The Bears have a History of being underhanded to get their way, have a read of the highlighted bits in this article from a few years ago
the retractions also clear up the facts that Manly were supposedly broke, it is also interesting reading, the fact that Norths walked away from their responsibilities and Manly paid the JV Players Contracts
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-38991.html
Have a read of what this guy said about Manly on Friday and then the retraction on Saturday by the Daily Telegraph. Seriously, I don't understand how some people can think they can get away with this kind of drivel....
BEGINNING OF THE MEND
14/6/2002
By Paul Kent -
www.news.com.au
Now that a future for the Northern Eagles has been decided, coach Peter Sharp can finally devise a plan to lift the team to the next level. PAUL KENT investigates
AS Peter Sharp tells it, what he needs is three or four good first grade players.
"It's not going to happen here overnight," the Northern Eagles coach said. "It's got to be a gradual process.
"It's the only way we can do it. You can't run around buying reserve graders from other clubs and expect to come fourth or fifth."
It is not rocket science but it is not simple algebra either.
Sharp is one of those career coaches, a man capable of putting together an outfit like a Brisbane or Parramatta or Newcastle, the type of clubs that not only win, but do it year after year.
He understands the protocol and procedure: he just needs it behind him.
A sound administration, with a solid recruitment and retention policy, is the one leg missing from Sharp's coaching repertoire.
Since he joined the club in 1999, every year has been a rebuilding year, the next seemingly more drastic than the previous.
He is hoping, after the events of this week, that the club has begun doing its part.
A board meeting last Tues day voted to return the club name to Manly and play them in maroon and white, out of Brookvale.
It ended an era that bordered on comedy, the Northern Eagles one of the great shambles in modern sport. When the two clubs first put their heads together it was a Three Stooges moment — clunk!
Why? Any number of examples should prove the case.
Manly had been forced into the merger because they were broke and Norths had moved to the Promised Land on the Central Coast — but had failed to meet the NRL criteria.
They merged, then Manly found the Bears' major sponsorship — with Business Barter Exchange (BBX) — called for 300,000 barter points. In other words, worthless.
There was trouble finding sponsors. Once, after an exhaustive campaign, the club's marketing staff triumphantly announced a new deal with Motorola.
It ah, ahem, called for six mobile phones.
Then chairman Geoff Bellew would walk in and say, "What's the latest on a major sponsor?"
"Not a lot of joy," he would get back.
It became a catchcry.
In the boardroom, it got to the point that directors had to wear gumboots to save their socks being soaked in blood.
The Bears felt they were being set up from the start. A decision would be made, they said, then by the time the next meeting came around, the Manly faction had changed its mind. The belief was former club supremo Ken Arthurson was pulling strings behind the scenes.
For their part, the Sea Eagles felt the Bears had little intention of making the joint venture work. They even turned up at the first board meeting with a news paper clipping, quoting Bears representative Mark Cannon saying the Bears would be playing out of NorthPower Stadium as a stand-alone club by the time the club's six year NRL licence expired. Where did that leave them?
As marriages go, it was a disaster of Roseanne and Tom Arnold proportions.
The hardest part, though, was the way the club's financial troubles meant each year they would lose much of their playing staff, forcing Sharp into another rebuilding phase.
What changes Tuesday's meeting brings to the club remains to be seen. After all, it is not like they found a pot of money.
While the club recently announced a major sponsor, North Sydney administrator Max Donnelly questions its long term viability.
"What they've done is sold the building the Northern Eagles' offices used to be in," Donnelly says.
"The major sponsor is the developer that bought the real estate and they've given him the major sponsorship for buying the land.
"They've sold that building and they've released the money to pay the players. But they've sold their last asset.
"The leagues club is in administration, it just can't make money. You can keep selling assets until you run out of money, but then where do you go from there?"
Example one is Arthurson's promise, made in July last year, when the joint venture dissolved and the club's ability to meet player payments was questioned. "We gave a commitment to pay the players and we will honour that commitment," Arthurson said then. It was an undertaking he gave to meet by the end of the year.
Yet here we are almost a year later and while the players that have remained at the club have been paid, those that have left — Mark O'Meley, Brett Kimmorley, Adam Muir and plenty of others — have yet to see a cent. Hey fellas, would you settle for a few spare BBX barter points?
It is this financial state that will make or break Sharp's plans to get the club, to get Manly, back to the gloried heights it once occupied.
For three years he has been trying to do it, coming unstuck each year when dollar-wary players left and he was forced to recruit from an increasingly shallow talent pool.
"You look at your better clubs with your better educations," Sharp said.
"The Newcastles and Parramattas, the Brisbanes and Canterburys, those sorts of kids have had good educations.
"Newcastle didn't buy a player this year, they supplied all their players from within.
"And although they're not experienced in first grade, they're experienced in the ways of the club and the skills of the club."
And when Sharp says he has been forced to start again each year, he has literally been forced to start again. It has been the Eagles' biggest problem.
"Your attention to detail at the club that has been together a long time is far better than you get at the clubs that have massive personnel changes," he says.
"If you get 10 or 11 new players each year, even more in our case, you're continually going back over things.
"The last three years — it's been a bit of a waste of time for everyone. We've had to start again each year, you don't get any continuity in your football, your development.
"If you can't get continuity you can't expect success. If you have a look at the top clubs, they've all got that."
Which is why a player like Steve Menzies, as honest as a day's work, has been so important to Sharp.
Sharp cannot say enough about the bloke.
Two years ago, Parramatta offered Menzies everything short of Town Hall to switch clubs.
Asked why he knocked it back, Menzies says: "The players, the coach, growing up in the area, playing for the same club... all those sorts of things."
From many others, it would look like PR, but Menzies is not that complicated.
Occasionally there have been the doubters, those that look at Sharp's results and question his ability.
The answer is in the form of Menzies, who just gets better, and even the likes of Brendon Reeves and John Hopoate, who have brought new levels to their game. Because they have been around.
With Menzies as his cornerstone, Sharp has put proposal to the Eagles board this week designed to build the club into a contender.
"Hopefully next year we'll get two or three genuine first graders — not second graders — and get some kids in below them," he says.
"Their age I'm still to determine mine. But get them in your system and put them there for a couple of years and see how they go."
It is a strategy he knows will work, given time and the right administrative support. But that remains important.
On the plus side, with the Northern Eagles to become the Manly Sea Eagles next seasons, and playing fulltime out of Brookvale Oval, the timing could not be better.
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Northern Eagles clarification
THE Daily Telegraph wishes to clarify and correct a report regarding the Northern Eagles in yesterday's paper.
The report stated that Manly leagues in administration; this is incorrect — he club is solvent and no administrator has been appointed.
At the time of its merger with North Sydney in late 1999, the Manly club was not "broke" as reported. It had met the NRL criteria which included solvency requirements and secured a five-year licence to take part in the competition.
In consideration of its sponsorship deal, Delmege Commercial provided substantial cash and other benefits to the club and it was not "given away" as suggested in the report.
The report stated that players who left the failed joint venture entity at the end of last year had not received "a cent" — in fact, they have already been paid 50c on the dollar.
"Arrangements to finalise payments to these players will be made after the legal process, currently under the jurisdiction of the company's liquidator is concluded," said club CEO Ian Thomson.
The Daily Telegraph regrets the errors.
