With the NRL expanding to a 17-team competition this year by adding the Redcliffe Dolphins or just ‘The Dolphins’ as the league is hell-bent on calling them, it got me thinking about all the previous clubs that have come and gone in this great league of ours. Some are still kicking as we know, come on the mighty Newtown Jets! Whereas others died a very abrupt and hopefully painless death and haven’t been seen since their departure from the comp. So let’s take a look at all 17 of them and see where they did indeed end up!
Up first, the teams from the NSWRL that are no longer with us. The NSWRL was the country’s premier Rugby League tournament until 1994 when the league decided to go national and incorporate teams from other states and rebrand to the ARL (Australian Rugby League), and then of course the fateful split and the resulting conception of the Super League, but we’ll get to that in Part 2.
Annandale: 1910-1920
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The Annandale District Rugby League Football Club or ‘ The Dales’ as they were known by their passionate fanbase were not known for their on-field success, in fact it was quite the opposite. Their most famous exploit would probably be that they lost all but 1 game in their final 3 seasons in the competition. That’s right, Annandale only managed 1 singular win in a total of 3 seasons, that sure gives any modern-day Tigers fan complaining about their finals drought a bit of reality. Even though they barely won, reports state that they still managed healthy attendances to games down at Wentworth Park with thousands of fans coming out each week to support the men in maroon and gold. Due to this lack of success, the club only managed 11 seasons in the competition before being kicked out at the end of the 1920 season.
But you can’t really blame them for having such little success, their player pool was constantly torpedoed by the surrounding suburban clubs, because back then only players who lived in your catchment area could play for you. Since they were crammed basically in the middle of Glebe, Newtown, Balmain and Western Suburbs, all of whom were foundation clubs, plus throwing in the fact that a bunch of their players headed off to war, they were left up sh*t creek without a paddle.
The club didn’t really have that great of an impact on the game of Rugby League at all, apart from the fact that they produced the Norman Brothers – Rex, Roy, Ray and Bernard. All but Bernard played representative football at some point, either for NSW or Australia. Out of all of them, Ray, who held the club’s points record of 88, had the brightest career. He capped 138 games across Annandale, South Sydney and Eastern Suburbs, as well as playing for Australia and coaching for a few years as well. He was once dubbed ‘one of the greatest tacticians’ in all of Rugby League history upon his death in the Sydney Morning Herald, so there’s something to hang your hate on Annandale Fans!
Cumberland: 1908-1908
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Yes, you read that correctly, Cumberland only lasted a singular season in the competition, despite being a founding member. If you aren’t sure where Cumberland actually is, just think that if they were still around and you are a Parra fan, you would be going for the ‘Fruit Pickers’ not the Eels. I would know, as I do indeed live smack bang in the middle of what was Cumberland’s catchment area. Seriously, they’re basically the Eels, they even wore the Blue and Gold hoops as well.
Weirdly they didn’t even join the comp until after Round 1 when a bunch of blokes got together at the Horse and Jockey Hotel in Homebush (Still Around by the way!) and thought this comp looks good, we want a piece of that action! So they recruited a ragtag group of men from the local Rugby Union league who were fed up with their sport and wanted to make a switch to League. Their first game had over 20,000 people in attendance and things were looking up, however, they just kept heading in a downward spiral.
1 win from 8 games and dwindling crowd numbers resulted in a swift booting out of Cumberland and they were ever seen again in a major Rugby League competition. All but a handful of players stuck with League as most of them either quit or went crawling back to Union with their tails tucked between their legs. But hey, they were the first-ever wooden spooners so no all bad.
Glebe: 1908-1929
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The Glebe District Rugby League Football Club or the Glebe Dirty Reds as their nickname goes, due to their all-maroon jumper look, was a foundation member of the NSWRL and were quite respected for much of their 22-year stint in the comp. The reason for this respect is a very competitive line-up, as well as the honour of being the oldest Australian Rugby League team ever, beating out Newtown for the title by just a week.
Interestingly enough, despite almost always being in the top half of the competition’s standings Glebe never managed to lift a Premiership title, with the best they could do being runner-up, a feat which they achieved 4 times. They probably got screwed around a bit as the league constantly changed from first past the post to finals series methods of determining a Premier and the year in which they won the Minor Premiership – 1911, was one of those fateful years that first past the post wasn’t the in thing and they lost the Grand Final to the famous Dally M and Eastern Suburbs at a sold-out crowd of 20,000 fans at Moore Park.
At the end of the 1929 season, out of nowhere, a meeting was called to vote on whether or not Glebe should stay in the competition and they were expelled in a vote of 13 For and 12 Against. Conspiracies ran rampant with many believing that South Sydney and Balmain had an under-the-table deal that saw them convince other clubs that the comp didn’t need Glebe in a bid to gain larger catchment areas for themselves. Either way, Glebe was gone and wasn’t seen again until 2017 when they made a spriting come back to the game after 87 years in squalor. They now play in the Ron Massey Cup – a second-division tier competition based in NSW.
The club’s greatest export was Frank Burge, 155 tries, 567 points and a whole lot of representative action, including 26 games for NSW and 13 for the Australia Kangaroos. He went on to coach very successfully with a 62% win rate and made the finals every year, but sadly never won a premiership. He was named on the bench of the NRL Team of The Century in 2008, leaving a lasting legacy on the game he loved.
