NRL Hooligans thread

[Andy]

Now we are glorifying Rugby League HOOLIGANISM

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,23332440-23214,00.html

Oval hides its wounds well

    By Nick Walshaw
    March 07, 2008

BIRCHGROVE Oval certainly knows how to hide its blood.

The waterfront mansions, sweeping harbour views, luxury yachts bobbing up and down in the drink nearby ... yep, the prettiest little slaughterhouse in Australia.

The notorious history that is league's spiritual birthplace was overrun last night in a whirl of suits, sorts, champers and celebrities.

Some 600 guests - an eclectic mix including Lachlan Murdoch, Storm skipper Cameron Smith and Powderfinger's Bernard Fanning - officially launching the 2008 NRL Centenary season.

And while the cast of Underbelly gave the celebrations some added grunt, the NRL could've simply invited those gnarled drinkers boozing at a pub just up the street.

Because Birchgrove Oval is far more than just the ground where rugby league was first played in 1908 - some 3000 locals shelling out sixpence for the privilege.

It's where, for 100 years, the game has lived and breathed. Thrived.

Where inaugural fans were known as the Balmaniacs, an infamous group of locals who often stormed the field during all-in brawls ... ripping palings from the little picket fence to use for weapons as they went.

Rival players were attacked. Referees KOed. Linesmen given a shorter life expectancy than the cast of Chances .

"Sometime it was on from kick-off," Balmain Tigers historian Chris Karas confirms. "Someone would get coat-hangered and down they'd come ... everyone getting stuck in."

Maybe that's why the Tigers won 28 of 29 at Birchgrove in the early years. Although having North Sydney opponents rowing across to the ground probably helped.

Regardless, Birchgrove Oval has spent a century typifying the gladiatorial contest that is rugby league.

"I remember playing my first game there in 1970, aged 10," Balmain boy Wayne Pearce recalls. "And the cricket pitch in the middle, mate, it made the one at North Sydney feel like a lounge cushion."

Even when first grade footy departed, the passion never did.

Like the competition involving unemployed Sydneysiders during the Depression. Players running around barefoot. Dressed in rags.

"One team was called the 'Sugar Bay Pirates'," local identity Austin Hoyle recalls. "They couldn't afford jerseys so they cut holes in sugar bags and wore those instead."

Maybe the Pirates were the inspiration behind Nicky Evans, a notorious 1950s Leichhardt enforcer who painted a skull and crossbones on his headgear and played accordingly.

Blocker Roach also played his junior footy at Birchgrove. Kevin Hardwick too. Even a young Don Furner would dawdle on his walk home to Beattie Street after games - stopping outside the home of Balmain skipper Joe Jorgenson to watch his footy socks drying on the line.

But the one name Birchgrove locals ask you to remember most is Kevin Pheagan, a little-known hooker who was tragically caught at the base of a collapsed scrum on the oval.

He died in Balmain hospital soon after.

"Kevin's death was tragic," concedes Hoyle. "But was he the only bloke to die here? Mate, with a history like this place has ... well, you can never really be sure."

 

[adz]

 

[Timmah]

Steve Mortimer at the NRL season launch tonight - from Fox Sports News:

"Our game says the National Rugby League - we do need to have teams in both Western Australia and South Australia, but the wonderful thing about or game is, we have the best product, so if we can sell that and market it well, then we will grow and absolutely grow to be the number one football code in Australia."

Is he taking the piss??

Wishful thinking.

During the Super League, News Ltd. tried to get the RL established in SA and WA without much success. Despite having decent players farmed out via the News Ltd. contract the Super League players all signed,and a lot of money in promotions and so on, they managed some success.

But not enough for the NRL - when it formed - who had  them cut as part of the political solution to that war.

The funny thing with NRL wanting or hoping to branch out into WA & SA, is that the AFL folks will see that as a red rag more than our Football. And the AFL will end up retailiating with the massive cash they have and flood western Sydney and parts of Queensland with AFL promotions and what-have-you.

I doubt SA and WA have many junior RL comps, so it's long term future in those states would be much like the Melbourne Storm - as a professional RL franchise that will base itself there, but have little relevance to the locals there until they reach the Semis or something big like that (bandwagon effect). A week of celebrating and 'love youse guys' if they win and the next week the locals will be talking about the AFL again.

