Back in 1988 Noel Laughton and Jeff Hall decided, while they were building houses next door to each other, that joining a soccer team might be a good idea.

Notice any familiar faces? (click on the picture to see the full size)
1989 was the year then that they decided to go to their local club, Wyoming and were graded into the fourth grade squad. In that same team was a young bloke who had just left under 18s but didn’t make 1st or 2nd grade, Gary Howard who soon became known as Tom Hanks. Also in that same team as Jeff and Noel was Ken Kirk, who is now playing for Tuggerah A’s. John Shaw who plays for Wamberal was also one of the original team members back in 1989.
In that first year a sponsor by the name of ‘Richardson’s Floor Coverings’ became involved. This name went on with its association with the Saints as the proprietors of that business ‘Barry & Karen Richardson’ are the parents of Grant & Luke, the two Richardson’s who made their debut for the Saints A’s in 2004.
Significantly, that first season ended with a big social presentation (starting a team theme of great social gatherings) of our own ‘mock’ awards at Reeves St, which were comedic in nature, and this was the start of numerous awards over the years which have been given out. (See the ‘Hall of Fame&rsquo. This ‘first Preso’ was out the front of Noellie’s place (which was still under construction) where we have now returned for our Annual Awards Night.

In the following year of 1990 Wyoming gave an ultimatum to Jeff, Noel and a few other ‘newbies’ that if there weren’t enough players to make a second ‘4th grade’ team then they would be out of the club. This meant a recruitment drive (a significant moment in our history) The new recruits pulled in by Jeff & Noel included the likes of Darryl ‘Dags’ Holcombe, Neville ‘Nifty’ Jones, Colin ‘you take the gloves’ Smith, Graeme ‘Doggo’ Hamilton, and Wazza ‘pass to the feet’ King. So a second team was registered.
After eight weeks the comp was split and the new squad were coming 7th, so they went to the B division, and made it to the Grand Final, in which they became runners up of the B division. (Legend has it Waz, Daggs & Lenny abandoned the squad on G.F. W/end for the Grand Prix at Phillip Is, but I doubt that could have happened!!)

1991 was a fairly uneventful year. Wazza scored plenty of goals, but not more than JazzyJ (Spaz) & Lenny (Noellie) combined (thus, they won the bet). There were still two 4th grade sides, Jeff & Noel’s team was given a few old Wyoming duds from the other side (one to lead us??), and the season can best be remembered as the year that Darryl ‘Dags’ Holcombe and another Wyoming player on the other 4th grade side named Hilton Badger, were in trouble for battling each other on the field (& at training) with suspensions following.
A player that would have an ultimate influence on the forming of St Andrews Soccer Club, as we now know it, was a man by the name of Paul O’Rourke, came into the team that year. A great asset.

In 1992 Wyoming were wanting to take some of the team’s best players such as Dags, Tom Hanks & Paul O’Rourke (father of 2006 Phantom's Captain - Chris O'Rourke), amongst others, into a higher graded team. They ended up staying in the same grade with their mates, as they wanted to, after lots of meetings and arguing by Jeff and Noel with the Wyoming committee, who weren’t happy. The captain of the team in 1992 was Duncan McCubbin, who now plays for Gosford Uniting.At the end of 1992 they decided, after negotiating with Wyoming (again), to retain their players, it was a mutual decision to move the entire team over to the Gosford Dragons. Two of the notable ‘names’ to join the team this year were Jimmy (Greggy Edwards’ brother-in-law, a great defender who brought Greggy to us the next year, and who we later lost to cancer, a tragedy) and Greg ‘The Rock’ Nichols. He thrived with us, becoming somewhat of a defensive ‘folk legend’, (you may still hear the call “Rock-like clearance&rdquo. And he did a power of Management work for the team as well, before moving to Sydney in ’98.

