North Sydney Heritage Leaflet 15 The Mighty Bears North Sydney was a foundation club of the New South Wales Rugby Football League, formed in 1908 in the wake of the successful 1907 tour by the New Zealand ‘All Blacks’. The history of the game in North Sydney is intertwined with the social history of the local area. Before they adopted the name ‘The Bears’, as part of a sponsorship deal with the Big Bear Supermarket in 1959, North Sydney’s players were called ‘The Shoremen’ - a name that reflected work and life on the north shore waterfront. During its century of football, North Sydney has participated at the highest levels of competition. But it has been a century of fluctuating fortunes. Norths won back-to-back Premierships in 1921 and 1922 but have never topped the First Grade table since. Nonetheless, fans and players are renowned for their loyalty. As North Sydney ‘great’ Herman Peters said in 1989 “Hoping for Norths to win another one has kept me going ... I've watched them all the years since 1922, and I want to be there on the day it happens ...” The Shoremen, 1908-1922 “Shake yourselves up and get going!”* The NSWRFL played a game derived from Rugby, a style of football created at the English public school of the same name. In England, working class players could not afford to play in club competitions ‘for free’ and so split from the amateur Rugby Union in 1895 to form the professional English Northern League. A similar situation developed in New South Wales where the NSWRFL adopted the rules of the new English code. In 1908 North Sydney was a working class area with an industrial waterfront. As in other Sydney districts, the new League club here drew its players and officials from the local Rugby Union. Most were waterside workers, labourers, quarrymen and boat builders. They called themselves ‘The Shoremen’. The club showed early promise, making the semi-finals in their first year with players such as Denis “Dinny” Lutge, Jimmy Devereaux and Sid Deane. Four of North’s players represented Australia in the 1908 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain. When several of these men left to play with English clubs the following season, ‘The Shoremen’ finished second last. There was a ‘great depletion in the ranks’ in 1915 after many players volunteered to fight in World War One.** In 1919, after a decade of dwindling spectator numbers, they were nearly dropped from the competition. There followed a ‘golden age’. ‘The Shoremen’ won their first premiership in 1921 with players such as Harold Horder and Herman Peters. A premiership win again in 1922 confirmed their place at the top of the League. * Referee, 21 April 1909 ** Annual Report, 1915 1920s to 1970s “Same old Norths”* North’s fortunes waned dramatically after the successes of the early 1920s. The loss of key players Duncan Thompson, Harold Horder and Cec Blinkhorn was followed by the destruction of hundreds of homes to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge approaches. With this an important part of the team’s working-class heartland, around Milsons Point, was torn apart. Then the Great Depression hit. The team made the 1935, 1936 and 1943 semi-finals but, after losing territory and players to the new Manly- Warringah club in 1947, the years 1948 to 1951 were the worst in the club’s history. The team bounced back again to reach three consecutive semi-finals from 1952 to 1954. Now known as ‘The Bears’, North’s made the finals in 1964 and 1965. Their star player was Ken Irvine, the most prolific try-scorer in Australian 1st Grade history. But his departure for Manly in 1971 signalled another slump, culminating in the dire 1979 season when the team lost 20 of its 22 matches and finished last with the wooden spoon. *Gary Lester, “The old story on the Bears”, The Sun, 3/3/1980 Resurgence, 1980-1990s “A ritzy and marketable club”* The 1980s began with renewed hope. The Bears made the semi-finals in 1982 for the first time since 1965. The team included local juniors determined to reverse after the disappointments of the 1970s. There was no 1st Grade premiership but the Bears did make the finals in 1986. When the A Reserve Grade won their premiership in 1989 - the first in 30 years - North Sydney entered the new decade with revived optimism. The pool of young talent was helped by an astute recruitment policy and the Bears became 1st Grade contenders, progressing to the finals in 1991 and 1994. They won consecutive Reserve Grade premierships in 1991, 1992 and 1993. On-field success was accompanied by imaginative marketing. The Club’s image reflected both the increasing commercialisation of Rugby League and the demographic changes taking place around North Sydney:”Norths became a very ritzy and marketable club … the Bears suddenly had an appealing look about them. A team of glamour and panache seemed to perfectly fit the district in which a good deal of gentrification had taken place”* Crowds increased at North Sydney Oval and the fans dreamed large dreams. *Ian Heads, “Bearing Up”, Inside Sport, August 1994, p.125 Super League and beyond “Bears Forever” In 1997 the media company News Corporation established the Super League to challenge of the dominance of the Australian Rugby League [ARL]. North Sydney remained loyal to the ARL but when the Leagues merged to form the National Rugby League [NRL] in 1998, the Club’s fortunes declined. The Bears struggled to meet the new NRL criteria for financial sustainability. They sought salvation with a move to the Central Coast. Construction of a new 20,000 seat stadium at Gosford was delayed, and with that the planned relocation. A merger with traditional rivals Manly-Warringah was negotiated in 1999 and for the next two years North Sydney formed one wing of the ill-fated Northern Eagles. The changes upset many Bears fans who had attended home games at North Sydney Oval for years. The Northern Eagles folded in 2002, but North Sydney’s involvement had ended the year before. The failure of the venture ended 93 years of 1st Grade competition for the Bears. However the Club moved on to establish an independent and successful place in the Premier League, where they were Grand Finalists in 2007, and its successor the NSW Cup where they were Minor Premiers in 2008. Bears games are once again played at North Sydney Oval. North Sydney Heritage Centre 1st Floor Stanton Library 234 Miller Street North Sydney NSW 2060 Phone: 02 99368400 Fax: 02 99368440 Email: [email protected] www.northsydney.nsw.gov.au .