Oh I dunno, the Balmain and former Western Suburbs districts.
FFS. You're proposing that we arbitrarily decide upon a new location, as long as it is somewhere in the West and slightly closer to the city. Any suggestions? Why would we abandon Campbelltown if it already has the foundations of a decent ground? Do you actually think the NRL and state govt would approve of us spurning the $20m Campbelltown investment only to move down the road?
Your rhetoric doesn't really work when applied to most Sydney clubs, particularly the Panthers. Financially, yes, they are in a strong position, but they've hardly managed to build up a committed support base despite 40 years in the area and 2 premierships in that time.
I only use the example of Penrith because it provides insight into how a South West Sydney team may struggle. Penrith has a burgeoning population of young low-income families that have recently moved to the area. At first there was a general expectation that these new families would immediately embrace the local side, but no one took account of the loyalties these people had to their old teams. Naturally, interest in the Panthers piqued when they won the GFs but the ensuing decline on each occasion exposed a fickle support base. Obviously the Wests Tigers would have the benefit of pre-existing support, although I'm highly sceptical that the majority of current fans would be as ardent in their support of a team based entirely in the South West.
Do you remember Oasis? In short, the Bulldogs would have had a 35k state of the art stadium ideally located in Liverpool partly funded by the government and significantly funded by Maq Bank. If you actually bothered to read my postings instead of twisting your knickers, you'll know I think that we should have made a move like this a long time ago.
Obviously the current climate will make any such private investment a lot more difficult, but this is a long term project. Doing nothing is stupidity. Wasting yet another 20mil that no one will even notice is beyond my comprehension.
Proposing to stay at Leichhardt is just as stupid as proposing to go back to Lidcombe. Both are decrepid and below standard as top-flight sporting venues. Campbelltown is little better, despite it's more convenient ease of access. I think there is a place in RL for such grounds, but not in a successful NRL. We will never be a big club playing out of a loss-making suburban park.
Liverpool is far from "down the road", making me think you have little or no comprehension of what I'm actually suggesting. In my opinion, it's the perfect compromise in a difficult situation between the Macarthur and the locations of our many scattered fans due to its location and transport links.
More to the point, if we do commit to an area such as this, then we will have a genuine home ground we can call our own, top-class facilities and affordable memberships.
Penrith and Parra continue to fail because of inadequate management. Appointment of incompetent coaching staff has seen to this. Under decent coaches they both made GFs and attracted enormous support. At least they have homes to pack out when winning, despite being unable to maintain any sort of form or promote the clubs in any positive way.
I agree with the difficulties of developing a long-term committed supporter base from the local area. I don't believe it's an issue that could harm us if we didn't succede in the medium term (after an initial boom), because our scattered supporter base will support us anywhere accessible... as they do now.
The benefit of developing local support, in combination with our general supporters is that we will become a much larger club, capable of filling a medium sized venue. The population area we would target, along with bandwagon support would mean we'd need only a fraction of people to get along.
But we'll just keep playing out of local parks and whinging when we have to go to areas outside our heartland.