On a hiding if the NRL try to set up in WA & SA, and damned as a sham 'national' comp. if they don't.

There is so much factually wrong with that post it's not funny.

RE: an earlier response to me...
Bottom line is, and I don't aggrieve the chip on the shoulder of Australian football fans as I am slowly but surely becoming one, that for some reason a core group of support in this code seems to have this idea that it's "football and football only" as if it deserves to be the only ball sport in the marketplace. It's an utterly ludicrous dream. Nowhere do I deny it deserves it's place in our great sporting landscape but why at the expense of other sports? I love football, I love the Mariners, I love league and I love the Bulldogs.

Why should that be a problem? Why should I have to put up with my sport being disparaged? Far from suggesting "we all live in harmony" - I just think some of the claims made in here about "treatment of 'sokka' or 'wogball' by RL" is beyond stupid as I, as a staunch and proud RL supporter have never said it, seen it or heard it. Football (I don't even call it soccer anymore) is a great game and I'm proud to see it excelling in Australia.

 

[Andy]

Steve Mortimer at the NRL season launch tonight - from Fox Sports News:

"Our game says the National Rugby League - we do need to have teams in both Western Australia and South Australia, but the wonderful thing about or game is, we have the best product, so if we can sell that and market it well, then we will grow and absolutely grow to be the number one football code in Australia."

Is he taking the piss??

Wishful thinking.

During the Super League, News Ltd. tried to get the RL established in SA and WA without much success. Despite having decent players farmed out via the News Ltd. contract the Super League players all signed,and a lot of money in promotions and so on, they managed some success.

But not enough for the NRL - when it formed - who had  them cut as part of the political solution to that war.

The funny thing with NRL wanting or hoping to branch out into WA & SA, is that the AFL folks will see that as a red rag more than our Football. And the AFL will end up retailiating with the massive cash they have and flood western Sydney and parts of Queensland with AFL promotions and what-have-you.

I doubt SA and WA have many junior RL comps, so it's long term future in those states would be much like the Melbourne Storm - as a professional RL franchise that will base itself there, but have little relevance to the locals there until they reach the Semis or something big like that (bandwagon effect). A week of celebrating and 'love youse guys' if they win and the next week the locals will be talking about the AFL again.

On a hiding if the NRL try to set up in WA & SA, and damned as a sham 'national' comp. if they don't.

There is so much factually wrong with that post it's not funny.

RE: an earlier response to me...
Bottom line is, and I don't aggrieve the chip on the shoulder of Australian football fans as I am slowly but surely becoming one, that for some reason a core group of support in this code seems to have this idea that it's "football and football only" as if it deserves to be the only ball sport in the marketplace. It's an utterly ludicrous dream. Nowhere do I deny it deserves it's place in our great sporting landscape but why at the expense of other sports? I love football, I love the Mariners, I love league and I love the Bulldogs.

Why should that be a problem? Why should I have to put up with my sport being disparaged? Far from suggesting "we all live in harmony" - I just think some of the claims made in here about "treatment of 'sokka' or 'wogball' by RL" is beyond stupid as I, as a staunch and proud RL supporter have never said it, seen it or heard it. Football (I don't even call it soccer anymore) is a great game and I'm proud to see it excelling in Australia.

Yes
Yes
Yes
F*ck no! 

 

[Bex]

If I wanted to read a novel I would pick up the Stephen King book next to my bed

 

[FFC Mariner]

Football (ball is round, foot is used) will prevail and drive RL into the petty suburban backwater it deserves.

At work on Friday, I had to endure a knuckledragger telling me that the only people who go to HAL games are "ethnics" (whatever that means)

The day his shit game is consigned to history cant come soon enough

 

[Timmah]

The lack of constructive arguments against RL is astounding.

The one defining point of the criticism toward me is the fact that I love football is being dismissed. Too many of you are taking remarks by specific, particular people and journalists to heart and have really self-established the generalisation that everyone believes it and it's "football vs the Australian public". Nothing could be further from the truth.

