The Aspley Devils Story
Irene Rossic
It all started in 1975 when 3 avid netballers - Amy, Gwen and Jenny - were playing at Strathpine and wanted a club to join that was closer to their home suburb of Aspley. They had brothers that played football at Aspley and so they approached the Aspley Football Club at Kirby Road for a donation to start up a new netball club. The football club accommodated and asked that the uniforms tie in with their own colours which were gold and brown.
In it's first year the Aspley Devils Netball Club fielded 1 senior team and 1 junior team and played at Bradbury Park at Chermside.
Fundraising to support the club was done by the members and there were many lamington drives and bake sales! The football club also helped by allowing their Wednesday night bingo sessions at the Kirby Road clubhouse to be run by the netball club with part of the money raised going to the netball club. Volunteers from the netball club made sandwiches and provided refreshments for the bingo players as further fundraising.
The club trained at Bradbury Park and as numbers grew, a training space closer to their base would be more ideal. There were talks with the football club to provide lighting to an existing area near the Kirby Road clubhouse and even some discussions to develop some land the football club owned at Lacey Road. However, these talks stalled and the netball club approached Craigslea State High School with a proposition of providing lighting to their existing courts. A deal was struck whereby the netball club would pay for the installation of the lights and the school would allow the club to train there.
It wasn't all smooth sailing though! Amy recalls the local council, having concerns with potential noise from the training at Craigslea, required the surrounding residents to approve of the light installations and subsequent training schedule. So Amy, Gwen and others from the netball club went door-knocking through the neighbourhood surrounding the school, armed with whistles to show the residents that the noise would be minimal!
With the neighbourhood on board, the lights were installed and Aspley Devils Netball Club has retained a great relationship with the school ever since.
The club grew from year to year and at its peak in the 1980's were fielding 18-20 teams each season at Bradbury Park as well as 18-20 teams for their night season.
In 1991 friction with the current management of Bradbury Park prompted the committee to call a meeting to decide the future direction of the club. At this meeting the members decided the club would make the move to play at Downey Park and have remained there ever since.
Over the years, Aspley Devils Netball Club has had a few uniforms and you can see the changes (and spot some of our life members) in the photos below!