Balmain Leagues Club

[Tigerlily]

Can someone please cut and paste the article I’ve reach my monthly quota of free views.

 

[Russell]

Well if i had a vote (and I don't) it would be NO!

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

Good on you Darcy - you sure stuffed them up and now your pretending to care.

Go away mate and never come back.

 

[Tiger Tarl]

When does the vote happen?

 

[cochise]

@Tigerlily
Balmain will cease to exist as a company and a club and its assets and licences will be transferred to Wests Leagues at Ashfield under proposals put to voting members of both licensed clubs that will complete their unification on and off the field.
The 12,000 members of Balmain Leagues will be asked to attend a general meeting at Balmain Town Hall on September 18, and Wests Ashfield’s 36,000 members will be invited to vote the following night at their Liverpool Road premises.

Members will be asked to endorse what is termed an amalgamation but others would describe as an inevitable takeover by Wests Leagues.
Members of Balmain will become members of Wests, finally uniting all stakeholders.

The Wests Tigers NRL franchise began 20 years ago as an equal joint venture by two 1908 foundation rugby league clubs, but licensed club support for both organisations was never equal and Balmain Leagues Club ceased funding the merged football club well before it went into voluntary administration late in 2018.
Balmain Leagues Club at Rozelle remains a derelict development site, while Wests Leagues club at Ashfield has undergone a $70 million rebuild and refurbishment over the past 16 years.
Under the proposals agreed on by directors of both organisations, Wests Leagues will increase their stake in the Wests Tigers NRL franchise from 75 per cent to 90 per cent, leaving Balmain with 10 per cent and two voices on the nine-person board, consisting of a formal nominee and an independent director.
Former NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell, an independent director and fan of the old Tigers, is the current chair.
Wests will have five votes. It will fund Balmain’s junior representative teams for $350,000 a year for five years and also pay Balmain’s debt of $3.2 million to the NRL, due next year.

Balmain will transfer the licence of their successful Sydney Markets club to become an additional premises of Wests for a minimum of five years. Like most licensed premises in the inner west that are outside the marketing pull of The Star casino, Balmain’s satellite club at Flemington is trading very well. It was the target of bids from Lidcombe Catholic Club, Wests Campbelltown and Ryde
Eastwood, but these clubs did not offer the funding and support needed for Balmain Tigers' junior football competition.
A generation of young supporters have grown up knowing the club only as Wests Tigers.
Wests are also obligated to support Balmain’s continuing ambition to open a licensed club at the Rozelle site, which would be named a Wests Tigers premises but be absorbed into a Wests mega licence.
Negotiations between the directors of both clubs, led by Wests chairman Mike Bailey and Balmain’s Dr Leslie Glen, and driven by Ashfield’s innovative chief executive, Simon Cook, have been described as “harmonious” and “trusting”.
This contrasts with the early days of the joint venture when Balmain dominated, via stronger personalities and the support of Wests Campbelltown, which voted against their fellow Magpies.

Now, with Wests in a dominant financial position in the proposed amalgamation, some former players question why the joint venture NRL club is not rebadged as the Magpies rather than Tigers.
However, a generation of young supporters have grown up knowing the club only as Wests Tigers, although the NRL practice of calling the club “Tigers”, as opposed to “Wests Tigers”, causes rancour among Magpie diehards.
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It’s 50 years since Balmain were the champions of the old Sydney premiership, when they won an improbable title over the highly fancied Rabbitohs at the SCG and partied at their Rozelle club, which the state government now seeks to turn into a large-scale tunnelling site.
It’s 40 years since relationships between the boards of Wests Leagues Club and the Magpies were so poisonous that the miserable annual grant by the Ashfield licensed club to the cash-strapped football club based at Lidcombe was cut by the amount of a new hard-won sponsorship from Victa.

Now, however, Balmain members will be asked to support “the dissolution of the company”, while invited to join with Magpies in becoming equal members of Wests Ashfield, which owns 90 per cent of an NRL franchise and doesn’t quibble about funding.
But, as former Tigers great and Balmain director Benny Elias was fond of saying: “Football is a funny game.”

 

[cochise]

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

So what would be the point of voting no?

 

[Russell]

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

So what would be the point of voting no?

That they don't get swallowed up and lose their identity.

They would go out on their own terms - better to be gone 100% than have your 100% reduced to 10% (with no voting rights and no say in what happens anyway) until swallowed up completely.

