20 YEARS IN THE SADDLE NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 1995-2014 by Neil Cadigan, details how the Cowboys got their licence and why they signed with Super League.
Here's a snippet from page 41.
"An agreement, as requested by the NSWRL after pressure from other clubs, to pay not only for the travel of the Cowboys to away games but also visiting clubs to Townsville, a prohibitive cost estimated at about $800,000 a year."
Here's some snippets from pages 44-45.
Revised applications from the three aspirating clubs (North Queensland, Brisbane and Perth) were due to be lodged by 31 October 1993, to be viewed initially by the premiership policy committee of Peter Moore (chairman, from the Canterbury club), Quayle, John Ribot (Brisbane Broncos), Bob Millward (Illawarra) Denis Fitzgerald (Parramatta), Paul Cross and Paul Harrison (both independent), before going to the directors Arthurson, Quayle, Bellew, Moore, Terry Parker (South Sydney), Laurie Doust, and independent businessmen George Gaines and Graham Lovett. With the league demanding confirmation of a lease agreement in writing by 31 October, the Cowboys had mere weeks to pull off a coup with an agreement between the Townsville and Thuringowa councils to enter a joint venture with the state government and Top End to fund and develop The Willows, finally confirming the Cowboys' ability to provide a Winfield Cup-standard stadium.
The premiership policy committee had recommended only one of the three teams be admitted to join the Warriors, even though all applications passed their inspection. On 30 November, the board met and the media gathered outside the league's headquarters at 61 Phillip Street, Sydney, waiting for word. After each had provided their final presentations, seated throughout the bars downstairs waiting for one of the game's most momentous decisions were Boustead, McLean and mayor of Townsville Tony Mooney; Crushers chairman Dick Turner; and Perth Pumas chairman Laurie Puddy and CEO-elect Gordon Allen.
The Crushers were the media favourites, the Cowboys ranked outsiders and the Pumas the wild card, with it known that the television rights holder, Kerry Packer's Channel 9, was keen to exploit the extra TV programming the west coast time zone would provide.
No one outside the meeting room that day had any inkling about what would happen next: all three teams were admitted, giving the game a 20-team competition. It was a massive shock.
Quayle provides an insight into what occurred. "Ken rang me early the morning the board was going to make a decision and he said, 'Mate, would there be any reason why we couldn't go now with four teams rather than two? Would they be ready now?' I'd suggested to him that plans were always to go to 20 teams over a period of time, but the premiership policy committee had said to admit two and in two years' time we'd look at it again. I said as far as I'm concerned there's no problem in bringing forward that decision. We'd looked at all three applications, and you couldn't split them as far as enthusiasm and the main issues. Perth wasn't a league area but we were looking to the future and had just started to play some games in Perth with good results. We knew what Brisbane was like, we were wary about New Zealand but had admitted them on the strength of their application; we'd made the decision we wanted to expand for television and exposure of the game in New Zealand.
"It was a unanimous decision to admit all three. It was the end of the Winfield sponsorship, but we were in the throes of good television revenue, we knew Channel 9 would support Perth. Initially, we were favouring Auckland and the Crushers and not Perth and North Queensland. It was a very big decision for the league, and a very big decision for North Queensland."
Here's a snippet from page 100.
"It was essentially a business battle that was all about accessing rugby league as a "product" to gain pay-television subscribers. It split the sport in two in such a bitter way that thousands of dedicated fans walked away. Its repercussions were felt far away, and certainly in North Queensland, where the biggest casualty was the Cowboys' favourite son, Kerry Boustead.
Yet both sides of the "Super League war" concede that without the club's board siding with News Limited's Super League campaign, the Cowboys may not have survived. Even the league's boss at the time, John Quayle, who will never forgive the Cowboys directors' lack of loyalty by walking away after he had so supportively facilitated their entry into the Winfield Cup, will now admit that, as a financial decision, he understood why it was made.
Another snippet from page 104.
