September 1982: The eyes of the sporting world – the Commonwealth countries at least – are on QEII Stadium. Close to 1600 athletes from 45 nations have converged on the Queensland capital of Brisbane to compete in 141 events across 12 sports in the latest instalment of the Commonwealth Games.

Every Games has a mascot, and this year it’s Matilda, who television sports caller Norman May crowns “Australia’s First Lady” during Opening Ceremony commentary. Matilda, a six-tonne, 13m-high kangaroo (actually a heavy-duty industrial forklift truck) enters the arena, Along The Road To Gundagai screeching out of the stadium’s sketchy speakers.

Trojan horse-like, and with a “pouch” filled with children dressed as joeys, she begins a lap of the QEII running track. Every time she winks, swishing her seductively long eyelashes, each of the 62,000 in attendance thinks it’s all for them … and only them.

Craig Coleman directs traffic for the Gold Coast Seagulls in 1995. (Photo by Getty Images)

Matilda and Brisbane, indeed Queensland, were well and truly put on the world map back in 1982. The host nation would go on to win 39 gold medals at that year’s Commonwealth Games, one more than Mother England. The stage, then, for sporting growth across the neighbouring regions was built. And sure enough, on the back of those Games came Queensland’s successful staging of Expo ’88, and the establishment of rugby league powerhouse, the Brisbane Broncos.

You’d have thought at least some of that sporting love and mass goodwill would have found its way 80km down the highway and into the neighbouring Gold Coast in the ensuing years, but it hasn’t. In fact, since the late ’80s, Australia’s sunshine strip has proven a virtual graveyard for club teams competing in national sporting competitions. So what’s happened between Matilda’s lap of legend and now?

No matter the sport, the GC has welcomed them aboard in club/franchise form, before throwing them over: the Giants, Seagulls, Gladiators and Chargers in rugby league, the Rollers, Cougars and Blaze of the NBL, Clive Palmer’s Gold Coast FC on the soccer field, and Australian Rugby Championship outfit the East Coast Aces. All have folded within a few years of establishment despite being hopeful of the support of one of the fastest growing populations in Australia.