 

[hammertime]

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

So what would be the point of voting no?

That they don't get swallowed up and lose their identity.

They would go out on their own terms - better to be gone 100% than have your 100% reduced to 10% (with no voting rights and no say in what happens anyway) until swallowed up completely.

That's honestly brain-dead if anyone thinks that way. Pride getting in the way of common sense.

I would 1000% vote yes here. Would be awesome to see the Tigers brand on the corner of Darling St again, the gateway to the inner-west. Ashfield are the only ones that have the cash to outlast the stupid State and Local govt mucking around.

 

[cochise]

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

So what would be the point of voting no?

That they don't get swallowed up and lose their identity.

They would go out on their own terms - better to be gone 100% than have your 100% reduced to 10% (with no voting rights and no say in what happens anyway) until swallowed up completely.

Well they will have voting rights, and will be still able to run the juniors, this is the only way to keep the Balmain Tigers identity! They also do not have 100% they now have 25% which is being reduced to 10%

 

[GNR4LIFE]

I might be missing something but why would anyone not want this?

There is a belief among some old Balmain supporters that this would be the first step in Wests eliminating them from the JV, with the ultimate goal of replacing the Tiger on the jersey with a Magpie. Baseless paranoia which is categorically false.

 

[cochise]

I might be missing something but why would anyone not want this?

There is a belief among some old Balmain supporters that this would be the first step in Wests eliminating them from the JV, with the ultimate goal of replacing the Tiger on the jersey with a Magpie. Baseless paranoia which is categorically false.

Yes it is stupid, I'm not saying that there is nothing in this for Wests Ashfield but they are being very favourable in their terms. Allowing Balmain to keep 10% is a very fair move!

 

[Russell]

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

So what would be the point of voting no?

That they don't get swallowed up and lose their identity.

They would go out on their own terms - better to be gone 100% than have your 100% reduced to 10% (with no voting rights and no say in what happens anyway) until swallowed up completely.

Well they will have voting rights, and will be still able to run the juniors, this is the only way to keep the Balmain Tigers identity! They also do not have 100% they now have 25% which is being reduced to 10%

The point was they had 100% - now 25 that will be reduced to 10%. Where is the Balmain Tigers identity? It will be a West Tigers Leagues Club and so will the one at Flemington, and how long before the Balmain Juniors are incorporated into being Wests Magpies Juniors?

By the way as I understand it - they have 2 places on the board with no voting rights.

 

[cochise]

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

So what would be the point of voting no?

That they don't get swallowed up and lose their identity.

They would go out on their own terms - better to be gone 100% than have your 100% reduced to 10% (with no voting rights and no say in what happens anyway) until swallowed up completely.

Well they will have voting rights, and will be still able to run the juniors, this is the only way to keep the Balmain Tigers identity! They also do not have 100% they now have 25% which is being reduced to 10%

The point was they had 100% - now 25 that will be reduced to 10%. Where is the Balmain Tigers identity? It will be a West Tigers Leagues Club and so will the one at Flemington, and how long before the Balmain Juniors are incorporated into being Wests Magpies Juniors?

By the way as I understand it - they have 2 places on the board with no voting rights.

It will be 2 places on a 9 person board. The identity will be on the jersey's of every junior in the Balmain district. Yes Balmain's share is getting smaller but that is what happens when you go broke. I am thankful to Wests Ashfield for helping Balmain survive!

 

[Russell]

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

So what would be the point of voting no?

That they don't get swallowed up and lose their identity.

They would go out on their own terms - better to be gone 100% than have your 100% reduced to 10% (with no voting rights and no say in what happens anyway) until swallowed up completely.

Well they will have voting rights, and will be still able to run the juniors, this is the only way to keep the Balmain Tigers identity! They also do not have 100% they now have 25% which is being reduced to 10%

The point was they had 100% - now 25 that will be reduced to 10%. Where is the Balmain Tigers identity? It will be a West Tigers Leagues Club and so will the one at Flemington, and how long before the Balmain Juniors are incorporated into being Wests Magpies Juniors?

By the way as I understand it - they have 2 places on the board with no voting rights.

It will be 2 places on a 9 person board. The identity will be on the jersey's of every junior in the Balmain district. Yes Balmain's share is getting smaller but that is what happens when you go broke. I am thankful to Wests Ashfield for helping Balmain survive!

