Pine Rivers United Sports Club

Pine Rivers United are an Australian football (soccer) club from Strathpine, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The club was formed in 1967, and will play in Brisbane Premier League Division 1 in 2011 after being relegated.

Pine Rivers United Sports Club is located in the heart of Pine Rivers Shire at Wendy Allison Park facing busy Samsonvale Road, Strathpine. It is a fully licensed club with gaming machines and caters for men's soccer, women's soccer and junior soccer as well as netball and social darts. Whilst a multi-sports club, the Club's core sport is First Division soccer and as such attracts talented junior players and their families from outlying areas such as Redcliffe, Caboolture and Bribie Island and nearby districts such as Sandgate, Albany Creek, Petrie and Kallangur.

History

The Club was formed as a football club in 1967 by a local man Jack Gurteen, from a group of Pine Rivers High School students who used to kick a ball around in their lunch time. The lads approached Jack and a game was arranged with Redcliffe City U14's at Redcliffe. The Pine Rivers team won 5-3! As a result, parents of the winning team decided to get together and start a club. At the same time a number of youngsters from Lawnton State School came along and asked for a game. They were 9-12 year olds. Jack arranged a game against Zillmere, but Rivers lost 16-0. The Club later became incorporated as a multi-sports club. The current clubhouse was built in 1978. The club is affectionately nicknamed 'The Predators'.

Present day

Pine Rivers United were participating in the Brisbane Premier League, and were a team that was usually expected to finish in the mid-lower regions of the table. In 2009, there were 13 teams participating in the premier league, and after round three of the 2009 season Pine Rivers sat last on zero points. After a turn of fortunes during the late stages of the season the club heroicly pushed out of the relegation zone to secure 10th place out of the 13 clubs participating. Pine Rivers main rivals are the high performing Rochedale Rovers, who finished 2nd in the 2009 season. The last time the two clubs played, a late strike from Seb Thatcher in the dying stages of the game secured a well fought 2-1 win against a team boasting many experienced Hyundai A-league players.

However, in the 2010 season the club finished 14th out of 14 teams, and will play in Brisbane Premier Division 1 in 2011.

Sponsors

The clubs main sponsors are Ulhsport, Buffalo Sport, and the Bank of Queensland.

Players

Pine rivers is a semi-professional club, meaning that it usually only offers part-time contracts to the playing staff. The club is widely regarded to have many good players, and many young upcoming talents including Jackson Campbell and Sam Young. Young striker Sam Young netted a total of 6 goals in 20 appearances, coming second in the club goal scoring list only one goal behind Esala Masi (7 goals in 17 appearances). Some notable players that played for Rivers were Hungarian Atilla Simon, Melbourne Victory Robbie Kruse, Daniel Dacy, and Joel Hale. Esala Masi is known as the greatest Fijian Soccer player ever.

External links

• Official Website