http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...ior-jets-use-of-club-crest-20100307-pqn3.html
It's bags at 10 paces: almighty blue being played out as Newtown take exception to Junior Jets' use of club crest
ROY MASTERS
March 8, 2010
‘It may come down to Newtown suing their own junior club.’ Paul Shiel, Junior Jets president.
If you find yourself talking wistfully about old high school love, or craving for a long-dead childhood pet, you will know how fans of defunct football clubs feel.
''If you talk about passion,'' said Barry Vining, chairman of Newtown Rugby League Football Club, ''consider what happened to us from 1984 to '91. We never had a football team but the board met every month to work out how to pay off our debts.''
In 1984, the Jets sued the NSWRL for royalties and control of their logo, an action that was eventually settled out of court. ''We ended up one of the few clubs with ownership of our trademarks,'' Vining said.
Yet the same hard-won trademark and emblem are now denied the 370 Junior Jets who play in the South Sydney Junior Rugby League competition. Junior Jets president Paul Shiel said: ''They've demanded we take the logo off the kids' jumpers. They can't stop us playing in the royal blue jumper but they've prevented us using the 'N' in a shield and the Jets logo.''
Some of Newtown's prominent past players say the action is petty, but Vining insists it is proper corporate practice. ''Players get into trouble today and sponsors have more say, and with the Newtown name up in lights, we have to be careful about what we don't control,'' he said.
An eight-year-old in a Newtown jumper doing a runner on a taxi driver, or urinating in public? ''It was purely a commercial decision not to extend use of our registered trademarks to the Junior Jets beyond 2009,'' Vining argued.
''We did not want any situation arising involving the junior club that had the potential to bring our trademarks into disrepute.''
Vining insisted the relationship between the Junior Jets, formed in 2003, and the 1908 foundation club, had always been tenuous. ''The junior club has, for its own financial reasons, chosen to locate its activities out of the Camperdown Bowling Club and not the Jets Sports Club in Tempe, so there is now no connection at all between the two football clubs,'' he said.
Yet a stoush in a club car park in 2006 might have contributed to the division. Shiel, then a director of the Jets, had a disagreement with another board member, Jets stalwart, Glen ''Bumper'' Dwyer, in the car park of the Cooks River Bowling Club, a club jointly run by the Jets and the bowlers.
Inner-city football club politics have long resembled ALP machinations, an analogy used by ''Bumper'' to explain the altercation. ''The Newtown directors had an ALP-type agreement that we would stick solid at board meetings in a united front in any issues against the bowlers,'' he said. ''The chap broke ranks, and I followed him into the car park to give him a piece of my mind.
''It wasn't like the days of [former NSWRL officials] Bill Buckley and Jersey Flegg. If I was rating my performance, I'd be 3/10. I never touched him with a finger. No physical contact whatsoever. There might have been a bit of arm waving from a distance. It was just a shouting match.''
''Bumper'' revealed he was later rebuked by Vining, who said, ''Bumper apologised at the next meeting, and it was accepted.''
But Shiel hasn't forgotten. ''The same director was given the NSWRL's Ray Steller award as Club Official of the Year,'' he said.
A local artist, Marija Zeko, also has a grievance against the Jets. Zeko claims Newtown director Terry Rowney commissioned her to paint a montage of Jets emblems and champion players to be auctioned at a fund-raiser, where she would take half of the successful bid. Former Jet, publican Steve Bowden, was top bidder with $3000. ''Steve gave the painting back as a donation,'' Zeko said. ''I was supposed to get $1500, and haven't seen a cent. Terry Rowney gave me the painting back, and now I've got a painting at home I've got no use for. I feel an idiot in my own house.''
Vining said Zeko insisted on a reserve of $5000, and when the bidding failed to reach it, Bowden's $3000 was declared a sponsorship, with the name of his hotel printed on the goal post padding at Henson Park and the painting returned to her.
While Zeko has an unwanted painting of Newtown trademarks and the Junior Jets can't wear them, Rowney uses them at his family label printing company, Labelcraft.
Asked to define his commercial relationship with the Jets, he said: ''We have an arrangement to use the logo on gear we design.''
He insists the arrangement is far from lucrative, saying: ''I'm happy to show you the tax return.''
Rowney also sponsors the Jets and meets the annual shortfall but refuses to specify the amount, although admitting it costs $400,000 to run the one-team operation. ''It's a substantial amount,'' he said, although one director said the club's annual income was also $400,000. ''What I tip in is my private business. It's alarming. The board members know how big it is.''
''Bumper'' described Rowney's position with Newtown as a scaled-down parallel of Roman Abramovich's ownership of English Premier League club Chelsea, a comparison Rowney endorsed.
''I am him at our level,'' he said. ''I just write out the cheques. I'm not into boats, racehorses or big houses. I'm just into the Jets.
''As [former Newtown international Brian] 'Chicka' Moore says, 'If it aint good for Newtown, it's not the right decision.'''
The Jets play in the NSWRL Cup, kicking off on March 13 with a match against Balmain at Henson Park in a double-header heritage round, with Wests playing North Sydney.
Their season launch will be held at Petersham RSL club tomorrow at 7pm (phone 0447 046 516), attended by Roosters coach Brian Smith (whose coaching career began at Newtown with an under-23 team), Parramatta CEO Paul Osborne (who went to school in the district) and boxing trainer Johnny Lewis.
Meanwhile, the Junior Jets held a board meeting on Thursday night and decided to defy the ban because it would cost $3000 to remove the emblems from jumpers.
''We can't fork out $3000 of raffle money on jumpers ordered two years in advance,'' Shiel said. ''It may come down to Newtown suing their own junior club.''