That's fine Cochise - you are entitled to all you say.

Surely I am entitled to my opinion of saying no and not to be thankful.

 

[Snake]

I still do not understand why you still would want a club at Rozelle ! It is shown by the Flemington club the further you get away from Star City the better and the same problems Re financial viability will remain.The 2 things that Balmain offer are there junior nursery and there poker machines make no mistake hence why other cubs wanted it but not there juniors , the West’s group are making a commitment to the Weststigers organisation by giving the Balmain nursery a path way to the Weststigers ...this basically nullifies the other Sydney clubs cannibalising that area.
I have often thought that a Weststigers branded club would be the go and if ANZ will be called home move into that precinct as that area certainly needs an entertainment venue like this 365 days a year this would be a real winner imo 🤑 . I am a member at West’s and will vote yes but the Rozzelle clubs viability is an issue !

 

[balmain boy]

Well if i had a vote (and I don't) it would be NO!

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

Good on you Darcy - you sure stuffed them up and now your pretending to care.

Go away mate and never come back.

Geez, you sound really attached a leagues club. Pokies addict? Really missing a good game of dominos on a monday night?

The football club will still exist which is what counts. They're getting their funding from somewhere else, thats all. Wests have more money and attraction than Ryde-Eastwood. If RE were offering to amalgamate with BLC would you still be opposed?

 

[cochise]

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

So what would be the point of voting no?

That they don't get swallowed up and lose their identity.

They would go out on their own terms - better to be gone 100% than have your 100% reduced to 10% (with no voting rights and no say in what happens anyway) until swallowed up completely.

Well they will have voting rights, and will be still able to run the juniors, this is the only way to keep the Balmain Tigers identity! They also do not have 100% they now have 25% which is being reduced to 10%

The point was they had 100% - now 25 that will be reduced to 10%. Where is the Balmain Tigers identity? It will be a West Tigers Leagues Club and so will the one at Flemington, and how long before the Balmain Juniors are incorporated into being Wests Magpies Juniors?

By the way as I understand it - they have 2 places on the board with no voting rights.

It will be 2 places on a 9 person board. The identity will be on the jersey's of every junior in the Balmain district. Yes Balmain's share is getting smaller but that is what happens when you go broke. I am thankful to Wests Ashfield for helping Balmain survive!

That's fine Cochise - you are entitled to all you say.

Surely I am entitled to my opinion of saying no and not to be thankful.

Of course you are, just don't understand why someone would wish the club they love away. I am 100% Wests Tigers now, but it is nice to know that the club I grew up with and loved is still alive to some extend and plays a small part in the team I now follow!

 

[tigerbalm]

@GNR4LIFE


Ahhhh. OK. Each to his own I guess.

I thought it was more about the locals getting upset at the re development.

As for the what you suggest, i guess people also think the earth is flat.

 

[Russell]

Well if i had a vote (and I don't) it would be NO!

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

Good on you Darcy - you sure stuffed them up and now your pretending to care.

Go away mate and never come back.

Geez, you sound really attached a leagues club. Pokies addict? Really missing a good game of dominos on a monday night?

The football club will still exist which is what counts. They're getting their funding from somewhere else, thats all. Wests have more money and attraction than Ryde-Eastwood. If RE were offering to amalgamate with BLC would you still be opposed?

yes

 

[Russell]

Obviously doesn't pay to have a different view.

By the way I believe RE gave the Tigers away a long time ago.

 

[Tigerlily]

Balmain would die - but I would still have the memories.

So what would be the point of voting no?

That they don't get swallowed up and lose their identity.

They would go out on their own terms - better to be gone 100% than have your 100% reduced to 10% (with no voting rights and no say in what happens anyway) until swallowed up completely.

Well they will have voting rights, and will be still able to run the juniors, this is the only way to keep the Balmain Tigers identity! They also do not have 100% they now have 25% which is being reduced to 10%

The point was they had 100% - now 25 that will be reduced to 10%. Where is the Balmain Tigers identity? It will be a West Tigers Leagues Club and so will the one at Flemington, and how long before the Balmain Juniors are incorporated into being Wests Magpies Juniors?

By the way as I understand it - they have 2 places on the board with no voting rights.

I’m originally a Balmain Tigers girl and will always have a soft spot for Balmain in my heart of hearts but to have any kind of identity in the NRL I don’t see any other option going forward that’s the unfortunate truth and reality of the situation.