Are we cursed?

Whilst I acknowledge your comments,
and thank you for the heads up BZN, after much soul searching and careful assessment I believe my comments to be true. Whilst it will not suit everyone it’s just me commenting on an open forum as to reasons why our football team continues to show minimal development and repetitive stupid tactics. It really hurts me to say but there can be no other reason than the coach and influx of island disciples have neither the brains nor the skill to develop us further. It’s an ongoing and imcreasing problem.
I spent a large part of my life( 20 years) doing business right across the Pacific islands so have a pretty good fix on all of those countries. All are lovely people, in their own environment , but they struggle in a more competitive situation which is why they revert to family values and religion for comfort.

If I’m disciplined by the powers that be then I will accept it coz I can’t come up with anything else, and of course, the truth sometimes hurts.
AND IT IS MY TRUTH that they will be unable to take us forward.

All I want is for us to be successful and I think our current and ongoing situation is proof we are heading down the wrong road.
Some cultures lack the killer instinct.
Which is fine, usually makes for nice people. But when you wanna be the best you need it sometimes.
 
You know what @BZN, you snipe that I am pro Balmain, and shut things down. That's just not true. I would appreciate you stop implying this. The only reason I became a Wests Tigers supporter is because Super League gutted my local team, which I had supported since I was 11, and someone very dear to me, came to WT. Please stop dragging me into your imagined Balmain bias.
Out of interest - what was the “local team” you previously supported?
 
Show me some evidence to back this assertion ?
Have a look on Facebook at the Western Suburbs Supporters Forum. I can't share the post. Perhaps it isn't meant to be for general consumption.

The main thing I can't understand with people wanting to dissolve our NRL team after 26 seasons, is WHY? You all feel so passionately about a team from a quarter of a century ago. Yet, you want the many, many fans who only know Wests Tigers, to whom Benji, Hodgo, Prince, Farah are the Tommy, Dallas, Holman, etc, equivalents, to feel the same as you do. A quarter of a century of misery. Life's too damn short!
 
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Have a look on Facebook at the Western Suburbs Supporters Forum. I can't share the post. Perhaps it isn't meant to be for general consumption.

The main thing I can't understand with people wanting to dissolve our NRL team after 26 seasons, is WHY? You all feel so passionately about a team from a quarter of a century ago. Yet, you want the many, many fans who only know Wests Tigers, to whom Benji, Hodgo, Prince, Farah are the Tommy, Dallas, Holnan, etc, equivalents, to feel the same as you do. A quarter of a century of misery. Life's too damn short!
The Western Suburbs Supporters Forum isn’t The Holman Barnes Group.

The RIDICULOUS assertion made by @matchball was that HBG are running the club into the ground so as to get the Magpies back into the NRL 🤷‍♂️
 
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I lived at Blaxland, so the Panthers 1979 - 1997
You probably went to school with a few mates of mine.
Remember when Blaxkand Hotel got done up with the bar in the middle? We used to distract the staff and reach over for a bottle on the way out the door.
The Lappo had a spin wheel happy hour where the wheel had the last fifty years on it and what ever year you spun was the price of the beer for the next hour. 1950 was 20c a schooner for an hour. We used to just stand at the bar and drink 20c schooys for and hour. 6 was my record.
On Thursday and Friday they spun the wheel twice. One Friday night 1950 was spun twice in a row. That’s 20c a beer for two hours. Messy.
Then RSA came in, so they added a half hour break between spins on those nights. Like a 30 minute break makes all the diff.
Tigers for Life.
 
I actually wouldn't, I gave up on Balmain over a decade ago. Once Benny pawned the club I was done. You don't have me calling for bringing it back. It's over. It's the other side that keeps that dream alive,
I'd be happy for a new owner free of any old foundations attached. That whats needed to really move forward and shake off the losing culture of the black and whites.
I know you enjoy saying the Magpies had a losing culture and it gives you some sort of pleasure but to those of us who lived it can I explain what Magpie culture was.
For starters our last appearance in the semis was 1996 before folding in 1999. That's the year Andrew Leeds continued playing with a broken ankle and a pain killing injection. That's Magpie culture.
That 1996 team was probably the worst team in the comp. on paper but coached by Tommy they didn't know what quitting was. That's Magpie culture.
Before that we were regularly raped and pillaged by other richer clubs but sent out 13 players who fought for that club like their lives depended on it. That's Magpie culture.
All my memories are great fighting wins at Lidcombe and Campbo despite being undermanned. That's Magpie culture.
Ex players like Ted Goodwin who won comps. at St George but will tell you today that the Magpie culture gave him his best football memories and he considers himself a Magpie. Once a Magpie, always a Magpie
Great teams like the 1978 minor premiers who had no right to even compete with a cashed up Manly or the Roosters. Victories from my childhood that will never be forgotten. That's Magpie culture.
Those days are gone and we are the Wests Tigers who we all support.
That doesn't negate who the Magpies are, and it doesn't give you the right to pretend you have any idea what Magpie culture was.
Show some respect for the past and keep your ignorance to yourself.
 
Yep that ownership structure is a problem. I think first up Wests should take back that 10% from Balmain ownership that way there can be no division between the owners as there will only be one.
Sounds fair and then we can all correctly lay the blame for the failure this has been fairly and squarely where it belongs.

I'm pretty sure that would fix everything. 👍
 
You mustn't have listened too well then.
I listened just fine - actually wrote an article about the two podcasts on offer back then. Just quickly thumbing through it for a few quotes -

“The Western Suburbs Magpies had a long sustained period of being unsuccessful and now they’re running Wests Tigers and low and behold, what have we got but a long period of being unsuccessful” - Joel Helmes

And in ep 124 Wests Ashfield were criticised for daring to have a Magpie jersey visible in the foyer (alongside Wests Tigers gear).

Ep 126 “I don’t want to make this a Balmain v Wests thing, but
(the Wests Tigers version of - I’m not a racist but ) I remember going each Wednesday to buy my RLW & Big League. Everyone knows I was a Balmain fan and you’d read stories of Wests in turmoil and Wests in crisis. There’s been a lot of dysfunction and the simple fact of the matter is that Western Suburbs Magpies, Wests Ashfield are running the club now ... this is a continuation of a lot of things that have happened for a long time ...”

So yeah, it’s hardly surprising, a poddy with three old Balmain blokes and a Pommy kid. Of course it’ll be balanced. Let’s reminisce about appointing Alan Jones, ditching the Eighth Wonder for Parra Stadium and all those highly functional Balmain years leading into the JV 🥴 (maybe should have taken Benny’s advice and relocated to Melbourne back in the early nineties).

People on here who predate the joint venture can play it all high and mighty but when things get tough (as they invariably do with this club) their biases invariably bubble to the surface. Old Balmainites blame HBG, Campbelltown Stadium, the NSW Cup branding etc, while old Magpies like me complain about being smothered by orange folklore.

It is what it is 🤷‍♂️
 

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