A simple response to you Pete: a monopoly is great to start with, but no monopoly ever truly lasts. And as long as league has it's core base in Sydney, AFL in Melbourne and... well it's clear RU actually is dying, things won't swing that way. The amount of corporate sponsorship behind the league already is astounding for how young the competition and one can only hope it goes from strength to strength. I am simply of the belief that it's not necessary to abolish other sports in order for football to flourish.

 

[FFC Mariner]

As the Central Coast is on the front line of the battle for hearts/minds and sponsorship $$. Yes, we do have to drive it back to the pre war working class areas of Sydney.

 

[kevrenor]

The lack of constructive arguments against RL is astounding.

How can you have constructive arguments against something?

There is room for all sports, among those who wish to play or view! I just wish RL would get it's elbows out of football's ribs!

For me a) RL didn't exist in the Sydney suburb where I grew up, b) never played it, c) never watched it of my own free will!  Blinkered view? You bet!

 

[Timmah]

I don't see how RL has it's "elbows in football's ribs". The only thing holding football back in Australia is the inferiorty complex. I have been a very close RL fan for a very long time and I rarely hear anybody I speak with (and that's a lot of people) bag Football. And nor should they, it's a brilliant ball game that is slowly but surely capturing Australia's hearts after all this time.

 

[dru]

I don't see how RL has it's "elbows in football's ribs". The only thing holding football back in Australia is the inferiorty complex. I have been a very close RL fan for a very long time and I rarely hear anybody I speak with (and that's a lot of people) bag Football. And nor should they, it's a brilliant ball game that is slowly but surely capturing Australia's hearts after all this time.

See that is where a lot of people have a different experience because for the last two and a bit years working in the mining industry all that happened through the a-league season was the league fans bagging the supposed shortcomings of the game. Knowing that I was a football fan meant that I was subjected to comments like "how can you enjoy a game were the teams may not even score" etc. and that was during the actual league season. The only concession these people make is that football can be safer for there kids to be playing at a young age. So there is still a lot of people out there that want football to be a junior sport only.

There will be those that enjoy both and thats there decision but for the adminstration of the codes they need to be trying to be top dog and given the chance I'm sure league would have qualms about relegating football, afl and union to being minority sports on the national scene like basketball.

 

[Timmah]

Without wanting to go into semantics, I'm sure I've read reports indicating football is far more dangerous (in terms of junior injuries) than other football-based sports such as RL/RU/AFL.

Having said thatyour last paragraph is more or less on the mark. Each administration will be gunning for their own trump card but ultimately I think we in Australia will end up with four core sports, two winter and two summer. Cricket and football will patrol the summer landscape while League and AFL have the winter wrapped up. I think it's a healthy thing really.

 

[FFC Mariner]

As we expand, we will eat into their seasons. At the moment, the race is on to "plant" teams in strategic areas.

This is all about TV coverage and viewing figures. When the HAL contract comes up, there are going to be serious $$ on offer. That means that one of the localised codes may take a reduced contract.

Cue downward spiral.

 

[loyalist]

Without wanting to go into semantics, I'm sure I've read reports indicating football is far more dangerous (in terms of junior injuries) than other football-based sports such as RL/RU/AFL.
\

LOL

 

[dru]

Without wanting to go into semantics, I'm sure I've read reports indicating football is far more dangerous (in terms of junior injuries) than other football-based sports such as RL/RU/AFL.

Okay I worded that bit wrong as I have no idea which codes have the least amount of injuries, it was their peception that it was safer.

Wouldn't surprise me if football has the highest amount of injuries although likelihood of injury is another story. Type of injury is the other questionable.

 

[Jimmy]

Without wanting to go into semantics, I'm sure I've read reports indicating football is far more dangerous (in terms of junior injuries) than other football-based sports such as RL/RU/AFL.

Okay I worded that bit wrong as I have no idea which codes have the least amount of injuries, it was their peception that it was safer.

Wouldn't surprise me if football has the highest amount of injuries although likelihood of injury is another story. Type of injury is the other questionable.

Most injurying sport is actually netball.....

 

[adz]

ban netball

 

[Jimmy]

ban netball

Do we have a netball hooligans thread?

 

[adz]

ban netball

Do we have a netball hooligans thread?

Not yet...

 

[Azza]

GO PARRA WHAT A GAME LAST NIGHT(second half)!!