Being a St.George boy since birth, I was 16 at the time of the JV (same age as the Steelers club was). Old enough to have followed St.George passionately through my childhood and early teenage years but young enough to get on board with St.George Illawarra.
I had mixed feelings of the JV at the time but overall I was pretty excited, admittedly it was made a hell of a lot easier when in 1999 I saw St.George Illawarra run out as essentially being St.George. Big Red V, St.George emblem above their hearts (with just Illawarra added to the bottom) and being called the Dragons.
It was a fairly simple transition for us St.George faithful really. We were a good exciting team to watch, a GF in season 1 and I remember really getting onboard with it quite easily while at the time feeling extremely sad and sorry for any long time Steelers fans out there. 2000-2003 I remember were harder times, not being as competitive and playing out of the SFS, but ultimately it still felt like St.George.
Being on the hill in my Penfolds jersey didn't look out of place (and still doesn't) where as the old BHP steelers kits did and in a way still kind of do and for anyone from the Gong who'd spent 16 years supporting the one team town Steelers to suddenly look out of place at their traditional home ground in their teams jersey must have been heart breaking! Imagine if in '99 the Illawarra St.George Steelers ran around in a red jersey, it'd have been hard to say the least. Basically they had to get used to cheering on a former rival guised as a new team, and I can speak for myself but I don't think us St.George fans would have been as gracious as they were and as a whole we never give the Steelers fans the credit they deserve to get on board with it as well as they have done over so many years.
I relation to the jersey, although we've always been in the Red V since the 40's and very loosely carried a Dragon mascot pre JV, I felt that before the JV we were simply known as St.George or Saints as a nick name. Our team song is 'When the saints go marching in', our badge says St.George and to this day doesn't say Dragons anywhere, all my merch from a kid says St.George. I've always felt that the 'Dragon' was used as a marketing tool post JV to unite us under one banner and soon after this the mythology and significance of the Red V grew too as a way to hold on to our St.George identity in the merger which, at the time as I said above, was moving further and further away from St.George and Kogarah and more into the SFS and WIN. At the same time, and almost as if in retaliation, the Steelers red became known as 'scarlet' and became more of a louder voice to bring back an identity of a club that didn't really have an identity to begin with.
Unlike St.George wearing a consistent Red V for over 70 years and only ever having two badges, the Steelers in their finally two years of existence re-branded their logo from the original and upgraded their jersey from the two hoops which they claim as an identity to the 3 hoops across the chest and arms. 1982 Steelers and 1998 Steelers look nothing a like.
I love the Red V and I think the history behind it is one that any club would be proud to carry and a big reason as to why I think a lot of old Steelers fans have bought into. I also think that since the premiership in 2010 we all see our history continuing from 1921 to joining with the steelers and to being St.George Illawarra as opposed to hitting refresh in 1998. This is evident that all merch now days reads est.1921 as opposed to 99 as it did in the early days of the JV.
As for this years alternative jersey, I really love it. Remember, that even before the JV, St.George wore lots of alternate jerseys in various 7's and charity shield matches. The Red V isn't going anywhere so no need to panic, this years is the best alternative we've had in a long time and in my honest opinion it's more Illawarra then a 1982 throw back jersey is as I feel that if the Steelers had stood alone and continued down their path that chances are they'd have gone through several jersey changes over the years (like a lot of team do) and our current alternative may have been something they might be wearing today.
