Manly and Easts both have issues. Easts have a limited population and little room for expansion in the eastern suburbs for juniors, low membership numbers. Manly has financial issues, home ground issues, crowd issues and less than great membership numbers.
2 clubs with different weaknesses that could make each other stronger by merging. And it would make sense that they merge because they and their bases are near each other.
Also it would be convenient for the rest of us because we could all hate 1 club instead of two different clubs, merging the Eastern Suburbs snobs with the Manly snobs would be awesome for the teams involved, and for all their haters.
Actually, as petty as the basis for this arguement is it actually makes alot of sense. Manly and the Roosters ARE the most hated clubs and they have alot in common. As a Roosters fan, I also find that Manly supporters tend to be a pretty decent bunch and have many good friends that are Manly fans. Merging our teams means we have the East of Sydney covered from Maroubra to Palm Beach. I like the idea in many respects.
The major problem is that East and North just don't seem to see eye to eye when it comes to travelling. People in the East see the other side of the Harbour bridge as being another planet. It always amazed me that the vast majority of Eastern Suburbs people appear to believe that Vaucluse is closer to the City than North Sydney is.
The Manly peninsula is remote due to road access and unless there is a rail link from the Peninsula to the City, merging Manly and Easts wouldn't really get support from the fans of the teams. Easts fans wouldn't travel to the Peninsula so Brookvale couldn't be the stadium,and few Manly fans ever make the trip to the SFS, so I doubt that would work either. I am assuming that the SFS would be the stadium and by merging our clubs you'd just end up killing Manly. That's probably not the worst thing in the World for Easts, but for League it wouldnt be good at all. The peninsula would just become soccer territory and Rugby League in that area would cease to exist.
Give the Peninsula a proper rail link to the City and easy access to the SFS and I have no problem with this ideal. But the traditionalists of both clubs would rail at the idea and with the Roosters proud history (something Souths pointed out for years) I can hardly blame them. After all, ours is the only club to have played in every Premiership as a single entity and a merger means this would end.
I would be happier with accepting a merger as long as Souths merged with Cronulla. After all, we wouldn't want Souths fans in the future pointing to the fact that they're the only remaining Foundation club standing on their own four paws.
If Souths accept that - I'd accept merging with Manly.
