The WT Identity

[jirskyr]

The true problem is you have to have some good run of wins to have "the story".

Nobody at Souths talks about 2002-2011 when they could barely get out of last, except for the grand old story of "fighting the man" and getting readmitted to the NRL.

Tigers have basically two good "eras" - 2005, alone by itself, and 2009-2011. That's all there is to look back fondly on.

It's easy enough for Balmain fans to tell themselves stories about the mid to late 1980s, or the late 1960s, and Wayne Pearce, Ellery Hanley, Larry Corowa, Geoff Starling, Olsen Filipaina etc. But those eras and those players had sustained success, plus the added benefit of nostalgia.

I personally think "Sydney City" are one of the most soulless clubs going around, with a small fanbase, very little applied heritage to the old Easts, a hall of fame consisting mostly of players they pinched from some other club and being basically the personal plaything of Uncle Nick and his well-heeled cronies.

But Roosters fans have the consistent NRL-era success to ruminate on. Of Fittler, the Ricky Stuart era, Braith Anasta, Sonny Bill, 2018-19 etc.

The second problem is being a merged team, Tigers can't spend too long glorifying the old Balmain or Wests days, lest they upset one side or other. And those days are now well and truly in the deep past, back when the internet was new, nobody had email, Foxtel had just started, Sydney had not hosted an Olympics, before 9/11, smartphones, Netflix, Facebook etc.

 

[Tiger5150]

**The Tigers have lost their plot, and salvation lies in storytelling**

The West Tigers have no idea who they are.

My earliest memory of the Tigers is at a grand final party and my Dad screaming out “why?” Benny had just hit the crossbar in 1989. I was four.

After 30 years of watching the Tigers in their different iterations - a lifespan that included my own failed attempt at professional sport and a period where I’ve set up an organisation that provides a pathway for marginalised youth and those inside the margins to come together to build more equality - I’ve sat on an empty hill at Leichhardt, soaking in the elders’ conversations and watched Laurie Nicholls throw his punches.


As Balmain, even in the worst days we had something. We had a link to a town that founded the Labor Party; a town that was changing, yes, but had roots. Our team were battlers and that meant something.

It meant hoping against the odds, knowing your team didn’t have the same cash as Manly but, when you knocked over the Silvertails in the opening round, every point meant something.


Then Super League panic hit and what a shitfight it was, we buckled and were suddenly the Sydney Tigers. We had purple in our socks, an aged Garry Jack returned and we were lost.

Souths said ‘no, not us, we’d rather leave this party than merge and have our roots ripped apart’.

The Tigers have bent and borrowed identities. In 2005, we had the luck of youth on our side, we were entertainers and the kids had a point to prove. We can play in the big time, they said. Watch us defy your rules, your structures, watch us play.


And isn’t that meaning of it all - to play?

Having worked with youngsters who have felt lost I’ve found the art of change lies in story, but today’s Tigers haven’t found their modern story, their identity, there is no feeling of any history, and the fact that they are broadcasting their every living moment shows how lost the storytellers are in the joint.

It’s why the team plays well one week, or for moments, and then look lost the next. They are mirroring the shortsightedness of the stories they are told.


What’s the vision of this club? To make the finals? That’s not a vision, that’s an outcome. This ain’t a business. At their heart sporting teams bring hope to people. They help us escape our individual struggles and feel a sense of union, of mission. We ride out the pain of our weeks in every tackle, and struggle, in every battle for a blade of grass.

Steve Waugh knew this when he reminded his players their job was to entertain the crowd. Richie McCaw and Dan Carter knew this when they cleaned up the sheds after every game. Sam Kerr and company have a story. Patty Mills and the Boomers have a story.

The Laurie Nichols plaque in the tunnel at Leichhardt Oval.
The Laurie Nichols plaque in the tunnel at Leichhardt Oval.

Maybe it’s beyond the club’s story, maybe the soul started to run away when Darling Street went beige, changing the town hall hotel into a gym, the milk bar into a lingerie store and the corner stores into whatever lycra sells the most. What’s to fight for in an earth-toned wilderness swallowing Balmain with money like the darkness eating the heart of Fantasia?

The hope is in the west. It’s bigger than a story of a football club, it’s at the heart of a story of Australia.

Can we be more complex, can we have different ways of communicating, complex stories in different languages to the ones we’ve known since colonisation?

Memo to the Tigers: rip up the endless cycles of strat plans, Facebook marketing meetings and commissioning reality TV shows. You’ve lost the plot. Look up the Yellow Pages and find yourselves a storyteller asap - ideally someone from the west who has some idea what the modern Australian narrative actually is.


The Tigers don’t need another coach and they don’t need more players. They need the story to be told of who they are, a story of what it means for two battling original clubs, with people from working class suburbs coming together.

They and the modern day Labor Party are losing the story, so people from working class communities vote Liberal, or James Tedesco goes to the Roosters and becomes their captain.

If you stand for something bigger than money, something more important than yourselves - then you have something to fight for.

Jack Manning Bancroft is the Founder & Head of Design at AIME, a global network making unlikely connections between marginalised youth and those in the margins to create a fairer world. He has been a Tigers fan for 36 years.

Balmain anyone? I hate these crap stories. To me it shows they are not really Wests Tigers fans but long for Balmain.

Garbage, nothing article full of holes. Of course its Balmain centric but also wrong. Balmain became Sydney Tigers 3 years before Super LEague and was trying desperately to fix systemic structural problems.

