A Part of Buderim's History

Sport.

by Joyce Short
September 2011

Golf-Prior to WW2 there was a small golf course on the top of Buderim Mountain.  Bordered by Gloucester Street and Ferguson Ave, it circled around behind Buderim House to the Orme Road area.  Then on the opposite side of Orme Road they had a small Club House built at the bottom of Dr Shaw’s garden.

War duties then made sport defunct for 6 years and the golf course reverted to being Fieldings paddocks and the little club house to being a cottage.

After the war, when everyone was returning to civilian life, Dr H.K. Shaw and Glyn Middleton were paramount in reorganizing a new Golf Club.  Their foresight and efforts resulted in the present day Headland Golf Club and its splendid golf course.

Football and Cricket.

In the very early days Football and Cricket were played on one of Footes farm paddocks.  Some years later the school oval was used.  Until after WW2 this oval had quite a deep gully running from the School Falls area almost half way into the oval.  It was not until the opening, heavy machinery brought to Australia by the American army was discovered by Australian Industries that a bulldozer was able to fill in this gully and level the whole oval.

Tennis.

Pre WW2 there was quite a lot of tennis played using private courts-one such court was in Gloucester Road.  After the war a public meeting formed a Tennis Club.  The members then set to and by having a couple of years of Sunday morning working bees the members built the two tennis courts near the swimming pool.  These courts are now owned by the school.

Basket Ball-now called netball.

Towards the end of WW2 a group of young women got permission to set up a Basket Ball court alongside the Buderim Hall.  For a couple of years they took part in playing in the district fixtures, but after that Basket Ball seemed to fade out, perhaps it was the change over to netball coming in that caused it.

Life Savers.

Right from the very beginning of the Mooloaba Surf Life Savers Club being formed, a high percentage of its members were Buderim men.  Going to Mooloolaba of a Sunday, as a very young child, I was fascinated by the men in their white trousers and maroon blazers who used Bill Mitchells White Elephant Tourer Bus to go to and from their days duty with the Life Savers at Mooloolaba.