Balmain & District Football Club
Established – 1970
Home grounds – Waterfront Drive, Easton Park, Birchgrove Oval, Cohen Park and Glover Street Oval
Current members – 2,962
Previous names – Balmain Police Citizens Boys Club, Tigers Soccer Club
Notable members – Tim Cahill (Australian Representative); Frank Hawkins, Ernie Campbell (Australian Representative)
Balmain & District Football Club (Balmain DFC) – Australia’s largest community football club, with 2,900 players and counting – was formed more than fifty years ago, first competing in 1970.
Launching with just three boy’s teams – under-6, under-7 and under-8 – the “soccer section” of the Balmain Police Citizens Boys Club (BPCBC) had humble origins, with hand-knitted shirts, no permanent goal posts and a wobbly canteen.
Yet thanks to the big dreams and bigger gumption of its founders Frank Hawkins, Wal Gourlie and Sergeant George B Stone, it grew rapidly in size, scope and ambition. What the club’s participants were playing in 1969 wasn’t referred to as football and wouldn’t be for another 40 years - and Balmain DFC’s name and logo would go through countless iterations.
Today, Balmain DFC is proud to be a club which encourages participation and celebrates achievement at all levels, with teams for men and women, girls and boys, and with one of Sydney’s first All Abilities teams too.
Being part of the BPCBC had both advantages and challenges. It was a vast organisation, running multiple sports codes simultaneously and while in spirit it supported the “Tigers” - as the club was colloquially known - there wasn’t any cash support.
This meant football was 100% subsidised by players, their families and the fundraising activities of volunteer groups like the Ladies Auxiliary, made up of mainly mums and headed up by Joyce Hawkins, Frank’s wife.
Throughout the years, the club had maintained use of its first ever home ground - ‘Callan 2’ – a field by the water at Callan Park Hospital, a psychiatric hospital at the time.
Founding member Frank Hawkins had worked at the institution since leaving the navy in the mid-Sixties and was very persuasive in using his connections to find a spot for his fledgling club.
In a pattern that would repeat throughout the decades, it wasn’t long before the club outgrew its field.
Today, Balmain DFC has grounds at Waterfront Drive, Glover Street, Birchgrove Oval, Easton Park and Cohen Park.
The club was growing up in other ways, too. In 1994, the BPCBC “soccer section” finally gained its independence, becoming the Balmain & District Junior Soccer Club.
Five years later, the club had too many senior teams for that name to pass muster. The "junior" was dropped, and it became the Balmain & District Soccer Club in 1999.
By the turn of the century, we were at a record 46 teams, made up of 10 senior teams, 16 junior teams, 15 mini teams and three girl’s teams. This made Balmain the biggest club in the CDSFA.
By the mid 2010s, Balmain DFC launched an All Abilities program, enabling special needs players to take part in the game and along with making the sport more accessible the club also finally made the move from calling it "soccer" to calling it “football”.
In 1977, Sarah Kew was the only girl the club had for the entire season, playing for the under-8 team.
It wasn’t until the late Nineties, as an independent club, that a "girls only" team formed and by 2021, Balmain DFC had almost 1,000 girls and women on the field.
Fifty years after it was just a “pipe dream” in the minds of founders Wal Gourlie and Frank Hawkins, Balmain DFC had made it through half a century.
From three teams, they’ve grown to 218 and from 48 players, they are now pushing 3,000.
Despite its size and rapid development, the Balmain “Tigers” continue to abide by the “Code of the Tiger”: keeping a cool head and good heart on and off the field.
“Balmain is recognised by the rest of the Canterbury District as a good club to play against, as we always display good sportsmanship – win, lose or draw," said Canterbury JSC Secretary Dick McCabe.