There was speculation that Boustead was prompted by the ARL to resign and was financially induced. Subsequent to his resignation he was asked by the ARL to promote rugby league in North Queensland and was asked to investigate establishing a rival to a Super League Cowboys out of Cairns. The ARL continued to pay his existing wage until he found alternate employment.
"John Quayle asked me what I wanted and I said I just want to keep my own wage until I could get something else, probably just a few months," said Boustead. "At first he said, 'Go to Cairns and look into starting a side up there,' but it wasn't going to work; Townsville was the right place in North Queensland."
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The Cowboys, through McLean and Taylor, negotiated News Limited to become a 50 per cent shareholder in the club, and to pay off its existing debts and $5 million to further development of the stadium.
Snippets from page 105.
Bell and a handful of players were recruited the weekend of the round four clash with Canberra In Townsville, the infamous "April Fools' weekend" during which News unleashed its raid and signed the Raiders in bulk while in Townsville for the round four clash. Most other Cowboys players signed alluring deals during a visit by Super League boss John Ribot and recruiter Michael O'Connor the following weekend when the Brisbane Broncos were in town.
On the first weekend, News negotiator David Smith travelled to Townsville to essentially sign up the Raiders at the same time that other News appointees, with almost military precision, were despatched around the country on a secret signing mission to capture players from Cronulla and Reds (in Perth), Broncos (in Brisbane), Canterbury and Auckland (Sydney) and Canberra (Townsville). Newcastle Knights players were to follow. It would become known as the April Fools' weekend blitzkrieg.
...
Bell said he was told Tim Sheens had recommended him to News and he had to sign before he left the room if he wanted to join Super League, and they handed him a $10,000 cheque as an incentive. But he refused to sign and called his father and told them he wanted to discuss it with him and his accountant, Michael Searle (later founding managing director of Gold Coast Titans), and think about it overnight. Despite the intimidation, Bell focussed on that night's game against the Raiders but signed the next day.
He said Smith told him that News wanted to get the Cowboys but it wasn't crucial, and if the club did not align itself with Super League News would set up a franchise in Cairns. However, they wanted to sign four or five Cowboys players and asked who he recommended. Bell's memory is a little vague but the five players who signed that weekend were reputed to be Dean Schifilliti, Jason Martin, Adrian Vowles, Ian Russell and Wayne Sing, who would end up being the highest paid Super League defectors.
Bell says he never cashed the incentive cheque of $10,000 and still has it. He couldn't fully explain why he instinctively did so (obviously once he cashed it, it could be argued the deal was legally binding) but for him it was about doing the right thing for the Cowboys and following the opportunity Super League provided, rather than financial incentive.
"The decision was very much about making sure the club stayed; we had great beliefs about the club," said Bell.
Snippets from page 107.
"When News couldn't get numbers they then courted the Cowboys," said Quayle. "Ron McLean and Barry Taylor were the two who led them to switch very quickly.
"I thought it was a done deal because of Ron McLean's relationship with News. It was a hard thing to swallow and we were so shattered in the basis that we'd spent three or four years of my time and doing some pretty hard work to bring them in, and they didn't give us a chance. Ken said in the end, 'Fight for the ones who are going to be loyal,' but it was tough no matter what
"There is no doubt that the Cowboys were struggling for money, and if News went to them and said, 'Don't worry, we'll underwrite the costs,' then in many cases it was a very easy decision for them in that situation. But they would never have got in without us and the support we gave them, and how we stuck with them, and that's what annoyed me.
...
"Their association with News kept them going [after the NRL was formed at the end of 1997]. Perth were brushed quickly, and then Adelaide. Would the Cowboys have stayed alive without News? Well, a lot of clubs wouldn't have. Once the Raiders, Cowboys and Broncos were funded by News, it kept them going as they were guaranteed $5 million a year for five years. There can't be criticism of News from the Cowboys' point of view because they certainly could not have survived in a two-tier competition without that backing, and they were headed for the second tier in the initial News proposal." said Quayle.