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Newcastle Rebels: 1908-1909
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Another foundation club that lasted a very minuscule amount of time in the league, the Newcastle Rebels were almost doomed to fail. First off they were only implemented into the competition just two weeks prior to the beginning of the inaugural season of 1908 and even then, all of their players had to be recruited in secret in fear of violent backlash from the rival Rugby Union team in the region at the time. However, they had a strong first year, finishing 5th and the city started to get on board with this new-fangled game of Rugby League. They embraced the sports so much so that they created their own spin-off league – the Newcastle Rugby League and almost all of the Rebels’ players left for their hometown comp. The league is still around to this day, just in not such a major fashion, serving as one of the many regional leagues around the country.
The most notable player to don the red and white hoops was Stan Carpenter, the team’s captain and points record holder (93). Stan played a handful of games for both NSW and Australia and was looking like he was on his way to a stellar career when he decided he was needed elsewhere. World War 1 had commenced and Carpenter enlisted and was one of the soldiers who landed at Gallipoli on ANZAC Day – April 25th 1915. He survived and was commended for his faithful service and was recommended for a Military Medal of honour. He died peacefully, aged 82 in 1962.
Lest We Forget.
Newtown Jets: 1908-1983
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Now we actually get to talk about a club that was in the comp for a substantial amount of time and contributed a whole lot to the history of the game – The Jets. They were one of the 8 founding members of the competition and were just the second team founded, a week after Glebe was founded. For much of their lifetime, they were known affectionately as the ‘Bluebaggers’ thanks to their all-blue uniform, however, in the 70s they officially became the jets, due to their close proximity to Sydney Airport and their home ground, Henson Park being in the middle of a major aircraft flight route.
The club is littered with history, claiming premierships on 3 separate occasions in 1910, 1933 and 1943 while also appearing in the runners-up slot a further 7 times. The club was always one of the most popular teams around due to their representation of the hard-working, blue-collar suburb that they were from. Newton wasn’t the woke warrior hub that it is in modern times, instead, it was a poor, low-rent, high-migrant working-class community that was often called the ‘slum’ of Sydney. The Rugby League team was able to give hope and entertainment to a population that got to enjoy very little on a day-to-day basis, which explains why thousands always came out in droves to watch the greats such as Tommy Raudonikis, Ray Preston, Johnny Raper and Frank ‘Bumper’ Farrell tear it up every weekend in their respective eras.
Unfortunately, the club started to reflect the suburbs’ financial struggles as the 80s rolled around and things became quite dire for the Jets. Despite success on the field, including a Grand Final appearance in 1981, the club just couldn’t stay afloat and was unceremoniously booted from the comp in 1983 for lack of funds and despite multiple attempts to relocate and merge with other clubs nothing could be done and fans were left heartbroken.
Much like Glebe though, after some time in the mud they reemerged to enter a lower division competition and have been playing in the second and third tiers of NSW NRL ever since the early 90s. To help them stay afloat they have made a revolving door of feeder deals with numerous NRL clubs such as Auckland, South Sydney, Sydney and now currently, Cronulla. They will forever remain a team that fans demand re-entry into the competition whenever expansion gets discussed. Fingers Crossed!
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University: 1920-1937
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Speaking from experience as a Sydney University student myself, Rugby League was never going to truly catch on at the institution, because Rugby Union is ingrained in the school culture, trust me, they still make a big deal out of it and have like 20 teams across all the divisions and colleges, even though a majority of the students could care less. Just like they could care less about Rugby League when they joined the comp in 1920, with hardly anyone showing up to games and a full-on ban from the Uni campus, meaning all games and training had to take place elsewhere. Plus, they only allowed the club to recruit from the students that attended the University meaning many of the players that suited up were scrawny, amateur 20-year-olds that were lambs to slaughter against the brick walls that were the working class men of the western suburbs.
It is shocking to think that despite all of this, they lasted 18 seasons, finishing with the wooden spoon in 10 of them and finishing out of the finals in most others, apart from 1926 where they somehow fluked their way to the Grand Final, where they were defeated by South Sydney 11-5. Their losing streaks were something of a myth they were that incredible with their largest one stretching from Round 2, 1934 till Round 14, 1936 and they only managed one more win in their history after this streak came to an end. For context, that losing streak lasted 42 games, the club only won 44 games in their history. Wow.
After the 1937 season, the league had enough and decided the experiment to make inroads at the Union dominated University was a failure and the team shut up shop and the Students or ‘Varsity’ as they were also sometimes known as were no more and blue and gold hoops weren’t seen again until Parramatta made their way to the league 10 years later. Like many others, some clubs don’t know how to die and the Uni decided in 2017 to bring them back and they have played in the Sydney Shield (4th Tier NSW NRL Comp) ever since.
Well, those are the 5 NSWRL teams that couldn’t stand the test of time! Were/are you a fan of any of the 5 teams? Let us know some of your favourite memories of the teams in the comments below!
Join us in the next instalment for all of the clubs that couldn’t survive the dreaded Super League expansion and subsequent merger with the ARL!