Gold Coast United

Shane Smeltz scored 28 goals for Gold Coast United and never played for another club after it, because there wasn't one left to play for: the licence that carried his goals ran out before his career moved past it. He arrived when Clive Palmer put the club into the A-League on 28 August 2008, built around a squad led by captain Jason Kulina and marshalled by coach Miron Bleiberg, who took the side into the play-offs twice, finishing third and fourth. They played at Skilled Park, known later as Robina Stadium and then Cbus Super Stadium, in front of crowds the ground could hold up to roughly 27,600. None of it survived Palmer's ownership. On 29 February 2012, Football Federation Australia stripped the licence, and the club that had chased finals two years earlier had no league left to play in.

The name went quiet for five years. It returned on 3 August 2017, not as the same entity but as a new club carrying the old one into the Queensland state league system, the NPL Queensland. This version plays out of Coplick Family Sports Park in Tallebudgera, a ground that holds a few thousand rather than tens of thousands, and it has had to build a history of its own rather than borrow one. Under coach Grae Piddick, the men's side reached its first NPL Queensland Grand Final in 2024, losing 3-2 to Lions FC. The under-23s had already been there the year before, beaten 2-1 by Gold Coast Knights FC — the club now sits across a fixture known locally as the Gold Coast Derby, with the Knights as the nearest rival.

No state title has come yet in this second life, in green and gold, and the closest the club has come is that runner-up finish in 2024. The next Grand Final is the target the current squad is built around.