SC Wanderers

The names that survive at Ballinger Park belong to teams rather than individuals. A junior and amateur set-up on the Sunshine Coast, it kept the base club going in the lower leagues even after the senior side moved up, and that base club still feeds the elite team.

The long middle of the history sits in the Sunshine Coast Soccer Association. Wanderers took the Grand Final in 1980, then had their best year five seasons later: the SCSA premiership, the Grand Final and the Qantas Cup in the same summer of 1985. The doubles came round again in 1994, then twice in a row in 2007 and 2008.

Promotion arrived through the 2019 Football Queensland Premier League season. Wanderers finished top of the regular season, which carried them into NPL Queensland from 2020, and lost the Grand Final to Rochedale Rovers. The premiership was the part that counted.

Ballinger Park holds 1,000, which puts the ground at the modest end of the NPL — a sports complex in Buderim rather than a stadium. Lions FC are the fixture supporters look for first, though nobody has settled on a name for it.

Between 2013 and 2019 the club was named Sunshine Coast Club of the Year seven seasons running. Several of those juniors have gone on to Queensland state selection.