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Mission Impossible

Hello I’m Andrew Denton part of that strange and contemptible breed known as the celebrity. But tonight’s story isn’t about show business it’s about something far more important - football. In particular the team I’ve supported since I was eight years old the magnificent South Sydney Rugby League Rabbitohs, the oldest winningest team in Rugby League. But tonight’s story isn’t even about the game itself; it’s about what happens off the field. An Australian community and team trying to keep its identity in the face of the corporate dollar and an attempt to squeeze a few more bucks out of Pay TV. You don’t have to follow football or understand the game to follow tonight’s story. It’s that old classic David and Goliath.

I don’t think I’ve even seen an issue in thirty years that has aroused the emotion in the streets, it’s the nearest and the dearest thing to their heart - Souths.

I am ninety-five years of age I joined South Sydney Football Club on the 15th June 1922. What upsets me is Rugby League was for the working class people and now they’re trying to put these teams out to competition for the silver tails.

I’ve been a Souths supporter since I was a little girl. I’m red and green. I’m one eyed. And I blame Mr. Murdoch for all of this. I’ll never buy his paper again. We go out, that’s it. I certainly wouldn’t have Foxtel.

How much control does Murdoch want? He’s a difficult, difficult adversary. He’s a difficult opponent because he has the money and he thinks you can rule the world with money. Well possibly you can but he’s not going to rule South Sydney.

I’d like to tell him where he could shove his money if I was in charge. You just give him lip service and you’re not a part of it. I’d rather say well we are men and we prefer to die on our feet than grovel for pieces of grandeur as far as being a merger.

A lot of high profile people who do support us Russell Crowe rang Tom Cruise and I think he’s made more money than anyone in the history of movies and to support us is great. You know they’re a battling club. Everybody has got a soft spot for them. We’re the people’s team and it would be a massive destruction of the game if they did move us out because it would break a lot of people’s hearts.

This will be the one last shot. If we don’t stand up now, however late in the day it may seem, then we’ll be gone forever.

I started supporting Souths in 1968 when I was eight years old. I still don’t know why I’m so passionate. I think it was because at the age of eight I loved their colours, and strangely enough I still love their colours. I care for the future of Souths because they’re my team because I love them, cos I love what they represent. I love their story. Sport is entertainment. Entertainment are stories and Souths are the best story I know in Rugby League. I love that story.

This bell was used at the first game of Rugby League between Souths and Easts at Birchgrove in 1908. The game was won by Souths 15-12 and the timekeeper was Son Fry. The reason Rugby League was started was because Rugby Union was an amateur game and trouble started up when one of the operators got injured. He was only an ordinary working man and he couldn’t afford to pay the Doctor’s bill. That is when Rugby League started off professional. They promised to pay each player two pound a week if he was injured. Souths was the second team to join. In fact I’ve got the receipt here somewhere. Well South Sydney has always been a football club for the workers. All working class people and during the Depression mostly out of work.

South Sydney had two players who used to sell rabbits from a cart. They go out in the suburb and sing out rabbitoh, rabbitoh and people would go out and buy a rabbit. They’d peel the rabbits. Cut the head off. Sometimes cut the legs, like want them chopped off. Outside jumped the dogs, the dogs used to follow the cart. That’s how they got the name of the Rabbitohs.

I feel very strongly for the community there. I just feel they represent something we pride ourselves on or believe we pride ourselves on. We’re so big on the ANZAC Legend and the tough Aussie that goes through tough times but sticks together. But ironically in an urban sense it exists in very few places and it certainly still exists in the South Sydney district.

There is a bit of a cliched saying that the Souths supporters are so tough they’d happily play a game of football with a brick on the road. You know, they don’t need the grass, they don’t need a football just us a brick we’ll throw that around. Well it’s kind of true and even for some of the team playing now by their own admission they would probably be on the wrong side of the law if it wasn’t for football.

A good example is Craig Coleman the coach. He started off as just a kid kicking around the district. He’s worked his way right through the ranks.

That’s all I wanted to do when I was a kid. I used to play for South Sydney and when I did make my first grade debut it was the greatest day in my life. A lot of my classmates finished in jail.

South Sydney give me that opportunity you know for which I’m very, very grateful for and you know, who knows, who knows, I’m not qualified to do anything else apart from football. A lot of kids were going off the rails, South Sydney gave them that opportunity.

When I was growing up, my father said to me so proudly "there’s two things that you’re doin’, you vote labour and you follow Souths." And to this day I haven’t departed from that advice.

I go to the junior games every Saturday when a representative side’s playing. Ah the Sunday I do it because I love doing it and my duty is to get with my committee members and assist on the grounds and you know we’re part of a team. We just don’t sit in a big boardroom and eat lobsters or something like some people think we do. We’re the grass roots, we love that. South Sydney Juniors and South Sydney Seniors are separate bodies. But basically we’re in the one family.

We have 160 teams that comprise our junior league. Age groups range from under sixers, which we call the nappy grade. The coaching staff, the managers, the trainers, the canteen workers, the raffle sellers and the mums and the dads who go out and support each of the clubs. It’s all done in an honorary capacity. That’s one of the great virtues.

