You sir, are a dip sh!t.
St George met all of the criteria unlike the Rabbits (St George were 8th of all 20 clubs from memory), but were extremely worried about the clubs position given Cronulla had just recieved a $11m handout from News for stabbing the ARL in the back.
For St George, merging with Illawarra was a strategic move, to out manuovre Cronulla. Both clubs could see that the NRL wanted only one team in the south (nothing has changed). Cronulla thought the cash would get them over the line, but its all gone now.
Illawarra was in a position similar to Gold Coast... strong NRL areas, but club structures and finances were terrible, so they were happy to be bailed out by St George. It was that, or no team in the gong. I remember when the deal was progressing further along Cronulla realised why St George was doing it and made a half-ars!d bid to merge with Illawarra.
12 years later, it seems to have paid off. By giving Illawarra a loan of I think it was $7m (which is almost payed back now), St George had them by the balls, so in effect it was more of a takeover than a merger.
St George has been around in first grade since 1921, and has existed as a club in lower grades since 1909. They wanted to be a foundation club but were turned down in 1908 for not having enough registered players. Where does 42 years come from? We are almost as old as your merkin club, and we didn't evolve out of a rugby union club either unlike most of the "foundation" clubs.
1921-1998=78 seasons +11 more merged c!ck sucker, and we weren't booted from the comp ever either! Noone marched because it was a strategic move merging. People felt bad about it but it was the right decision. Same thing happened with Balmain and Wests.
Yeah take the 20? how about the 15 we have won, not to mention 11 in a row. And if you take the other tack that we are merged and they don't count, well we have been around for less time than the Cowboys, Warriors and Sharks. How are those trophy cabinets? How many finals series and grandfinals have we been in since our last win in 79? how many have the pathetic rabbits been in since 71? Hell, you were all jumping for joy just because you made the finals in 07! lol!
Those 12k crowds at the end were similar to the ones Norths, Balmain and Wests got before they disapeared or merged. It was the send off aspect, see them for the last time thing, definately not the quality of the pathetic football souths were playing.
W@nker.
