Would ya change your name to Eastern Sydney please?

[Lambretta]

Alternative names I would find acceptable

Eastern Suburbs
Easts
East Sydney

We are registered with the NRL (and it's previous incarnations) as the Eastern Suburbs Districts Rugby League Football Club, as we have been every single season since 1908.

The club however is sticking with Sydney Roosters as their name and I understand their reasons.
If we're ever going to grow we have to appeal to a generation of people who associate themselves as Sydney people. Using a name which holds us to a geographically tiny part of Sydney hampers that

I can live with the name Sydney as long as we have a badge which looks like RoosTah's avatar
That's the change we really need to make.

 

[Lambretta]

What is the demographic of Eastern Sydney? thought it was full of accountants, lawyers, bankers and teachers. Why shouldn't they watch more RL than fumbleball?

Dave has hit the nail on the head.

Australian Rules Football has it's strongest following in Sydney in the East and on the North Shore. I've lived in both areas and I see Swans items on a regular basis.

There are a lot of ex-Melbourne people who have come up for work and settled in those areas. Sydney is the Premier market for Law and Financial services and moving up from Melbourne has been common for 50 years. Those people bring their teams and their love of AFL. Their kids have grown up with the game but associate with Sydney and have taken to the code with the Swans.

On top of that, people in those areas have grown up with Football and Rugby Union as being dominant codes and participation rates are high. The schools favour Rugby Union but Football is also huge.

The North Shore doesn't have a Rugby League team, it's a vaccum, People have turned to AFL and the A-League since it's inception. There are few if any schools programs for Rugby League, although touch is played. Round my way I see Wallabies, Waratahs and Swans gear more than any other Australian sports gear.

In the East Rugby League whilst loved by some, is seen as a thug sport or people do follow it, but they don't attend games. My wife has three very good friends all from the Eastern Suburbs and their partners follow St George, Parramatta and Brisbane. I am the only Easts fan in the group. Of the four of us, I am the only one who goes to games on a regular basis. The Brisbane person (who grew up in Brisbane) attends Broncos v Roosters games at the SFS and watches them on TV most weeks. The other two (born and bred in the East) would possibly think about attending a Grand Final. This seems to be the norm rather than the exception in the East. A passing interest, occasional big game attendances and most don't even follow Easts.

My brother in law, born and bred in the East follows St George as do his three sons.

Can you think of any other part of Sydney where 80% of the people you know from an area follow teams from outside of that area? (If they follow anyone at all that is)

 

[rooster25]

Dave has hit the nail on the head.

Australian Rules Football has it's strongest following in Sydney in the East and on the North Shore. I've lived in both areas and I see Swans items on a regular basis.

There are a lot of ex-Melbourne people who have come up for work and settled in those areas. Sydney is the Premier market for Law and Financial services and moving up from Melbourne has been common for 50 years. Those people bring their teams and their love of AFL. Their kids have grown up with the game but associate with Sydney and have taken to the code with the Swans.

On top of that, people in those areas have grown up with Football and Rugby Union as being dominant codes and participation rates are high. The schools favour Rugby Union but Football is also huge.

The North Shore doesn't have a Rugby League team, it's a vaccum, People have turned to AFL and the A-League since it's inception. There are few if any schools programs for Rugby League, although touch is played. Round my way I see Wallabies, Waratahs and Swans gear more than any other Australian sports gear.

In the East Rugby League whilst loved by some, is seen as a thug sport or people do follow it, but they don't attend games. My wife has three very good friends all from the Eastern Suburbs and their partners follow St George, Parramatta and Brisbane. I am the only Easts fan in the group. Of the four of us, I am the only one who goes to games on a regular basis. The Brisbane person (who grew up in Brisbane) attends Broncos v Roosters games at the SFS and watches them on TV most weeks. The other two (born and bred in the East) would possibly think about attending a Grand Final. This seems to be the norm rather than the exception in the East. A passing interest, occasional big game attendances and most don't even follow Easts.

My brother in law, born and bred in the East follows St George as do his three sons.

Can you think of any other part of Sydney where 80% of the people you know from an area follow teams from outside of that area? (If they follow anyone at all that is)

Sorry mate have to disagree with you on a few points here but you are right on many.As a born and bred Eastern Subs boy I agree the Eastern Subs has changed dramatically with many young locals moving South or North because of cost and many Mel families moving in and AFL becoming big however I still find RL and the Roosters a massive part of the community.

I went to Waverley college and and even though it was a RU school, hardly any schools in the East are RL, all the kids followed RL and Easts religiously. I'm only 36 and all my mates follow Easts still and we still attend games. My cousin goes there now and he says the same. You still see kids walking everywhere in the East wearing Roosters gear so I never see a problem.

Yes the NRL do nothing to promote the game in the East or help the Roosters even though they play in the toughest market in sport. How they couldn't get into the Catholic and private school system in the East since 1908 yet AFL paid them money in 2014 and got straight in is beyond me. The Roosters need help but the NRL just care about the West of Sydney.

The Roosters are still the Eastern Subs team and the community love them but to get more support they need to incorporate East back into the name. Eastern Sydney Roosters is my pick

 

[H.H]

From what I've observed you're 100% correct R25. Sorry lambretta, can't agree with anything you said there.