What they do money couldn’t buy. The National Rugby League sitting in the plush offices wherever that may be at Moore Park wouldn’t have a clue. Wouldn’t have a clue what’s involved with the grassroots of Rugby League.

How old are you all. About twelve?

Our commitment goes way beyond the propagation of rugby league. We’re into the schools with a life education programmes.

Souths Juniors has as reputation of being the best run Junior development programme in the Country. They’ve got two full time developmental officers who go out into the schools and the players get out there on a daily basis or actually on a roster.

But I think the hardest thing or the most important thing is setting that goal in the first place.

Our Coach he often takes out a team out to Long Bay jail and has a game of touch football with some of the inmates. We go to boy’s Detention Centres, and speak to them also and play a game of touch football against them as well. So it’s a thing that spreads across not only the South Sydney District at times but out even further.

Oh it’s a fantastic club. They are. They’re terrific to everybody. They’re great to the sick children, the old people. They're, they’re just a terrific club. I’m 67 years of age. I used to work for this company and they told me I was too old shouldn’t be working, to go and get a pension. I’d worked for the company for 25 years. Souths knew I was a crazy fan and they offered me some volunteer work here. I come in here most days. It’s lovely working in here. Even though I don’t get paid, they appreciate what I do and that’s important to me. That’s made a big difference to my life. I was cranky; I was crying all the time. Now I’m happy, smiling and terrific. No longer going to a psychiatrist.

A lot of people have the misconception that our club here, South Sydney Junior Leagues Club is tied up with South Sydney Leagues Club. We’re not. We’re two separate organisations. I’d say we’re unique in this area because I doubt whether there’s any other Junior League that has a licence club such as ours.

Our Licence Club last year turned over in excess of forty-five million dollars. Proudly we say that our profit, out of that turnover, we’re a non-profit organisation, it goes back into the community. We have the top shows. Don Lane and even international artists for 2 bucks. We have nice restaurants. We have swimming polls, gymnasiums and thirty-five intra clubs were people can go if they’re lonely and meet up and play cards or learn French or do whatever. But at the end of the day this licence club was formed for the propagation of junior rugby league and sport in general. And there wouldn't be any organisation, amateur sporting organisation, in the South Sydney District, whether they be the surf clubs, the athletics, or any other movement like that, that doesn’t receive some financial support from us.

The other side of the fence we have South Sydney Leagues Club. It’s battling at this particular time but hopefully it’s going to come good.

We did get into trouble in the early seventies. We tried to do a major development and we went bankrupt and we’ve virtually never been able to fully recover from it.

The board and I’ve been there for the last ten years. Like keeping this football club alive for the last ten years has been something of a treat I’ll tell you. With the new criteria of the league the NRL’s established we’re going to need a lot more money, we’re falling a long way from the mark.

In the end it’s an entertainment game. Rugby League is entertainment for News Limited that’s what it’s about. If they see their potential audience being turned against them, that is a threat to them. That is as threatening to them as seeing five QC’s with a strong case in the High Court.

Group 14 got together about a year ago to inject some new ideas and energy into the club to help it survive what we realised was going to be a very ugly backlash after super league. Basically a concerted attempt, we believe to remove the club from competition if founded. Super league was effectively a war about Pay TV. Getting this sport on to Pay TV. I think Souths management has been behind the times for some time. I can see why Souths was targeted but that doesn’t make it right.

Well we went in there. We went in there with the idea in mind to get a business plan to get things moving, to find sponsorship money and all we ever met with was some form of resistance or something to slow us down.

What was there was a fiasco and nowhere to go. When we first walked in there they had no plan whatsoever as to what they were going to do. The only plan they had was that George and this guy were going to sue the NRL.

There is a perception out there that George is the hero of South Sydney. I agree with that. He’s a public image absolutely outstanding.

I’ve been perceived and I’ve been belted from here to La Peruse and back as being the villain by the stance that South Sydney Juniors have taken. But our stance has been a responsible. Last year there was a public spat between the juniors and the seniors. Mainly George and myself as both spokespeople. Like in any family, all families have squabbles from time to time but those squabbles are always sorted out. There was a difference of opinion on the involvement and the strength of the involvement in financial terms that the juniors could support our district club.

As far as I’m concerned Henry Morris is God. There’s no doubt about it. Henry Morris is without a doubt, they’ve run that… South Sydney Juniors is a magnificent place. They’ve shown how you run a place. How you do business. The seniors have never done that.

They were very pedantic about the way they did things and that of course came to the point where it necessitated the 14 group to convince them to change the board and let people come in with a higher profile, with better business skills. Henry wanted to see a real professional group of business people in there running it. The very minute that the board stepped down the money came to us. Just like that. And it was there. Next thing it was a press conference the next day and he pledged it to the year 2002.

I had a meeting with Henry the other day and Spoke to him about this.

It’s been extremely difficult. Like when your working with people for ten years, you got used to one another then all of a sudden you start working with politicians.

