SURFERS Paradise came to fame back in the 1960s as a place with supposedly the best beach in the world.

That honour now goes to Skilled Park, Robina, where the boys and girls of The Beach this week reclaimed football for the masses.

They may be the A-League's smallest fanclub, but they have swung above their weight to knock Queensland's richest man out of the park. With the FFA taking over all home matches till the end of the season, the flyweight fans of Gold Coast United have won their first battle with heavywweight administrators on a Technical Knock Out.

It all started rather innocuously. An old geezer named Pickering turned up in the local paper saying he wouldn't mind a bit of a sing at the football, once the new team got out onto the turf. A young dude called Josh set up an online forum, where a handful of curious readers posted their questions. Another forum sprang up, more fans registered their interest, and the inaugural season drew closer.

"What are we going to call ourselves?" was the eternal question. A hundred ideas were submitted and rejected.

The most vocally supported name was "The White Shoes Brigade", a reference to the old 1970's real estate cabal that pressured the Queensland government into favourable development deals along the Glitter Strip. But core members were vigorously opposed to the idea.

"Football and politics don't mix!" they presciently insisted.

Beers were drunk. Meetings were held. More beers were drunk. The opening game drew even closer, and still nobody had even bothered to make contact with club officials.

"Don''t worry," they declared, "It will all sort itself out naturally when the time comes."

And so it was that one day local journalist David Lewis wrote a story that referred to the official supporters group as "The Beach", a recently suggested name that had not had enough time to encounter any negative feedback. The name stuck.

It worked on multiple levels: a golden beach of fans waving yellow flags behind the Gold Coast United goal, surrounded by an ocean of (sadly empty) blue Skilled Park seats. A laid-back place where you can just go and relax, have fun with your mates, and enjoy the atmosphere. A quintessentially Australian place where young and old, rich and poor, fat and thin, can gather together as one.

Forget your stereotypes of hardcore European football hooligans, you won't find a mob more harmless, cheerful and easy-going than this lot. Relentless criticism from rival clubs, ridiculing their size and songs, was shrugged off. But that nonchalant attitude belies a steely resolve, as Clive Palmer discovered to his chagrin.

I wrote back in May that all football clubs need a heart and soul:

"Potential supporters should remember that the club does not belong to Miron or Clive, or even Jason Culina... Ultimately, this club belongs to you and me. As everywhere in the football world, it will be us, the fans, who ultimately provide this club with its soul."

Thanks to The Beach, the players, the FFA and other dedicated fans, this club is now discovering its soul. Let's just hope the club's administrators can learn to embrace it.

P.S: Yeah, I'm back. Now let's all get out there, support the team, and pack out Skilled Park for Saturday's game eh???