Written by Sarah Lindbergh.

I met John Collins when I was working behind a coffee machine in Frankston, Victoria. We quickly got chatting about surfing and photography. One day, he was just another regular; the next, he was like family, joining me on my 5am beach walks with my newborn. During those walks, I learned about his life in surfing, his deep connection to the ocean, and his stint as Contest Director of the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach in the 80s and early 90s. He ran the show at a time when professional surfing was evolving into something bigger, riskier, and more chaotic than ever before. During his tenure, John had to make decisions about everything from relocating the contest for the first time to awarding the prestigious trophy to a hospital-bound finalist.      

On John Collins’ 68th birthday, I interviewed him about his formative surfing years and the role he played in shaping the folklore of Bells.

What got you into surfing? 

“My cousin, Greg McConville, got me into it originally. He grew up in Frankston and discovered surfing through his neighbour, Danny, one of the early surfers on the Mornington Peninsula. Greg convinced me to surf Port Phillip Bay with him when we were about 10 or 11-years-old. It wasn’t exactly a surfer’s paradise –more like windblown chop – but it was what we had. Pretty soon, my mates and I – known as the Davey’s Bay boys – were spending freezing winter afternoons working with whatever small wind swells rolled through.

The real turning point came in the summer of 1969. My uncle and godfather, also named John Collins, was a commando in World War II and a former prisoner of war in Changi. He and his unit had trained at Wilsons Promontory, one of the most rugged and remote parts of Victoria’s coastline. After the war, Uncle John and Auntie Kit would take my cousins down to ‘the Prom’ every summer. Back then, it was all dirt roads to get in. My dad – Uncle John’s youngest brother – would take our family camping there too, and that’s where I first learned to surf. Squeaky Beach, Tidal River – I was hooked.

From there, it was the Victorian East Coast. Surfing wasn’t mainstream then; it was underground, rebellious. It felt like being part of a secret club, and I loved every second of it.”

Did you have a favourite surf spot growing up?

“Honeysuckle Point at Shoreham, First Reef at Point Leo and Pumping Station at Gunnamatta. In the early years, First Reef was something special – a perfect left-hander for us goofy-footers. But over time, something changed in Western Port Bay. The break just disappeared. It doesn’t work anymore; now, it just dumps on the sand. Back then, though? It was magic.

What’s your most epic surf story? 

There are so many, but one that stands out is a trip down to Johanna Beach with my mate Mark McCabe. I was living in Torquay at the time with my wife, Mandy, and our baby daughter, Jess, working as the Victorian State Director of Surfing Australia. Mark was working with me at Surfing Australia and he was one of the gutsiest surfers I knew. Bells was small that day and we knew Johanna would be bigger. So, we went for it. 

As we got closer, the swell just kept growing. By the time we paddled out, the waves were huge – perfect, but terrifying. Mark talked me through it, convinced me to go for some waves and it ended up being one of the best surfs of my life. Mark was a special person. We were close – he was going through a rough patch when I convinced him to leave his teaching job to come work with me. We ended up travelling the world together, managing state and national surfing teams, taking young surfers to Bali for the World Juniors. Those were golden years. He passed away two years ago, but I’ll always be grateful for the time we had.

How did you end up running the Rip Curl Pro at Bells?

It was a series of fortunate events. I was running a surf school on the Mornington Peninsula with Mark and another close mate, Warrick Wynne, who was also a schoolteacher and author. Surf schools weren’t really a thing back then, so we went to Trigger Brothers, borrowed some old boards and started running lessons at Point Leo and Wilsons Prom.

Then, out of nowhere, in 1987, the Contest Director of Bells – who was also running Surfing Victoria – decided at the last minute to compete in a solo yacht race from Melbourne to Osaka. Suddenly, there was no one to run the event. It was a scramble: ‘Who can we get?’ Phil Trigger suggested me to the National Director, Alan Atkins. And somehow, they decided, ‘Yeah, let’s get John.’ You’d think in Torquay there would be 500 people who could do it. To this day, I still don’t know why! I had zero experience running a competition. But I said yes, and Mandy and I figured, ‘Why not? Bit of an adventure for a couple of weeks.’ Those two weeks turned into seven years.”

What made it even more surreal was that I’d grown up on the east coast of Victoria, on the Mornington Peninsula – a place that felt like a backwater compared to the west coast, where Bells Beach was. That stretch of coast around Torquay was the beating heart of grassroots surfing – the birthplace of brands like Rip Curl and Quiksilver, where surf culture wasn’t just a hobby, it was a way of life. 

What was your first year like running Bells?

It was a total whirlwind. There was a lot to learn in a short amount of time. In my first year they got Tracey Holmes, a budding TV journalist, to come down from Sydney to help me with the press. Being suddenly thrust into the limelight at my first press conference was a massive culture shock. The media attention, the cameras, the international surfers – it was a whole different world. I remember standing there, thinking, ‘What the hell have I gotten myself into?’ 

I was sitting there with all these pro-surfers lined up and I had to introduce them. I knew most of them, but not all. Tracey was from a well-known surfing family, but I was a bit too embarrassed to ask her, luckily this 15-year-old kid sitting next to me-grinning ear to ear, ran me through all their names. His name was Nicky Wood. 

The first day of the event I called it off because the waves weren’t great. I remember going for a surf by myself on an old longboard out at Bells that day and it was tiny. The second day the swell came up and it was really good surf. We ran some trial events and I remember seeing Nicky out there and thinking ‘fucking hell he’s good’. He was just ripping. I couldn’t believe it. Damian Hardman from Narrabeen and all these other young Aussie guys were just amazing on the world stage. As we got to the main event Nick had qualified. The event just kept getting bigger, like a massive party, thousands more people than expected are rocking up to Bells and then the mainstream media are running with the story of 15-year-old Nick Wood beating all these great surfers of the world. Before one of his heats Nick was asking me what board to use. I thought “Don’t ask me, you’re the one beating the world’s best surfers!” It was just such a great, exciting time and so special that he went on to win the event. You’d think out of all these world class professional competitors, one of them is going to win this event, but this kid just comes out of nowhere and wins! It never happened again; he’s still the youngest male to win a World Championship tour event.

