establishing a junior football team at Coledale. There had been a Coledale football club at St James Park for many years, but it ceased to function in the 1980s. 

According to the then Illawarra Junior Football Association, the zone for a football team based at Coledale was available. The team applied to enter the junior competition and, with support from many other clubs such as Balgownie and Figtree, we joined in 1994. Our first jerseys were in the red and black of Figtree (thanks, Figgie, for the loan).

We quickly established the Coledale Waves and introduced our maroon and white jerseys with foundation funding from Mr Walker’s father, an avid Heart of Midlothian supporter (Scottish Premier League).

In the first years we started with a basic shed, including toilets and a storage room. From these sheds we ran a small canteen, held barbecues and fairs, round-robins, sponsored the under 7s tournaments, raffles and trivia nights at the RSL. We also held our end-of-year presentations outside the sheds with the trophies on the card table with a velvet cloth covering. The ‘Polystyrene Cup’ was a favourite family round-robin end-of-season soccer event. It was great fun and again brought the Coledale soccer community together.

So we saved a few bucks and, with the aid of funding from Wollongong City Council, added a space for a canteen on the western end of the sheds. More recently, with fundraising there’s now a large shed for equipment and a new fence to stop most of the footballs from entering the creek running into Sharky Beach.

We now have digital lighting, which encourages many teams to train into the dark nights of winter. This sure beats training under lights from cars parked on Cliff Street.

In subsequent years we gained sponsorship from the Breast Cancer Council of NSW, which led to our teams now playing in the distinctive pink jerseys.

Many of the first junior teams such as the ‘Pippies’ (yes, we did have a northern beaches focus) are still good friends today and some players are still in the men’s and women’s teams and introducing their children to junior football.

In the early days we established a ‘boot box’, anyone with a pair of boots that didn’t fit their daughter or son could leave them in the box for another player to take up. 

Coledale Waves now has more than 400 players registered from under 5s to the under 18s, two senior women’s teams, two senior men’s teams and teams for over 35s and 45s. 

Now it’s time to celebrate. We’ll be holding a 30th Birthday on Saturday, 27 July at the Coledale RSL from 6.30pm. Please come and enjoy meeting past and present players, coaches, managers and best of all your friends. Bring your old photos and help make this night a special time.

Tickets: events.humanitix.com/coledale-waves-30-year-anniversary-dinner