Club History

Salk Oval, (Palm Beach) was created by the P.B.C Lions club led by their President Bert Willis.  He was a South Australian Native, who insisted that any playing field on the reserve between the railway line and Thrower Drive, Palm Beach, should be of a size/shape for "Proper Football"!  Thereby creating a purpose built venue, and the opportunity for an "Aussie Rules" team to be born in the area.

As is obvious the field was named in honour of the founder of "Salk Vaccine", Dr Johanus Salk, whose work saved many young people from the devastation of Poliomeyalitis. The Palm Beach team was formed on the initiative of Rollie Daniels, (and others) at a meeting in June 1961.  Rollie was a local builder who had previously played football with Sandgate F.C.  The new club was named "Central, Australian Football Club".  This was later changed to "Palm Beach Currumbin Football Club", and more recently changed to P.B.C Australian Football Club.

The first game to be played at Salk Oval was on Sunday 9th July 1961.  "Centrals played Southport" result; was a win for Centrals 10/4=64, 4/15=39. (But, in a game two weeks earlier, 25th June, at Owen Park, Southport had been the winners) it is reported that it was sometimes necessary to retrieve players from the surf at Currumbin (or the pub) to get them dressed for a game!  Two years later Cricket arrived at "Salk".

The "Centrals" adopted the symbol of the "Lion" and the "Royal Colours", Purple and Gold, in honour of the work P.B.C Lions had put into, preparing the ground work for the formation of a club.  This had involved heavy earth moving equipment (at the right price!) and a lot of time and hard work, all by lions club volunteers. Social facilities for the players and supporters were very primitive in the early years.  At first a clump of trees, then a tent and an old caravan served as a dressing room, shared by both teams and the umpires! A major improvement was the famous "Tin Shed", when built it relied on a big gum tree to hold it stable!  The entry was an old second-hand "Roller Door".  This room with a dirt floor and some linoleum sufficed for a number of years.  It had a bar, a temprite - for cold beer, electricity, and a phone!  It is worth noting that in those days’ descriptions of home games were broadcast from the ground by phone; onto a local radio station.

In its early years Burleigh Heads Football Club, trained at and played their home games at Salk Oval.  In 1962-64 the oval was fenced; basic lighting was installed for night training and the existing dressing rooms were built by the council.

It was in 1970 the club decided to change jumpers from, purple and gold vertical stripes to plain purple, with a Gold Lion on the chest, Gold shorts and socks stayed for some years, until black/white shorts were enforced! With the arrival of the Brisbane Lions, the P.B.C club adopted the full Lions Strip.