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Joined September 2021
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Retired hurt 50 something father of 4.
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The talk of a 25k seat stadium at Liverpool (not the old Bulldogs proposal) was not for it to be actually built in Liverpool but at a site nearer Glenfield/Casula (possibly Edmondson Park?) with both Liverpool and Campbeltown councils contributing 2/3 between them (a third each) with the state government chipping in the remaining third though there was also hope the feds could also cough up (lessening the cost to the other parties) either with a cash grant and/or gifting of Commonwealth Crown Land.
Wests and Tigers: Time to separate the black from the gold
There’s not a snowflakes chance in hell of that happening, Balmain only have a 10% stake in the franchise (it is no longer a joint venture), and are lucky to have even that as they defaulted on money Wests Ashfield shelled out to keep them going and Wests had the legal right to take 100% control of the club. I can’t see Wests Ashfield or WSDRLFC putting a “Balmain Tigers” branded team in the NRL whilst relegating “Wests Magpies” to merely be a feeder club. If anything it would be the other way around. Balmain are in the same position as North Sydney were in the “Northern Eagles” just prior to Manly reverting back to a stand alone club.
The only way Balmain could divorce Wests now would be to sell their 10% stake either to the NRL, a third party or to Wests Ashfield in a total buy out.
Unfortunately for Balmain fans, some of their clubs “legends” and their business partners went into the folly of trying to redevelop the leagues club on its original site rather than sell the premises and build the club elsewhere in the district where planning, approvals, parking, access, proximity to the casino (soon to be 2 casinos) and even the local demographics wouldn’t have been such impediments to the eventual costly failure it became.
Maybe selling out their share to Wests and linking up with Easts Brisbane (in the expansion consortium) or to the Central Coast are the only real options for Balmain to exist outside the Wests Tigers franchise.
As for the Wests Tigers franchise itself? If they don’t embrace Liverpool and the Macarthur as a more permanent base, they may as well get used to sitting on the bottom end of the table, losing sponsorship $$ and fighting off the wooden spoon year after year.
Wests and Tigers: Time to separate the black from the gold
Of course Campbeltown Stadium had slightly lower average crowds than Leichhardt when Campbeltown was always given the poorer share of clashes.
Campbeltown copped the out of town teams like Canberra and the Warriors etc a hell of a lot more often than Leichhardt did, whilst Leichhardt got most of the “big” clashes against teams with big supporter bases. Also a lot more Wests Tiger fans in the Macarthur-Liverpool region are prepared to travel to Leichhardt than those in the Inner West, Cumberland, North and North West were prepared to travel to Leumeah.
Overall there isn’t a huge difference in crowd averages over the last 5 years or so.
Wests and Tigers: Time to separate the black from the gold