There’s a bear in where? Why Perth is wrong spot for club’s return

The good news, of course, is that the Bears are back in town, or at least a town – with the news confirmed on Thursday that the WA government is going to tip in a lazy $50 million to resuscitate the famous franchise in Perth. (Sounds like a bargain-basement deal for the West Australians, yes? When it came to getting a new team in Papua New Guinea, we federal taxpayers had to tip in, and I am not making this up, $600 million! ) The news brings to a conclusion a long and sad saga, whereby for the last 30 years or so, we only knew that the searing summer was receding, the flannelled fools conceding, when a certain brand of muddied oafs would start loudly pleading: “Bring back the Bears!” Where had they gone, exactly? That was the weird part. Let’s go through it.

For if, from a standing start you had to build a hugely successful football team, your starting point would surely be an exquisite oval, dripping history. Tick. Now give it a huge supporter base of diehards, with a diaspora across the country.



Tick. Now, put the whole thing within an easy walk of a bustling and bursting CBD, filled with workers who like to watch league, and boasting hundreds of hugely wealthy companies that might like to sponsor the same. Tick.

All that described the North Sydney Bears right up until they failed to survive the fallout from the Super League war. Just why they, of all clubs, with that résumé of assets to boast, were given the deep six again, remains a mystery. While the South Sydney Rabbitohs faced equal cancellation, only to fight back in the courts and win, that was not the case for the Bears.

So, bravo, they’re back. The question remains, however, why Perth? While it is one thing to have them there to expand your claims to being pan-national, Perth, as beautiful as it is, remains the most isolated city on earth. What is more, in terms of expanding your footballing footprint, you’re going up against two AFL teams that are very strong, and a rugby union franchise that is well dug in.

The North Sydney Bears will return to the NRL via Perth. Credit: Steven Siewert The far more obvious choice as a place to bring back the Bears remains the Central Coast – the natural growth area to fill in the populated territory north of the harbour with, right now, no team representing that area between Manly to the south and Newcastle to the north. By putting them in Perth, they have completely removed them from their natural supporter base.

They should have been called the “Bush Bears”, and had them holding the torch for North Sydney while playing games at the likes of Inverell, Wagga Wagga, Coota, Gosford and Mudgee. Each of those towns would build festivals around their match every year. It would have given a new but happier definition to “bush league” and all of those towns could count on spendthrift visits by the denizens of Cammeray and Cremorne.

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