We have to make an informed decision about the structure.

I suppose to describe politicians is just like to describe like having a nagging wife. They berate you after you give up and unfortunately I’m not one of these people that give up. So we’ve had a few lively sessions but if they can raise the money I surely to God can put up with them.

We were contracted by the Number 14 Supporters Group from our previous experience both at SOCOG and with IMG. We run an independent marketing and management consultancy business and our brief initially was to go in there to assist to review an upgrade or make it contemporary the management practices at South Sydney also with a view to creating extra revenue streams.

Off the field this new Marketing Team they’ve got in here, they’re doing a very good job.

On the field we’re doing great. Last season we won four games.. This season we’ve won ten.

We’ve had a few injuries especially over the last few months of the season. We had eight or nine guys playing with needles and some were very very serious. A lot of them couldn’t train during the week. We haven’t got the depth of other clubs. We stick within the rules and stick by the salary cap where a lot of other clubs don’t I believe and they’ve got two first grade teams.

I kept asking these players to play and to their credit they turn up and get full of injections and playing. There are tough guys in this club.

I believe a lot of the other clubs, former Super League clubs are being propped up by the funding from Murdoch.

I think it is absolutely, totally, utterly ridiculous the amount of money that was being offered by Super League to some of these players. Anything up from half a million to three quarters of a million dollars per season. South Sydney would never do that.

We’ve always stood alone. We haven’t received one cent, nor would we want one cent from Murdoch and News Limited. Is money going to control everything in life? At least we’ve still got out dignity. We’re not in his pocket and we won’t be in his pocket.

One of the manifest unfairnesses of what’s happened is all the Rugby League Clubs are being asked to put forward their business situation to be judged apparently on the level playing field. A set of criteria had been designed. Souths said from day one, it’s a crock, it’s a crock. This is designed to get rid of us.

The Rugby League is 50% owned by News Limited so whether complicity or explicitly they will be involved when judging those criteria because it’s 50% their business. The problem with that is that News Limited Co-own five of the clubs. Now are you going to tell me that any of those clubs are remotely in danger under this process.

The irony is that there is a saying when Souths are going well, rugby league is going well. Despite all their travails they still out rate most other teams when they are on TV. So they finally got a team that people want to watch on pay TV and they’re trying to get rid of them. I wish I could take Lachlan Murdoch, Ann Frickberg, and Ken Cowley by their smug little jowls and sit them down for a while and just explain something to them from a marketing sense. Tradition in sport is a very, very powerful thing. When Pat Rafter wins the Dusseldorf Open $2 million dollar cheque they all go "oh he made more money". When he wins Wimbledon we go "yeah." It’s the brand that sells itself, as indeed at Souths because you don’t have to create the hype, you don’t have to create sizzle. They are their own story. It’s a marketer’s dream and I don’t understand why these people, who are supposedly in the business of marketing, who’ve already incidentally lost about half a billion dollars on their own magnificent judgement and skills, don’t get it.

This is not the end by the way. This is not the last day. We will be there next year.

I’m feeling a lot more confident now about the direction we’re going. Of course we’re still at the mercy of the NRL. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the criteria isn’t there. It’s not. The great Junior League that we have, the amazing junior league that we have doesn’t count in the criteria.

The biggest problem we have is that everything is judged on the last two or three years. We weren’t so hot in the last two or three years. What’s happened is we’ve been able to really move ahead now and we’ve got businesses and financiers who have already pledged millions of dollars to us. Now we’re not anywhere near where we would like to be, but we’ve accomplished in the short period of time what virtually amounts to a bloody miracle here.

It’s my belief that from the day Super League was mooted they had this image of the future which is like American football. With Franchises representing each city. That’s one of the things I admire about the club is that it is not a franchise with a borrowed American name poured in non American bottles, it actually truly represents its districts and it’s rooted in its district and it cares for its district.

I don’t know whether we’re going to be around or not. But the fight’s far from over as far as I’m concerned. To you blokes, if other clubs come and approach you over the next couple of weeks, I can’t stand in your way.

It was strange. If that was to be Souths last game it was horrible that there was no fanfare. But the fact that there was no fanfare, there was no actual statement, said a lot to me. It’s a bit like Macbeth where people are conspiring to murder but know they’re doing the wrong thing and I don’t think anyone wants to plunge the dagger. And the simple fact that nobody was prepared to come out and say "that’s Souths last game" says to me that there’s hesitation in the eyes of the enemy. They’re blinking and they may yet back off because they know they’re doing the wrong thing. You can’t kill. You can’t kill the beloved brother however much you can justify it in your purse.

Henry Morris

South Sydney people aren’t going to sit on their backsides. We get cut on the 15th October, shame. We’ll take them to Court. If we get beat then, shame. Our legal advice is they’ve got one heck of a fight on their hands and the people of South Sydney will rally because we think we’re right, we know we’re right, we’ve got right on our side. We’ve got 92 years of serving the game of Rugby League in a great manner. We don’t deserve to be kicked in the guts like they’re trying to kick us and Murdoch you’ve got a fight son.