Giants/Seagulls/Chargers drew shit but I somehow doubt you'd hold that against the Titans, in fact, you don't later on.
Giants/Seagulls were a NSW club, based in Tweed Heads. That's in NSW. Its inclusion in the metropolitan Gold Coast area is tenuous at best and doesn't reflect the cultural divide between people from Gold Coast and Tweed, hence the reason the Giants were called Gold Coast-Tweed.
They were an above average club who never even played in a grand final lol. Hardly the bloody Raiders, not even St George tier.
They regularly played in the finals and had a very strong roster. South Sydney have only played in one GF since 2015, but they've been heavyweights over the last four years.
Several, as you point out later on.
Bullshit!
They only beat the Reds, Rams and Crushers when it was evident those teams were going to be culled, so fans gave up. Ignoring this factor would be as disingenuous as claiming North Sydney's poor crowds in 1999 is proof they only had 8,500 fans.
Excuses Excuses mate.
Seagulls Stadium was in the Gold Coast Metro area, imagine letting an imaginary line stopping you from supporting the only top-flight team that has ever existed in your city lol.
It wasn't in the City of Gold Coast and wasn't even in the state of Queensland. If you think the average Queenslander wants to be associated with a team from New South Wales then you don't have a clue. It was also a poor team that sat at the bottom of the ladder throughout its existence.
The only Queenslanders who bothered to travel over the border were the old buggers who wanted to have a spin on the pokies when gaming machines were prohibited at licenced venues in Queensland. Once they were legalised up here Tweed Heads Leagues went bust because they no longer had Queenslanders willing to travel into their hillbilly town.
The Chargers didn't have much support as they inherited a shit squad from the lowly Seagulls.
So a club that was the second best side of the era outdrew Norths on 6 of the 10 seasons that make up the 1990s?
That's ahh...hardly the ringing endorsement you think it is mate.
Look at the stats. Bears drew 710 extra fans in 1991, no doubt boosted by having fans from 10 other Sydney clubs travelling to NSO to see their teams play North Sydney. The Raiders couldn't rely on travelling fans and were in a small regional city. The other three times Bears best the Raiders was during the Super League years. Fans in Brisbane and Canberra turned away from the game. In the time period we're talking about the Raiders won in 1990 and 1994. In the other years they weren't much better on the field than the Bears.
1990 Raiders 13542 vs 9858
1991 Bears 15297 vs 14587
1992 Raiders 11103 vs 10500
1993 Raiders 14569 vs 12264
1994 Raiders 17392 vs 15116
1995 Raiders 15683 vs 11514
1996 Bears 10963 vs 10440
1997 Bears 11713 vs 11622
1998 Bears 11093 vs 9826
1999 Raiders 12057 vs 8566
Single year drops come up here a lot which is rather bizarre.
You seem to be cherrypicking single years out here to make your point. Well, I guess it's better than the outright falsehoods you were pointing out earlier lol.
I focussed on the 90s as that's when Bears consistently drew their best attendances.
Norths were one of the biggest clubs in terms of support in Sydney before getting the axe. Whether or not you like that doesn't mean you get to engage in make believe narratives about it mate lol.
They had no home ground and wanted to relocate to a regional city. The other regional club that was next to Sydney was the Steelers, who drew shit crowds, were destitute and merged with St George.
Of the two Sydney clubs that were north of the harbour, Manly were the most popular, drawing better attendances than the Bears in all years throughout the 90s except 1991, 1994 and 1998.
