Gold Coast Hockey Women’s Masters (previously Veterans, until 2012) has always attracted interest from the local Gold Coast Hockey community.
Our records show that the inaugural Gold Coast Womens Veterans team played in 1986 when the event was held on the Gold Coast in conjunction with the Senior Womens Championship.
It is thanks to a number of these wonderful players that the Gold Coast journey into Vetereans/Masters hockey began and became as strong as is it today.

As the Veterans/Masters championships began to grow in popularity to include Div 2 from 1992, it wasn’t too long before the Gold Coast team found themselves relegated to Div 2. 

In 1999, the Gold Coast team was fortunate to include Hockeyroo Debbie Bowman Sullivan and other well known and high profile masters players who played in that well remembered rained out tournament in Brisbane helped the Gold Coast girls to win Div 2 to once again return to Div 1.

The Championships were again held on the Gold Coast in 2003, however they have not been able to secure a championship since then due to the requirement to provide a certain number of grass pitches.  The jostle for land is tough on the Gold Coast between business, tourism and sports.

Debbie Bowman Sullivan and fellow Hockeyroo Kim Tuckwell (nee Small) both featured in the teams in the glory days of 2002, 2003 and 2004 and again in 2006 when Gold Coast took out Div 1.  That was the last time the girls won Div 1.

In 2007 the Gold Coast were relegated from Div 1 to Div 2 in Ipswich and stagnated there for the next 6 years. Notable coaches who were recruited to get the team over the line in those years included Sue Dalton who, with Claire Jackson coached a team that included Nikki Hudson (Hockeyroo) in Rockhampton, but the team was plagued with injuries and wasn’t able to live up to our high hopes. It was 2014 in Maryborough when the girls once again took out Division 2 – and didn’t we celebrate!!   After 6 years in the wilderness, the girls were back, and now we knew how important it was to throw everything at keeping them there!

QLD Womens Masters State Association Service Awardees. The majority of service for these awards should have been as a coach, manager, selector, umpire, technical official and/or administrator at HQWM State Championships and within the local Association.

Over the years, Gold Coast has had a sub committee of very dedicated volunteers that have worked hard to recruit coaches and managers and gain the interest of the upcoming masters players to build the team strength in all divisions.  This is reflected in not only the ability to consistently field 4 teams at the State Championships, but also in the current placement of the GCHA teams – a team in Division 1, Division 2, Division 3 and Division 5.

Younger players now aspire to play masters hockey as soon as they are eligible (turning 34).  And our older players 66+ just keep on playing! Well known Gold Coast masters players Susan “Motty” Mott and Annie Mac aka “Queenie” will be eligible to play for Over 69s in Hobart this year and we hope that they will keep on running and do just that! 

However there is always fun to be had not just from the hockey but also the camaraderie off the field, the fun dress-up contingent dinners and the support for the other Gold Coast Teams.

The past committee is very proud of the fighting spirit of our senior masters players who kept competing to now create these exciting masters opportunities for a new generation of masters women.  All the best to all the furture Gold Coast teams!