CLUB HISTORY
The Mandurah Swimming Club was formed in 1967 at a Public Meeting held by 39 local residents. The meeting was chaired by Athol Purchas and the Inaugural President was Tom Green. The first Annual General Meeting followed. The club was named Mandurah Amateur Swimming and Lifesaving Club. It was decided that the club colours were to be green and gold.
Membership was set at
- Seniors $2.40
- Juniors $1.40
- Juvenile $1.20
- Social Members $41.00
Ropes and corks were later purchased and a busy bee organized to paint and assemble them for time trials. These were held at what was then known as Robert Day Memorial Pool, which was not actually a pool as our children know, it but the area between two jetties at the foreshore where swimming lessons were taken. (for those of you that remember the early days in Mandurah.) I suppose technically we could say that Mandurah did once have a 50 metre pool.
Time trials were run on a Friday night. As a swimmer you always prayed that the stingers were not going to be out in force. It wasn’t the best motivation for a P.B.
The junior swimmers were then known as “taddies” (tadpoles) and were waded out to the 25m mark to begin their races. Boards were dropped off the front of the two jetties for starts and finishes. Six lanes were used. The night usually finished off with fish and chips. Some things don’t change, a number of our swimmers can still be found at the takeaway outlets around Mandurah on a Friday night after Time Trials.
An interesting story was found on looking back at the early minutes. A Mr. J. Barrow tendered his resignation at a committee meeting with regards to problems at Time Trials. ”The children are very hard to control and splashed consistently”. The president suggested to Mr. Barrow that he change ends for a few weeks and see how he goes.
The Mandurah Swimming Club was very competitive even in the very early years. In 1968, 42 children competed at a swim meet in Rockingham. Nominations were 10c an event. Other venues for competition were York, Kalamunda, Bunbury, Kwinana and Narrogin. Mandurah also ran its own very successful meet annually as part of the Kanyana Carnival.
Club Championships have been ongoing since the club’s inception. Swimmers initially had to swim 3 time trials in a season to qualify. This was later amended to 8 swims. An interesting point to note is that advice was sought from other swimming clubs on many issues and procedures. A name that comes up often in the minutes as far back as 1978 is Bill Pringle. The then President of the Kwinana Club. Bill still continues to show his support of our club in his role as President of Country Swimming, Vice President Of W.A.S.A. and as an official at meets and time trials.
In 1980 the Mandurah Swimming Club were involved as part of a working committee for the building of the new Aquatic Centre. The club minutes mentioned talks of the new pool being built. The initial plans were for a 50m pool Plans were viewed by the committee with some recommendations being made as a result of experiences from other pools visited by the club. A representative was to take these recommendations to a Shire Meeting. This meeting was however cancelled. Council had apparently already met at an earlier date and had instructed the architect to discontinue with plans for the 50m pool and proceed with plans for a 25m heated pool. The inadequacy of a 25m pool was highlighted by not only the Swimming Club and local members but also by the schools in the district. There were 5 schools in total in the district then. A number of public meetings was held on the issue. A request for a list of towns with 25m pools was made The towns named such as Wickepin and Trayning had populations of approx 1000 people. Mandurah at that time had a population of 16,000. The clubs and schools strong opposition to a 25m pool was to no avail. It was even suggested by Bill Pringle to send a technical Officer/engineer to the Public meeting to support the Club in recommending a 50m pool.
In 1993 a very strong Mandurah Swimming Club Committee was responsible for the building of the clubrooms. This great facility, which we all enjoy the use of today, is located near the outside pool.
For the last few years, the Club has consistently enrolled over 100 competitive members. We also have an affiliated group of disabled swimmers called the Manta Rays. We continue to be the very strong club that was established in 1967 and has continued to operate smoothly. Some things have changed, we’d love to bring back the 10c nomination fee for events and those cheap club fees but that’s not going to happen. Some of the problems that faced our predecessors such as the need for a 50m pool and those kids splashing us haven't gone away but are things that we can only hope to resolve in the future years of Mandurah Swimming Club.
