Thats why our club needs to become something. We are just a club exactly the same as the other 15. Though some of the clubs are about something....Brisbane are the brisbane club play in front of 40k get away with what ever you like etc. Melbourne are the winning club, Roosters are something but I cant work out what. We are just one of nine sydney clubs. Essentially if I was Brown I'd be looking around as well.
We have no identity at all.
We could become: the smart club, the educated club (you have to be enrolled at uni), the entertainers, the elite club (well dress, well spoken, in vogue magazine), the multi cultural club....
I was hoping we were going to hold off on a jersey sponsor until something classy came along but we always end up with a 2bit developer.
Another good comment. When Parramatta first came into the competition in 1947, they were known as 'The Cherry-Pickers' because there were a lot of fruit orchards around Parramatta at that time. Don't know what their identity was beyond that. Most, if not all, Sydney clubs were representative of the working class and were 'battlers'. I suppose in those days Parramatta was 'way out west, so we were probably almost seen as a country team. Possibly a bunch of hicks.
Then came the sixties, and Parramatta were 'The Millionaires', believe it or not. We were the richest club in Sydney. Also for a period of the sixties we were known as 'The Easybeats' (for obvious reasons). So our identity during the sixties was that of very wealthy under-achievers. In fact, you could say that, for the first thirty years of our existence, right up until the late seventies, Parramatta were losers and under-achievers. And for a good number of those years I think we were looked upon as pretty much of a basket case. That was our identity - despite having a good smattering of representative players in our ranks over the years.
Then, between about 1975 til about 1980, we became renowned for our toughness and resilience and no-frills, never-say-die attitude under coaches like Ian Walsh and Norm Provan. And we started winning. We were battlers. We played a no-nonsense brand of football and were seen as honest toilers who deserved the success we achieved. We were 'the good guys' and were probably the most popular team in the competition.
Then came the 80's - and we were suddenly the super team with the super coach. But we were still the 'good guys'. No longer the battlers (that title went to Western Suburbs - and to a lesser extent, Newtown and Norths.
Then, of course, as the eighties ended, we became under-achievers again. We've been pretty much under-achievers for most of the last thirty years. At times we've been a basket case again; riddled with factional in-fighting, poor recruitment/retention, and a succession of coaches hired and fired in desperation. 'Poor old Parramatta' seems to have been our identity for most of the last thirty years. In fact you could probably say that Parramatta have been incredible under-achievers for about 45 of the seventy odd years of our existence. We've only really had a ten year period from around 1976 to 1986 where we really shone as a club. And some of the Smith years, of course. We are possibly the least successful club in the history of the game. That, I'm afraid, has been our identity for a large part of our existence.
So, what does Parramatta stand for, now? Mediocrity? Unable to compete with the big boys when it comes to TPA's, buying star players, getting the top-line coaches; unable to be competitive from one year to the next? (And the ultimate humility of being caught cheating the salary cap, but still having no real on-field success.) We aren't the good guys anymore - we're the stupid guys.
I don't know what Parramatta is going to stand for going into the future. I've been lucky enough to live through some of the years when to be a Parra fan actually meant something - integrity, honesty, hard work, flair, flamboyance, etc, etc, etc.
I hope we get there again.