 

[Lambretta]

From what I've observed you're 100% correct R25. Sorry lambretta, can't agree with anything you said there.

I must just know the wrong Eastern Suburbs types

They're either not Rugby League people or they follow other teams - I have to say that the vast majority off people I know from the East are middle / upper class Jewish people. They tend to follow Union or AFL if they follow anything at all

I know a couple of working class boys from Bondi / Waverley and they're both Roosters

 

[H.H]

Yeah depends who you know I guess. I grew up in Bronte right through the 80's and lived there until 2004. while many have had to move away (including me), quite a few remain.

My parents still live there and I was actually there this morning and took the kids to the beach. Saw a decent number of rooster caps etc, (more so than other teams/codes - saw none) down there which is pretty normal when I'm there.

All anecdotal but I haven't seen anything that tells me we're being overrun as the areas main team.

 

[rabbitohs95]

As a bloke who went to school around Maroubra I can tell you now the split between Rabbitohs and Roosters fans is 50/50.

The affluent areas like Rose Bay and Vaucluse mightn't have much rugby league, but the areas like Maroubra, Coogee, even Little Bay and Malabar have a healthy amount of Chooks there.

The only real problem is that the Roosters tend to have 3 good years and then 3 bad years so supporters usually follow the trend.

In the last decade the club went from missing the finals 3 years in a row (05-07), making the top 4 (08), coming last (09), making the grand final (10), missing the finals 2 years in a row (11-12), taking out the premiership and winning three consecutive minor premierships (13-15) to now coming second last (16)

Now while I understand that every club goes through these stages, I find the Roosters are very inconsistent at being consistent and you just don't know what you're gonna get. That and the threat of AFL and Rugby Union as well as Soccer hasn't helped, but as a whole the Roosters do well for themselves. They've got a loyal core and a good brains trust and plenty of money so I don't think they're under any threat, they've just got some competition.

 

[H.H]

Yeah that up down sh*t really bugs me.

We had basically rubbish from 1983 - 1995, making the finals once in that time. Then 9 years straight of finals with Freddie from 1996 - 2004.

So all consistent periods until then but real roller coaster since. Will take it over that '83 - '95 period though, that was depressing and set the club back years.

Agree on the split of supporters too. Been in mascot a bit lately and really surprised at how much rooster gear and stickers etc you see around there.

 

[Foreign Legion]

I'd like to see the roosters get more fans to games we should be averaging 16,000 a game at least...

 

[rooster25]

As a bloke who went to school around Maroubra I can tell you now the split between Rabbitohs and Roosters fans is 50/50.

The affluent areas like Rose Bay and Vaucluse mightn't have much rugby league, but the areas like Maroubra, Coogee, even Little Bay and Malabar have a healthy amount of Chooks there.

The only real problem is that the Roosters tend to have 3 good years and then 3 bad years so supporters usually follow the trend.

In the last decade the club went from missing the finals 3 years in a row (05-07), making the top 4 (08), coming last (09), making the grand final (10), missing the finals 2 years in a row (11-12), taking out the premiership and winning three consecutive minor premierships (13-15) to now coming second last (16)

Now while I understand that every club goes through these stages, I find the Roosters are very inconsistent at being consistent and you just don't know what you're gonna get. That and the threat of AFL and Rugby Union as well as Soccer hasn't helped, but as a whole the Roosters do well for themselves. They've got a loyal core and a good brains trust and plenty of money so I don't think they're under any threat, they've just got some competition.

You are spot on and thanks for talking sense. It's my biggest hate when people say Easts have no fans when we all know they have a very large fan base. When I was growing up the Roosters were so big from watsons bay to Coogee yet so many people have had to move south that you know see a complete spilt between Easts and Souths fans in the places you mentioned. I was very surprised when I moved to Malabar and saw Easts fans everywhere.

I now live in the shire and the amount of Roosters and Rabbitohs fans here is amazing.. Don't get me wrong obviously sharks are huge here but Easts and Souths fans are everywhere here.

 

[rooster25]

Yeah that up down sh*t really bugs me.

We had basically rubbish from 1983 - 1995, making the finals once in that time. Then 9 years straight of finals with Freddie from 1996 - 2004.

So all consistent periods until then but real roller coaster since. Will take it over that '83 - '95 period though, that was depressing and set the club back years.

Agree on the split of supporters too. Been in mascot a bit lately and really surprised at how much rooster gear and stickers etc you see around there.

Like you and Rabbitoh 85 I couldn't agree more. We need to be more consistent every year and not have these 3 amazing years followed by bottom of the table years them back to the top and so on.. It does nothing to build and maintain a fan base.

I remember in the Freddy years we never missed the semis. You turned up every game knowing we could and should win. Was nothing back then to get over 20k for a Fri night game. Would be amazed if we got that now...

 

[Foreign Legion]

clubs bang on about needing more money.... but if they promoted their clubs better and had a goal to average 16,000 people a game, they would get more money and people would buy more merchandise....
More people = Better sponsorship deals/ more money