About us

The Don Hotel on Cavenagh St, was reinvented as the Don Hotel Casino in 1979 by Federal Hotels and was to continue operating from there until 1983 when the construction of the Mindil Beach Casino was complete.

In 1980, a band of young Stuart Park Soccer Club players, a mixture of Darwinites, post-cyclone Tracy construction workers and public servants on a two-year rotation out of Adelaide, approached the Don Casino for sponsorship and were able to secure ongoing financial assistance. Not only was the sponsorship handy, but there was a bit of football talent in the casino staff, many of whom were expatriates from Britain and other football playing nations.

It was on this sound financial footing that Stuart Park Soccer Club became Mindil Aces Soccer Club in 1980, and the Casino’s ongoing support led to the Aces becoming the first club in Darwin soccer to break the history of Hellenic and Olympic domination by winning the 1984 Premiership. For the following decade and beyond, Mindil Aces was a force in Darwin senior soccer, and the club developed the largest junior player base in town.

Throughout that period the club continued to promote an ethic of sportsmanship and hard but fair play in an era where thuggery, threats to referees and match-fixing payments were undesirable occurrences at the senior level. The club stuck to its the amateur sporting mantra, and the camaraderie and spirit that arose from that band of players striving against all the odds formed the foundation for today’s club ethos of family values and fair play.