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A chat with Central Coast Bears CEO and former North Sydney star Greg Florimo reveals the importance of the Bears’ bid in taking the ‘expansion’ fight to the AFL, the preparations underway in league-mad Gosford, and his passion for seeing the red and black of North Sydney back in the top flight in new and improved form.
It also speaks to something else which may ultimately be even more revealing: Florimo’s willingness to promote his team by engaging even with the fringe rugby league blogosphere – and to respond directly to some of the criticisms levelled at the notion of a Central Coast team – emphasises the professionalism which underpins not only the CEO’s work but the entire bid itself.
It is this professionalism which will stand the Bears in excellent stead when the NRL delivers its verdict on expansion of the competition from 2013.
“We need to make sure that we have absolutely every box ticked,” said Florimo. More than anything, he said, this meant sustainability – convincing the NRL that the Central Coast Bears would be around not just for two or three seasons, but “for the next 100 years.”
For the NRL – still scarred by ill-fated expansion attempts during the Super League war which claimed the previous incarnation of the Bears – a safe pair of hands might be exactly what is needed to compliment more ambitious new ventures in Perth, Wellington or elsewhere.
The foundations are already in place for the Central Coast Bears, not least in the state-of-the-art Bluetongue Stadium in Gosford. As Florimo points out, as well as the purpose-built stadium, the Bears have assembled a six-person board of directors, an official bid team and a range of corporate partners, including major sponsors Mortgage House.
Throw in a large and rapidly growing local community which in Florimo’s words is “crying out for a rugby league team to follow”, and you have a compelling case for the inclusion of a Central Coast club, particularly as the game strives for a bigger TV broadcast deal in 2013.
Perversely, one of the problems for Florimo and his team may be that on one level, the case for a Central Coast team is a little too easy to make.
Critics of the bid — and those critically assessing its merits — have pointed out that establishing a team in what is demonstrably already a rugby league town and state may signal a lack of expansionary ambition for a code still battling to shrug off its east-coast-only image.
On this front, the contrast between an AFL’s expansion into the huge (and hugely challenging) Western Sydney market and the NRL’s prospective hop up the F3 to Gosford is stark.
Florimo’s counter, though, is that the Bears would provide a unique opportunity for the NRL to re-engage with the “core group of supporters” it lost when North Sydney were excluded, and to finally heal old Super League wounds.
This in and of itself would be an immensely positive development in the ‘code wars’, given the AFL’s specific marketing strategy of recruiting disillusioned rugby league fans in the aftermath of the 1990’s ructions, and the gaping strategic hole left on economically-lucrative North Shore area of Sydney when the Bears departed.
And while the new incarnation of the Bears would emphatically be a Central Coast team, ties with the old North Sydney market form a crucial part of the bid’s emotional and financial foundations.
On a personal level, it’s clear exactly what the re-admission of the Bears, in Central Coast form, would mean to Florimo – who played almost 300 first grade games for, and represented the Kangaroos from, the old North Sydney.
“I think that there is so much history and tradition that has gone into the club over the last 102 years that you just can’t turn up your toes and say “that’s it, it’s too hard, it’s all over,” said Florimo.
“You’ve got to fight for it, and that’s what I’m doing.
“It’s for all those players, fans, supporters and families that have been touched by the Bears over the last 102 years, and about bringing some happiness back to them,” he added.
Old North Sydney fans – and the next generation of Bears fans awaiting the verdict on the Central Coast bid – can rest assured that when the NRL formally comes knocking, Florimo and his team will have done everything in their power to make this ambition a reality.
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