After that I was asked to run Bells every year and work for surfing Victoria. We had just bought a house in Frankston and Mandy had recently had our first baby. The timing wasn’t perfect, so I asked for a five-year contract and a car, thinking they’d never agree. Five minutes later, they called back and said yes. Next thing I knew, we were selling our home and running Bells for the next seven years. Nothing could ever top my first year, though.

How did the local Torquay community and surfers react to the idea of a growing professional surf contest?

They embraced it. There were a few locals who were a bit against Bells becoming bigger, mainly due to environmental concerns. There was a growing awareness of conservation at the time and people worried about the impact on the flora and fauna of the Bells Beach Reserve. But Surfing Victoria was actually instrumental in protecting Bells – Rod Brooks, a great Victorian surfer and National President of Surfing Australia at the time was instrumental in establishing  it as the world’s first officially recognised Surfing Recreational Reserve, which gave it a sort of heritage status.

We were always environmentally conscious. We even ran an annual event called The Conservation Contest, where every competitor had to plant a tree. There was definitely concern about large crowds on the beach, but at the same time, the event brought so much excitement to the town. International surfers would come in, and Bells became this global meeting hub for the surfing community. If you were a surfer, going to Bells at Easter was just something you had to do.

Tell me about the time you moved the contest to Johanna Beach?

It was one of the biggest calls I ever had to make. Bells is sacred ground, but in 1993, there was no surf for days. I was under enormous pressure from Rip Curl’s owners, they both were surfers and had great vision, and I knew we had to act. So, I made the call to move the event down to Johanna – this raw, untamed beach deep in the Otways. 

It was risky. The swell at Johanna can change in an instant. One minute, it’s perfection; the next, it’s closing out with insane rip currents. It’s also in a national park, so getting approval was a nightmare. And then – just to make things even more chaotic – the mainstream networks got involved. They sent helicopters down to film for the 6pm news, and suddenly I found myself spending the morning negotiating with national park rangers and TV executives, trying to get permission for them to land. I don’t think anyone realised a massive contingent of fans would follow us down the coast. It was wild, unpredictable, and incredibly stressful. But looking back, I think that move was definitely a moment for professional surfing. It helped prioritise good waves and pushed contests into more extreme locations, making competitive surfing more hardcore. The Bells entry gate had a $5 entry fee which helped fund the Surfing Victoria operations and essentially paid my salary for the year. I had to give that entry gate up by moving the competition which lost us a lot of money and some people blamed me for that. It was a big deal, but it was necessary for the integrity of the event. Pro-surfing was at a time where it had to progress to be an authentic major event. You can’t have the world’s most prestigious surfing competition, one that’s steeped in tradition running the final day in two-foot waves. It paid off in a lot of ways in the end.

What are the standout moments from your time at Bells?

There are three that stick with me. The first was Nicky Wood’s historic win in 1987, my first year running Bells. Seeing him pull it off, with the cliffs packed and the crowd going wild, was something else.

The second was watching Kelly Slater’s early career unfold. You could tell, even then, that he was different. There was this mix of raw talent, fierce competitiveness, and a kind of magic in the way he read waves. I had the privilege of watching him develop from a gifted junior to the greatest surfer of all time. What he’s achieved – 11 World Titles – will probably never be repeated.

The third was the 1992 final between the young Californian, Richie Collins, and the 1989 World Champion, Martin Potter. It was memorable for different reasons; the surf was tiny, and I had to make the call whether to run the final or not. We had run lots of local comps in these small conditions off Rincon,  but this was the  final of one of the most prestigious surfing events in the world, with thousands of spectators lining the beach, the pressure was on, reluctantly, I decided to run the final and extend the time to an hour so they would both have an opportunity to get a few freak sets that might push through. During the final, Richie Collins wiped out and landed hard on his back on the reef. With the waves being so small, he couldn’t break the fall properly and with aggravating a previous back injury, we carried him off the beach to the stage which was on the grassy knoll that year where the old windmill used to be. Meanwhile, Martin Potter just needed one more wave to seal the win, but the ocean went completely flat. It was like someone turned off the tap – nothing.

When the final siren went, that was it. Richie won, but instead of celebrating, we were carrying him off on a stretcher. I ended up presenting his trophy to him as he was being loaded into the back of an ambulance.

One of my biggest regrets at that time of my life was not visiting him in the hospital that night. I kept getting reports that he was okay, and I knew he was with his mates, but looking back, I wish I had taken the time to check in on him personally. That whole experience was still fresh in my mind when we decided to move the Bells final day to Johanna the following year

Why do you think the WSL has been reluctant to relocate the competition in recent years?

Logistically it is difficult to get an event there and it’s a tough one for Parks Victoria to agree to encouraging a big crowd to go south down to Johanna. Bells has a lot of history and is an icon of Australian surfing. If you are going to have a traditional event on the world tour, it’s a big decision to go somewhere else. To move it you would want to know the alternative is going to provide exceptional waves. Johanna is a long way with flukey conditions, it’s a risky place to go.

What does Bells mean to you now?

Bells will always be special. It was seven years of my life, some of the best years I’ve ever had. It’s the longest-running surf event in the world. Winning a Bell is like winning Wimbledon – it’s everything. I got to live on the cliffs, surf every day and meet the world’s best surfers and be part of something much bigger than just a contest.