While the Nobby’s club has been the scene of countless rescue dramas, it seems its members have always been ready and waiting. In the beginning, they were soldiers-in-training, stationed above one of the Gold Coast’s most popular family strips in a camp known as Brigadier MacArthur Onslow’s School of Bastardry.

It was during the latter years of World War II and the training army officers established beach patrols to protect the tourists who had started flocking to Nobby Beach. When the war ended, so did the patrols and it would be almost another decade before they officially started again.

By 1954, when the Nobby’s Beach Surf Life Saving Club officially came into being, the area between Broadbeach and Miami became a favourite for holiday makers who snapped up cheap land for weekend homes. It was the late President Phil Roubin who petitioned locals, sought out six Bronze Medallion holders and purchased the land for the clubhouse.

Roubin took on the role of inaugural secretary and was joined by Morrie Cave as Club Captain, Martin Purcell as foundation President and the late George Reagon - who later became the first secretary of the Queensland Liberal Party.

The orginal members, all of whom have passed away, included Frank Purcell, Tony Hughes, Les Powell, Les Hughes, Arthur Sykes, Tom Sturdy, Henry Bamfeld, Cyril Smith and C. Frazer. Roubin was eventually to spend 22 years in the President’s chair, finally stepping down in 1979 as a Life Member.

The formative years were best described as “rugged”. The first clubhouse and boatshed were crude shelters that were replaced five years after the club’s birth. In the 1959/60 season, the local council bowed to public pressure for an amenities block. But to get the council’s co-operation in building a new clubhouse complex, the club members had to relinquish freehold land title for the princely sum of one shilling (10 cents).

The new club was built, but the nature has not been kind to it. Sitting at the beachfront, it has been victim over the years of the shocking erosion that plagues the area. In 1967, it was only club morale and a non-stop, two-day working bee that saved it from sinking into the waves. There were similar scenes again in 1969 and 1974 when huge waves pummeled the club.

(The is an extract from an article titled: “Beach Warriors on Guard” on page 76 of the Sunday Mail, March 3, 1996 by Christopher Taylor)