BIG-STEVE'S RED & BLACK SITE - 26/8/2004

Norths Legend Greg Florimo is calling for your support. Write your letter supporting the inclusion of a Central Coast Bears in the NRL and send it to;

Greg Florimo
North Sydney District Rugby League Football Club Limited
Level 1/506 Miller Street
Cammeray NSW 2062

The Club will ensure your letter goes directly to the Central Coast bid team.

BIG-STEVE

Bearing Down
By PETER BADEL
BIG LEAGUE - 26/8/2004

The demise of the Bears is one of league’s saddest tales. But as long as people like Greg Florimo are around hope floats north of the harbour.

For a moment, it was a sight too good to be true as 14,855 fans stormed towards the various entrances of North Sydney Oval.

Across the street, punters packed into local watering hole Percy’s, including the middle-aged bloke wearing a tattered Norths jersey from an age when the bear on the club’s famous logo resembled more of an ailing wombat than a growling beast.

Inside the ground, kids climbed the majestic Moreton Bay Fig. Souths supporters roared as their struggling first graders took the field. League was buzzing in the north shore. All that was needed to complete the fairytale was the sight of 13 Bears players charging out of the tunnel and onto their home turf.

But then Manly, the Bears’ bitter rivals for over 50 years, emerged — and you began to understand why diehard North Sydney folk such as Greg Florimo have a broken heart.

For Florimo, a veteran of 285 first grade games for his beloved Bears, the facts hurt. It’s been five years since the revered red-and-black jumper last appeared in the top flight. A fortnight ago, the NRL delivered another blow by rejecting expansion (for 12 months at least), temporarily snubbing the submissions of Wellington, Gold Coast and Central Coast, the latter franchise in which the Bears have a 20 per cent stake.

The decision, says Florimo, did not surprise him. But the general manager of the Bears is again picking up the pieces as he desperately fights to reinvigorate the Bears — and rugby league — in an affluent north shore region besotted with rugby union and soccer.

“It’s a battle,” says Florimo, who couldn’t bring himself to attend the Manly-South s clash at his beloved ground last Sunday.

It’s very hard for us to raise revenue so as a result the people we have to support our club take on what you would call love jobs’ — and unless we get an NRL identity back it’s going to be very hard to retain those types of people.

“Having been ready for the blow (NRL’s no-expansion decision), I’m not as disappointed as I thought I would be and when the fight is on again next year, we’ll be up for it.

“Because of the NRL’s lack of foresight, I’m more determined than ever. When you think about the history and tradition of the Bears ... I can’t bring myself to turn around and walk away now.”

The Bears’ decline is one of the saddest stories in rugby league. In the 1990s, they were a genuine heavyweight, making the preliminary final four times without qualifying for a grand final.

In 1998, Bears hierarchy, mindful of North Sydney Oval’s inadequacies and the promise of the untapped Central Coast region, agreed to undertake a bold relocation up the F3. With the backing of the NRL, the club established headquarters on the Central Coast, and plunged $6 million into the construction of the first-class Grahame Park complex (now Express Advocate Stadium).

But when the worst annual rainfall in Central Coast’s history delayed the stadium’s construction, the gamble proved catastrophic and North Sydney drowned in a debt of $6.7 million.

Florimo remembers tears being shed three years ago, when administrators marched into the Central Coast office and cleaned the place out.

“They took everything,” he recalls. “That was the day I knew this club was in strife.”

Since, life at North Sydney has been an eternal struggle. Like fellow foundation club Newtown Jets, they are now little more than a community club, subsisting on minimal revenue streams and the toil of staff and volunteers who refuse to allow the dream to die.

Take Florimo. If he is lucky, he gets a day off. Some nights he gets home at 11pm. His job description couldn’t be found at Centrelink: he looks after sponsorship, recruitment, marketing, game day operations, training programs and venue management. When ‘Flo’ finds the time, he helps wash the jumpers.

But, as North Sydney board member Bob Foster points out, they are alive and kicking”. Under Chairman Foster, the Bears have hauled themselves out of administration and are turning a profit. They operate on a budget of $600,000, bankrolled by North Sydney Leagues Club and a cluster of sponsors including IGT Poker Machines

and Tyrells Wines. Still, it is hard to miss the resentment permeating the club.

“There is a frustration around here,” says Foster. “I know so many people in this region who won’t even put Foxtel on because they are unhappy with the NRL. There’s some anger in this area and it’s never been rectified.”

On the park, the Bears are a shadow of what they could be. Their Premier League side, coached by former club stalwart Gary Larson, is running last. The Harold Matthews side (under-16s) won two games to finish third last, while the SG Ball (under 18s) claimed the wooden spoon after losing all eight games, scoring just 68 points in the process.

The shining light has been the Jersey Flegg (under-20s) outfit who are eighth and will secure a finals spot if they win one of their last two games.

They are flying the flag for us,” says Florimo. “We’ve got quite a good staff and our structure is ready for an NRL franchise. But as far as morale goes ... geez we need a carrot.”

Surprisingly, the code is far from dead on the north shore. Despite no NRL team with which to identify, the North Sydney district league has 1200 juniors — a 10 per cent increase in registrations in the past 12 months.

‘We’ve started targeting the private schools,” says Norths development manager Kevin Nicholls. “Riverview (St Ignatius College) actually put a side in our junior league this year, but it will always be a struggle as long as we don’t have an NRL pathway.”

And, despite the repeated setbacks, no-one at Norths is willing to accept extinction.

“If you likened us to a patient in intensive care, we’d be under 24-hour watch,” admits Florimo.

“But we’ll never ever give up the fight ... that would be walking away from our heritage.”
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