Games

In 2004, the NQSF commissioned Intern Cathy Nilbett to write a historical record of the Foundation’s first 20 years, with interviews with key staff and stakeholders. Much of the historical information here is taken directly from, or interpolated from her limited publication ‘A History of the North Queensland Sports Foundation’ dated January 2005.

Early 1980's

After witnessing the North Queensland International Games, held in front of a full capacity crowd at the Townsville Sports Reserve, the first time track and field athletes had ever been attracted to North Queensland, the passion for sport held by North Queenslanders was duly apparent. This event was a significant forerunner to the Brisbane Commonwealth Games, with public acceptance of the event and the enthusiasm of athletes, leaving room for little doubt that North Queensland was on the verge of great development in the sporting field.

The idea to develop an organisation that would endeavour to achieve the growth and development of sport in North Queensland eventuated from a public meeting convened by Cr Ken McElligott (then Deputy Mayor of Townsville) in 1983.

Ken’s initial objective for the establishment of the Foundation and the Games was to allow the athletes of North Queensland the opportunity to compete at a high level in their local area. He sought a multi sport competition of reasonable standard to be held in North Queensland, believing that local athletes were disadvantaged and discouraged by the great distances involved in attending competitive competitions in the metropolitan area. The original idea for the North Queensland Sports Foundation came from the actions of another Townsville councillor, Sheila Keeffe, who formed a North Queensland Theatre company which derived its base funding through North Queensland Local Authority contributions. Ken believed this to be a novel way to construct an organisation and a means of ensuring continual support and funding. If a theatre company could exist under such a format, why not a sporting body? The support of Local Authorities from throughout the North would give consistency and status to the Foundation.

Ken attempted to bring together a number of forums to advance the concept but complacency and the strength of rivalry between the major centres of North Queensland tended to negate any initiative no matter where they came from within the Local Authorities.

A successful public meeting was convened on 16 February 1983. The meeting, of fifty-two people, was almost entirely attended by sporting people from Townsville. As reward for his venture, a Steering Committee was formed at this meeting. This committee consisted of Bob McCullough as the Foundation’s first chairman and Ken as Deputy Chair. Vying for a position in State Parliament, (he would be elected in October 1983), the already present demands on his time caused Ken to seek another person to fill the position of Chairman. Bob McCullough was suggested to Ken by George Lovett, an athletics devotee and member of the original committee. At the time McCullough was Chief Administrator of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and President of the Ross River Amateur Athletics Club, with his initiatives including the introduction of Little Athletics in North Queensland and the founding of the famous North Queensland Schoolboys and Schoolgirls Track and Field Championships. Needless to say, Bob embraced the opportunity to be the North Queensland Sports Foundation’s first chair.

Bob McCollugh would later go on to become President of the Australian Paralympic Federation, was awarded a Medal of Order of Australia (OAM) in 1996, was heavily influential marketing the APF in the leadup to the 2000 Sydney Olympic & Paralympic Games, featured as an Executive on the International Paralympic Committee and was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2000.

The Steering Committee was also particularly conscience of the need to unite North Queensland and was firmly of the view that the Foundation and the Games should be seen as a shared responsibility and not belonging to any city but rather to the people of North Queensland.

Easter 1984 was set as the date for the inaugural Games, with the first Games to be held in Townsville.