Henson Park Hornets
Juniors
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Great article in today's Herald about our beloved Blue boys.
http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/striking-cold-gold/2007/06/28/1182624085133.html
Striking cold gold
Andrew Webster | June 29, 2007
AH, the good old days. We look back at them as better times yet we gloss over the detail. For instance, KB is remembered as an iconic drop of beer but we forget it went out of mass production for a reason. Because it tastes like cat's urine.
Whatever you do, don't tell the blessed souls knocking back the gold cans on the hill at Henson Park. They like their KB just as it is, thanks very much. And their home ground. And their footy team: the Newtown Jets, founded 1908.
League's lost its heart, has it? Well, it was to be found last Saturday at the nondescript footy ground tucked away in the back streets of Marrickville, right under the flight path.
For it's here where you can buy a real steak sandwich, let the kids run wild on the hill, scream at the referee to get 'em onside, feel like you've slipped back in time, remember those good old days when the game meant something.
After being turfed from the NSWRL competition in 1983, the Jets didn't field a team until 1990 when it returned to Metro Cup. They've played in the premier league since 2000.
In that time, the Jets have realised the value in its retro ambience, the street cred of its unblemished jersey and being precisely what the NRL is not.
"It's cool to support Newtown - it's become a fashion item," proclaims Barry Vining, club president since 1986 and director since 1980. "You have three beers at the Henson Park hotel then go stand on the hill with your mates and drink a few KBs while watching the footy.
"We realise who we are and what we represent."
He adds: "The only way we'd go to the NRL is if John Singleton relocated us to the Central Coast and called us the Jets."
Matt Nable realises who Newtown is about, too.
A former Manly first-grader, he wrote the first draft of the The Final Winter 10 years ago while playing in the north of England.
The film, which received overwhelming response at the Sydney Film Festival last week and will be released on August 30, is about an old-school player struggling to come to terms with his club's move into the professional era in the early 1980s.
Nable plays the central figure, Mick "Grub" Henderson, and The Footy Show's Matthew Johns makes his big-screen debut as the coach, Jack Cooper - a perfect choice given his background as the son of a Cessnock coal miner and tough-as-nails back-rower.
A score of the game's legendary figures, including the Herald's Roy Masters, make cameo appearances.
"The story started as a memoir of my childhood when I would go to the footy at Brookvale on a Sunday arvo with my father," Nable says. "But the impetus for it as a screenplay became about the change in the game. People in rugby league are always talking about how it used to be."
But without question, the central character in The Final Winter is Newtown. "I looked at several clubs - Balmain, South Sydney, North Sydney, Western Suburbs," says Nable. "But Newtown was a perfect fit. I remembered going to Henson Park as a kid. The way the supporters were proud of their struggle; the way they wore it on their faces. They do the same thing now."
Last Saturday, Jets fans wore it on their faces as their boys took on Parramatta - a replay, of sorts, of the 1981 grand final.
The club had urged supporters to "beat the crowd" - the dubious attendance figure of 8972 the Jets announce for each home game.
Whether in the King George V Memorial Grandstand rubbing shoulders with former fullback Phil Sigsworth or happily lining up for gold cans under the scoreboard on the hill, the supporter base became diversified the more it swelled.
Fans in original Newtown jumpers with dreadlocks to their knees sat alongside families on blankets with cut lunches - both rare sights at NRL fixtures these days.
"Get 'em onside! Get off him!" yelled a punter, tongue-in-cheek. "What's the other one?" he whispers to his girlfriend next to him. "He's been doing it all day!"
While the NRL is in danger of taking itself very seriously, you cannot accuse Newtown of the same. That's not to say it lacks significance.
Father Dave Smith, an Anglican priest at Holy Trinity Church at Dulwich Hill, has supported Newtown for as long as he's been supporting the man upstairs. The crucifix dangling from his neck rests just inches from the Jets' emblem near his heart.
"As a parish priest, this is what I love," he says, pointing to the dozens of kids playing on the field at half-time. "Rugby league is not about being a business. It's not about being about the dollars. It's about being a game. About recreation. About life."
But that's not to say a loss doesn't hurt.
As the sun died, the Jets adhered to the Struggle St script: hauling back a half-time deficit; grabbing a one-point lead with minutes remaining; allowing Parramatta to snatch it with a late converted try.