1993 was started with the new club Gosford, with their blessing to have the team of our choice. To bolster our numbers we took on Rob ‘Birdman’ Gilhooly and Chris vanEpen (Todd’s dad), And one of our Club “Life Members” Greggy Edwards, also came on board. This was the year that started our rivalry with Killarney Vale, fighting for 4th or 5th every year from then on. This was a very fiery rivalry with many a clash between the Killarney Vale ‘agro’ man ‘Darren’, and Dags. (Watch out for that ‘licking’, Daz!!) In 1994 one of our best centre halves, John ‘Bursta’ Boil from Liverpool, joined the team. 1995, as per usual, saw us doing battle with Killarney in the semis, and unfortunately coming second. Andy Betts, the skillful Londoner (“Now he sure told Darren where to go!!&rdquo, and the famous ‘Jessy’ joined in this year, and Doggo made his long-awaited but sadly short-lived return to the team, doing his knee in week 6.

1996 was the year we acquired a famous name, Lee ‘Dashy’ Dashwood, Noel’s stepson, after a highly successful junior career. His young legs and speed added to an already strong line-up, giving us one of our best years ever for results, 12 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses. But sadly we lost the semi to Killarney (again!!), and the semi of the 2nd Div. Knock-Out to Wyong. (‘The year that might have been!&rsquo Unfortunately Paul O’Rourke left the team, to go and play in the Churches Comp. with his young son Chris. And another long-termer, ‘Roo’ Bartlett (from the original ’89 side), quite a funny character who was prone to the odd f#**%n’ word here and there, left the State.

1997. Deano, Toddy & Elvis (3 famous & important Club names) joined. Whilst this year saw us with one of our best lineups again, the organisation of the entire comp was very lacking. We would travel to far away grounds to be told that the venue had been changed, and very often had to resort to using spectators for referees. This encouraged us to look into taking the team over to the Churches Comp. on the recommendation of Paul O’Rourke who was already playing in that comp.
Instead of the usual end of year bbq or restaurant etc, we decided to go all out and hold our ‘first inaugural’ Boys weekend away Canoe trip on the Barrington River, where legendary stories were created, and exaggerated upon. (Greggy & Elvis in a canoe, What a team!! And what can I say about ‘The Rock’ when he gets away from home!!)

1998 saw the birth of the St.Andrews Soccer Club

Thanks to the work of Paul O’ and his colleagues within the church, we were given the fantastic St.Andrews support, and our place in the Saturday ‘Church Comp’ was established. This was further carried on by the hard work and support of DC over the following years with overcoming any church political minefields that the team may have encountered.
Elvis stepped up as the '1st inaugural' Club President and Secretary, organising a new uniform (with the Tri-Colors now established), formal club name, the 'Saints ' nickname and logo, a sponsor (the Color Copy Shop at West Gosford) club bags, sports equipment, attending Association meetings, registrations and player match scheduling in a big first year for the new Club ...and Elvis.
Noellie and the then Spaz (later reborn as JazzyJ ) taking a sabbatical from the roles of Committee men this year took on the coaching and adviser roles as their past experience and assistance was there to help steer the Club forward. This they have been doing ever since.
There was to be a big change for the team lineup as some players couldn't play on a Saturday for various reasons, which meant they needed another recruitment drive, from within the St.Andrew’s community, and also from outside. This yielded talented names like DC, BigK (who later became ‘even bigger k’ and ‘special K&rsquo Ross Bagot, Brian ‘Bam’ Richardson (who now plays for Gosford Uniting B’s) Paul O’Rourke, Chris O’Rourke, Bob Druitt, ‘Skid’ Mark, and the Knowles brothers, ‘PK’ and ‘Crusher’.
This team was graded as a B team and they made it right through to the Grand Final, in which we came second, sadly losing to Wyong with a penalty in the last couple of minutes. But a great first year, none the less. The new team had already gelled, and a tradition of hard but very fair play had transferred from our old teams to this new squad.

1999, we lost Paul O'Rourke to a permanent back injury, ( very sad day that!) PK and Crusher had other commitments, as did Bam. ‘Todd the Bod’ & Deano made a comeback, and we won more than half our games, but lost in the Semi’s. By now the Saints had also showed they would continue the important social side of our previous teams (as guys from many different walks of life got to know each other better) with plenty of get-togethers, and everyone enjoying their Saturdays. (No more 1 or 2 drinks on the sidelines, but we got over that - eventually!)