What club would reject 370 kids????
It's bags at 10 paces: almighty blue being played out as Newtown take exception to Junior Jets' use of club crest
ROY MASTERS
March 8, 2010
If you find yourself talking wistfully about old high school love, or craving for a long-dead childhood pet, you will know how fans of defunct football clubs feel.
''If you talk about passion,'' said Barry Vining, chairman of Newtown Rugby League Football Club, ''consider what happened to us from 1984 to '91. We never had a football team but the board met every month to work out how to pay off our debts.''
In 1984, the Jets sued the NSWRL for royalties and control of their logo, an action that was eventually settled out of court. ''We ended up one of the few clubs with ownership of our trademarks,'' Vining said.
Yet the same hard-won trademark and emblem are now denied the 370 Junior Jets who play in the South Sydney Junior Rugby League competition. Junior Jets president Paul Shiel said: ''They've demanded we take the logo off the kids' jumpers. They can't stop us playing in the royal blue jumper but they've prevented us using the 'N' in a shield and the Jets logo.''
Some of Newtown's prominent past players say the action is petty, but Vining insists it is proper corporate practice. ''Players get into trouble today and sponsors have more say, and with the Newtown name up in lights, we have to be careful about what we don't control,'' he said.
An eight-year-old in a Newtown jumper doing a runner on a taxi driver, or urinating in public? ''It was purely a commercial decision not to extend use of our registered trademarks to the Junior Jets beyond 2009,'' Vining argued.
''We did not want any situation arising involving the junior club that had the potential to bring our trademarks into disrepute.''
Vining insisted the relationship between the Junior Jets, formed in 2003, and the 1908 foundation club, had always been tenuous. ''The junior club has, for its own financial reasons, chosen to locate its activities out of the Camperdown Bowling Club and not the Jets Sports Club in Tempe, so there is now no connection at all between the two football clubs,'' he said.
Yet a stoush in a club car park in 2006 might have contributed to the division. Shiel, then a director of the Jets, had a disagreement with another board member, Jets stalwart, Glen ''Bumper'' Dwyer, in the car park of the Cooks River Bowling Club, a club jointly run by the Jets and the bowlers.
Inner-city football club politics have long resembled ALP machinations, an analogy used by ''Bumper'' to explain the altercation. ''The Newtown directors had an ALP-type agreement that we would stick solid at board meetings in a united front in any issues against the bowlers,'' he said. ''The chap broke ranks, and I followed him into the car park to give him a piece of my mind.
''It wasn't like the days of [former NSWRL officials] Bill Buckley and Jersey Flegg. If I was rating my performance, I'd be 3/10. I never touched him with a finger. No physical contact whatsoever. There might have been a bit of arm waving from a distance. It was just a shouting match.''
''Bumper'' revealed he was later rebuked by Vining, who said, ''Bumper apologised at the next meeting, and it was accepted.''
But Shiel hasn't forgotten. ''The same director was given the NSWRL's Ray Steller award as Club Official of the Year,'' he said.
A local artist, Marija Zeko, also has a grievance against the Jets. Zeko claims Newtown director Terry Rowney commissioned her to paint a montage of Jets emblems and champion players to be auctioned at a fund-raiser, where she would take half of the successful bid. Former Jet, publican Steve Bowden, was top bidder with $3000. ''Steve gave the painting back as a donation,'' Zeko said. ''I was supposed to get $1500, and haven't seen a cent. Terry Rowney gave me the painting back, and now I've got a painting at home I've got no use for. I feel an idiot in my own house.''
Vining said Zeko insisted on a reserve of $5000, and when the bidding failed to reach it, Bowden's $3000 was declared a sponsorship, with the name of his hotel printed on the goal post padding at Henson Park and the painting returned to her.
While Zeko has an unwanted painting of Newtown trademarks and the Junior Jets can't wear them, Rowney uses them at his family label printing company, Labelcraft.
Asked to define his commercial relationship with the Jets, he said: ''We have an arrangement to use the logo on gear we design.''
He insists the arrangement is far from lucrative, saying: ''I'm happy to show you the tax return.''
Rowney also sponsors the Jets and meets the annual shortfall but refuses to specify the amount, although admitting it costs $400,000 to run the one-team operation. ''It's a substantial amount,'' he said, although one director said the club's annual income was also $400,000. ''What I tip in is my private business. It's alarming. The board members know how big it is.''
''Bumper'' described Rowney's position with Newtown as a scaled-down parallel of Roman Abramovich's ownership of English Premier League club Chelsea, a comparison Rowney endorsed.
''I am him at our level,'' he said. ''I just write out the cheques. I'm not into boats, racehorses or big houses. I'm just into the Jets.
''As [former Newtown international Brian] 'Chicka' Moore says, 'If it aint good for Newtown, it's not the right decision.'''
The Jets play in the NSWRL Cup, kicking off on March 13 with a match against Balmain at Henson Park in a double-header heritage round, with Wests playing North Sydney.
Their season launch will be held at Petersham RSL club tomorrow at 7pm (phone 0447 046 516), attended by Roosters coach Brian Smith (whose coaching career began at Newtown with an under-23 team), Parramatta CEO Paul Osborne (who went to school in the district) and boxing trainer Johnny Lewis.
Meanwhile, the Junior Jets held a board meeting on Thursday night and decided to defy the ban because it would cost $3000 to remove the emblems from jumpers.
''We can't fork out $3000 of raffle money on jumpers ordered two years in advance,'' Shiel said. ''It may come down to Newtown suing their own junior club.''
What club would reject 370 kids????
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