But at Henson Park, defeat only leaves a sour taste in the mouth for so long because, thankfully, there's plenty of KB to wash it all away.
http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/striking-cold-gold/2007/06/28/1182624085133.html
Striking cold gold
Andrew Webster | June 29, 2007
AH, the good old days. We look back at them as better times yet we gloss over the detail. For instance, KB is remembered as an iconic drop of beer but we forget it went out of mass production for a reason. Because it tastes like cat's urine.
Whatever you do, don't tell the blessed souls knocking back the gold cans on the hill at Henson Park. They like their KB just as it is, thanks very much. And their home ground. And their footy team: the Newtown Jets, founded 1908.
League's lost its heart, has it? Well, it was to be found last Saturday at the nondescript footy ground tucked away in the back streets of Marrickville, right under the flight path.
For it's here where you can buy a real steak sandwich, let the kids run wild on the hill, scream at the referee to get 'em onside, feel like you've slipped back in time, remember those good old days when the game meant something.
After being turfed from the NSWRL competition in 1983, the Jets didn't field a team until 1990 when it returned to Metro Cup. They've played in the premier league since 2000.
In that time, the Jets have realised the value in its retro ambience, the street cred of its unblemished jersey and being precisely what the NRL is not.
"It's cool to support Newtown - it's become a fashion item," proclaims Barry Vining, club president since 1986 and director since 1980. "You have three beers at the Henson Park hotel then go stand on the hill with your mates and drink a few KBs while watching the footy.
"We realise who we are and what we represent."
He adds: "The only way we'd go to the NRL is if John Singleton relocated us to the Central Coast and called us the Jets."
Matt Nable realises who Newtown is about, too.
A former Manly first-grader, he wrote the first draft of the The Final Winter 10 years ago while playing in the north of England.
The film, which received overwhelming response at the Sydney Film Festival last week and will be released on August 30, is about an old-school player struggling to come to terms with his club's move into the professional era in the early 1980s.
Nable plays the central figure, Mick "Grub" Henderson, and The Footy Show's Matthew Johns makes his big-screen debut as the coach, Jack Cooper - a perfect choice given his background as the son of a Cessnock coal miner and tough-as-nails back-rower.
A score of the game's legendary figures, including the Herald's Roy Masters, make cameo appearances.
"The story started as a memoir of my childhood when I would go to the footy at Brookvale on a Sunday arvo with my father," Nable says. "But the impetus for it as a screenplay became about the change in the game. People in rugby league are always talking about how it used to be."
But without question, the central character in The Final Winter is Newtown. "I looked at several clubs - Balmain, South Sydney, North Sydney, Western Suburbs," says Nable. "But Newtown was a perfect fit. I remembered going to Henson Park as a kid. The way the supporters were proud of their struggle; the way they wore it on their faces. They do the same thing now."
Last Saturday, Jets fans wore it on their faces as their boys took on Parramatta - a replay, of sorts, of the 1981 grand final.
The club had urged supporters to "beat the crowd" - the dubious attendance figure of 8972 the Jets announce for each home game.
Whether in the King George V Memorial Grandstand rubbing shoulders with former fullback Phil Sigsworth or happily lining up for gold cans under the scoreboard on the hill, the supporter base became diversified the more it swelled.
Fans in original Newtown jumpers with dreadlocks to their knees sat alongside families on blankets with cut lunches - both rare sights at NRL fixtures these days.
"Get 'em onside! Get off him!" yelled a punter, tongue-in-cheek. "What's the other one?" he whispers to his girlfriend next to him. "He's been doing it all day!"
While the NRL is in danger of taking itself very seriously, you cannot accuse Newtown of the same. That's not to say it lacks significance.
Father Dave Smith, an Anglican priest at Holy Trinity Church at Dulwich Hill, has supported Newtown for as long as he's been supporting the man upstairs. The crucifix dangling from his neck rests just inches from the Jets' emblem near his heart.
"As a parish priest, this is what I love," he says, pointing to the dozens of kids playing on the field at half-time. "Rugby league is not about being a business. It's not about being about the dollars. It's about being a game. About recreation. About life."
But that's not to say a loss doesn't hurt.
As the sun died, the Jets adhered to the Struggle St script: hauling back a half-time deficit; grabbing a one-point lead with minutes remaining; allowing Parramatta to snatch it with a late converted try.
But at Henson Park, defeat only leaves a sour taste in the mouth for so long because, thankfully, there's plenty of KB to wash it all away.