2000, and John ‘Astro’Alsop (a modern-day club stalwart) was introduced to the team by Elvis. Nifty Nev, after being our stand-out ‘Player of the Year’ in ’99 as a defender (his best season of 10 with us), went missing in action, permanently. Dashy spent the year in Hong Kong working, while Chris V.E. & Duncan Mc. made a 1 season comeback. We again ended the year with a great Canoe Trip paddling the Barrington.

2001, Jugs makes a brief appearance for a few games before the authorities found that he was too old to be playing representative soccer and Churches Comp at the same time. Lee returned from H.K. full of beans, while Toddy also returned to the squad (& copped 8 weeks on the sidelines), bringing with him his young mate Browny, who shared the goal keeping role with Greggy. Carl ‘Sparkles’ Derbyshire also began his Saints career. JazzyJ (aka Spaz) started the season but missed a lot of it thru work commitments. We again tied for 4th spot in the B’s, and missed out on ‘fore & against’.

2002 was a big year of change for the Saints. Jeff ‘Jazzy’ Hall took his first full year off due to a grueling work schedule. Unfortunately we lost one of the club’s best soccer ‘brains’ in Deano, and we also saw the last of Tom Hanks, an ‘Original’ (until he makes his long awaited and often promised return). Lots of great names were added to our ranks, including Roy, Jamie, Keg, Jason, Moose & Macca. Returning, to have some more fun, were PK & Wazza (the 1990,’91 ‘goal scoring machine&rsquo. Waz had a long trip down to play so he missed many games, and the ‘olde bones’ were rattled a bit, so although he loved it, he decided one comeback year was enough. “Poor old bugger!”
We finally brought home our first piece of silverware, by winning the C Cup Final, an end of season Knock Out between all teams (including A teams) who didn’t make the Semis. We had run 5th, Again..! But what a performance to beat Narara in that final.We celebrated with a big Party/Presentation Night back at it’s original home, Noellie’s place.
Both Astro & Elvis had suffered very bad injuries in the previous year, and DC survived a heart attack, But Roy really put on a show-stopping performance by breaking both bones in his lower leg right in front of the crowd. Ouch.. Thankfully, all have recovered..

2003 saw more big changes. After our first official ‘Annual General Meeting’ to open the season (we were getting very official!!) two teams were introduced, an A & C grade side. This meant another recruitment drive. Players that joined the club included Tim Rafftery (a class act for our level), Jugs, Tony, Ben, Mic-Mac, Tim & Chris from Tuggerah, Rob & Glen. Chris O’Rourke returned as a mature player. Danny Gabrie, the import from Honduras, was cunningly recruited while on student exchange, while JazzyJ and Ross Bagot made their official returns back to the Saints.

The C’s, brilliantly lead by ‘RodRoy’ had a very enjoyable season finishing mid-table. The A’s were able to rise to the big step-up in standard, and really enjoyed the challenge. They were thrilled to finish 4th in their first A Grade season.

At last unlimited interchange was introduced so this brought some new concepts into managing the squads, especially on game day. Both grades are tough, but every week either team is in for a hard match, has at least a chance of victory, and continues to display that famous ‘Saints Spirit’.

2005 was a blockbuster year for the saints! At the beginning of the season, the association decided that 3 grades (A, B & C ) would be played and the Saints had so many new players knocking at the door that we nominated a team in all 3 grades!

The new faces were talent through and through with the likes of Rod Shearer, Robbie Howard, Jay-Heart Starky, Nathan Hyad, Tony Gallagher, Neil Butterworth, Michael Grindlay, Aaron Ellis, Dave Parker, Shaun James, Dave Scarborough, Graham Chauncey and to top that little list, the return of one of our founding members, Gary 'TOM HANKS' Howard! Wow, what an influx.

From the start of the pre-season we could see that it was going to be a tricky task having everyone play in their team of choice or with their mates (within reason!) and any 'hiccups' were seen as expected growing pains.

Kick on Boys, and enjoy your Saturdays.