To the juicy/controversial part of what I wanted to reply to (but haven't had the time until now). Long rant coming up:
The NRL screwed up a lot back then, if the Bears were to be eliminated, Manly should have maintained the North Shore and Central Coast as part of our territory. The Bears are gone though, so the NRL has to work with what it has, which is Manly. Introducing another team that will lean heavily on Sydney is stupidity, especially when Brisbane is screaming out for a second team, as is NZ and Perth. If the Bears moved the bid to Christchurch, they'd be an almost auto-inclusion, they're wasting their time bidding out of where they are.
The northern eagles should have remained or
Neither side should have got the license until a tender process to run all rugby league and the nrl franchise on the north shore northern beaches and central coast was complete.
The northern beaches does not deserve a franchise on its own, blind Freddy can see that.
That said it was manly fans who abandoned the joint franchise and manly who cut the neck on a joint venture arrangement which already favoured them.
Fully agree there, which is why the CC Bears bid was/is doomed from the outset. The NRL isn't going to cut Manly, and they aren't going to add a club that could harm an existing club, I.e they aren't going to let a club take the North Shore and CC and let Manly stay isolated on the Northern Beaches, it'd mean a slow death for Manly and a permanent weight on the NRL, when they could instead give Manly the North Shore to grow into. The NRL f**ked up big time by allowing the merger to dissolve and the clubs return to their old territories, as the Bears technically still exist as a reserve grade club, so Manly can't do the same work they do on the Beaches on the North Shore, as it's still Bears territory. The Bears should have either been completely shut down and folded into Manly, or the Northern Eagles brand and territory should have been forced to live on. No one particularly liked it, but at least it wasn't the territory f**k up that exists now.
playing games at beat park?Does Floimo have any clue at all? This bid is just wasting people's time
The part in bold has been the main problem with the Bears expansion bid all along: the geographical location they have defined they represent. I 100% agree with all of the posts I have quoted above
If the Bears expansion bid SOLELY was focused on representing the Central Coast (i.e. their identity was as a team from the CENTRAL COAST, and not just another Sydney team), they'd have a slightly better chance of convincing ppl on the NRL board at the next expansion talks. This would mean that the North Shore was NOT apart of CC Bears territory (i.e. CC Bears would be a completely new identity, not just a reincarnation of the old North Sydney Bears). The minute you start talking about reconnecting with the North Shore and furthermore, playing a couple of games at North Sydney Oval etc., the bid is immediately screwed then and there. You straight away make yourself look like a Sydney team under the banner of 'Central Coast' Bears. They will never be able to incorporate the North Shore in the team's geographical area ( North Sydney Bears territory) because of what reanimate said: the Sea Eagles - who'd then be strictly confined to the small strip of the Northern Beaches - would die in sea of red ink. Also, the Bears would be able to tap into a lot of sponsorship dollars in the North Shore with all the big businesses there. The NRL will never allow an expansion bid that will put an inevitable death sentence on another NRL side.
Yes, it's sad. The NRL screwed up big time back in the late '90s, but unfortunately we can't go back in a time machine to that period to redo the mistakes of the past. Yes, the SL-war did a lot of damage, but the way the rationalisation process was conducted by the NRL post-SL war was even more damaging and something that receives far less attention than the SL-war. As I said, by reducing the competition from 20 to 14 teams and thereby trying to do what would've taken at least a decade of careful planning and rationalisation work in only two years (1998/99) was never going to end well. As a result, more than 50% of those old Bears fans are lost to the game (as in, NRL) and have either moved on to another sport, or are only interested in their NSW Cup side. It's a bitter pill for the Bears fans to swallow when as a part of the rationalisation process, the NRL introduced the controversial stadia criteria, and thus deemed that North Sydney Oval was not up to standard to host first-grade matches there (hence leading to the building of what was then known as Grahame Park in Gosford), only to then allow Souths to play a couple of home matches there in 2004/05. That was a big kick in the guts. The sad thing about the merger is this:
http://afltables.com/rl/crowds/north_sydney_vn.html
http://afltables.com/rl/crowds/brookvale_vn.html
Back in 1994, you can see that North Sydney was averaging 15,116/match and Manly was averaging 14,860/match. That's about 30,000 fans/home match across those two areas. Likewise, I can say the same thing about the St George/Illawarra merger. At their peak, the sum of the two average home crowds for those two areas have been larger than the average of the merged entity. That's one aspect of the game that hasn't been addressed and hasn't improved since 1994 (in regards to those who ask the question is the game better today than it was in 1994).
Regarding the Northern Eagles and papabear's post, it was a mistake to let Manly hold the power and let the license revert back to Manly Sea Eagles if the joint venture dissolved. That was always going to end on a sour note, and a matter of time before Manly were back as a stand-alone entity. That is like your parents buying you and your brother a Toyota Corolla to share, but you are the one who will get a brand new BMW if for whatever reason the Toyota gets damaged. Therefore, with you holding the balance of power in that situation, there is an incentive for you to sabotage or damage the Toyota. It was always a disaster to merge what was undoubtedly the biggest Sydney rivalry in league (bigger than Eels vs Bulldogs).
And I know a lot of ppl on this forum hate Manly. However, speaking seriously, I honestly don't know how much longer they can continue playing at Brookvale Oval. It is a run-down dump that isn't going to get any government funding anytime soon since it's in a safe electoral seat. I'm not one of the ones saying on this forum and the media that the Sydney teams should exclusively play out of Allianz/ANZ just like the Melbournian AFL sides exclusively play out of MCG/Etihad. That will never happen, as those AFL sides in Melbourne are more centrally located to the city and have much better public transporation compared to the NRL sides in Sydney that are more geographically spread out with lack of public transportation (e.g. getting to Brookvale from the city other than catching the L90 bus is nearly impossible). I am for suburban grounds if they are up to standard, but sadly Brookvale and other grounds like Leichhardt Oval aren't and with Balmain Tigers recently surrendering the lease of Leichhardt Oval, the future of Leichhardt Oval is also looking perilous. Yes, it is a beautiful sight when those suburban grounds are packed to the rafters with a 18-20k crowd on a sunny Sunday afternoon, but in the 21st century where those grounds are not up to standard, it's going to really bite into revenue if you get weather conditions like yesterday in Sydney. The large hill areas on those grounds become a mudbath and the only ones who will brave the atrocious conditions are the 5-6k diehard supporters....it's not a good look on tv, and it's not a good look for the clubs bottom line. All Sydney suburban grounds should be up to standard and have capacity of 25k max. Sadly, with the economy going crap and governments reluctant to hand out funding unless it's for venues that have multiple tennants, the millions of dollars that'd be required to renovate those suburban grounds to the specifications I stated is not going to happen anytime soon.
Finally, it looks like a decade of strong performances from the club could be coming to an end for Manly when Foran and Cherry-Evans leave at end of season. They've got a long rough road or rebuilding ahead of them if their form reverts back to what it was in 2003/04 before Des Hasler turned the side around and making the finals 10yrs in a row (2005-14). There will be more problems if their crowds regularly go back to the sub-10k that they were getting pre-2005. Something's going to have to give way sooner or later. A 1-4 start to the season isn't making anything better.