 

[Swordy]

As a team, I don't think you can just "have an identity".. you form the team, play the way the coach and the team likes to play and then once you're successful over a long period of time- that style becomes your and the club's identity.

100%.

You don't have an identity like a slogan or a 'business vision'. You don't write a sentence and that becomes your identity and that is who we are.

You search for and build identity over time. Just like a kid growing up. It takes time. It is built from both heartache and success.

All of the current 'analysts and commentators' constantly go on about how WT don't know what our identity is. Camel cookies! We are building it, and part of learning who we are is the hatred and frustration of not making the semis for 10 years. It makes us angry. It builds both hatred and resourcefulness. We are Wests Tigers. We are building who we are!

 

[TYGA]

That’s poor journalism. Dead set flop whoever wrote this.

 

[Geo]

That’s poor journalism. Dead set flop whoever wrote this.

Yeah I'd never heard of Jack Manning Bancroft either..

Apparently tho Jack Manning Bancroft is the Founder & Head of Design at AIME, a global network making unlikely connections between marginalised youth and those in the margins to create a fairer world. He has been a Tigers fan for 36 years.

 

[Jedi_Tiger]

Yeh bruh our identity is gone. I mean like why we playing 3 balmain, 3 Cambo and then 4 at Bankwest. We need a home ground I know it’s farfectched but I think the club should back Liverpool. It’s roughly in the middle and our growth area is southwest. It has a station connecting to cambo and toward leichardt area at central and concord. We could really make it our own if we do share with wsw or MacArthur fc . The stadium needs to be ours though so know bulldogs sharing. I know Liverpool is surrounded by dogs territory but if we can just take over Liverpool we can make it our own
Somewhat like south’s have done with homebush

Dogs will make a play for liverpool we will be second fiddle there like we are at bankwest

 

[mike]

Yeh bruh our identity is gone. I mean like why we playing 3 balmain, 3 Cambo and then 4 at Bankwest. We need a home ground I know it’s farfectched but I think the club should back Liverpool. It’s roughly in the middle and our growth area is southwest. It has a station connecting to cambo and toward leichardt area at central and concord. We could really make it our own if we do share with wsw or MacArthur fc . The stadium needs to be ours though so know bulldogs sharing. I know Liverpool is surrounded by dogs territory but if we can just take over Liverpool we can make it our own
Somewhat like south’s have done with homebush

Dogs will make a play for liverpool we will be second fiddle there like we are at bankwest

Liverpool is Bulldogs territory. Always has been.

 

[Jedi_Tiger]

Do people even read this stuff before commenting?
Sure, the bloke was a Balmain supporter.
If you bothered reading further you’ll see he thinks we need new life from the working class west to create an identity.
Personally I disagree, and don’t think we need to be politicised.
Each to their own, he has shared his opinion.

no because it is pro balmain usually dismissed by some on here.
we shoukd never forget Leichardt or campbletown and play at least one game at each venue every season

 

[mike]

Do people even read this stuff before commenting?
Sure, the bloke was a Balmain supporter.
If you bothered reading further you’ll see he thinks we need new life from the working class west to create an identity.
Personally I disagree, and don’t think we need to be politicised.
Each to their own, he has shared his opinion.

no because it is pro balmain usually dismissed by some on here.
we shoukd never forget Leichardt or campbletown and play at least one game at each venue every season

Absolutely, regardless of the home ground chosen 1 game from both Leichhardt and the CSS per year.

 

[mike]

We are not the Western Suburbs Magpies
We are not Balmain.

We are the WESTS TIGERS.
That’s who we are. That’s our identity.

Just like the young woman in the stands thumping the WESTS TIGERS emblem on her chest and screaming WESTS TIGERS ‘till I die.

That’s who we are.

 

[Telltails]

We are not the Western Suburbs Magpies
We are not Balmain.

We are the WESTS TIGERS.
That’s who we are. That’s our identity.

Just like the young woman in the stands thumping the WESTS TIGERS emblem on her chest and screaming WESTS TIGERS till I die.

That’s who we are.

Yep - It's really not that hard to understand. I know exactly who we are and how we became who we are and if you can't work it out by now you probably never will.

 

[Needaname]

Speaking of identity. Has anyone noticed a change of branding of our logo being used a lot more without the claws and text in a black and white format?

I love it. And really think we should consider making it our officially club logo with the name placed under or either side. It is trendy and striking.

 

[tony soprano]

Speaking of identity. Has anyone noticed a change of branding of our logo being used a lot more without the claws and text in a black and white format?

I love it. And really think we should consider making it our officially club logo with the name placed under or either side. It is trendy and striking.

Trendy and striking sounds like myself.

 

[jirskyr]

That’s poor journalism. Dead set flop whoever wrote this.

Not a journalist!

 

[Geo]

Speaking of identity. Has anyone noticed a change of branding of our logo being used a lot more without the claws and text in a black and white format?

I love it. And really think we should consider making it our officially club logo with the name placed under or either side. It is trendy and striking.

That’s WT digital logo been around 2 years at least

 

[Tiger Woods]

WT identity = Toothless tigers that need to grow a set of teeth

 

[Needaname]

Speaking of identity. Has anyone noticed a change of branding of our logo being used a lot more without the claws and text in a black and white format?

I love it. And really think we should consider making it our officially club logo with the name placed under or either side. It is trendy and striking.

That’s WT digital logo been around 2 years at least

Can we make it our club logo?

 

[NT_Tiger]

I read it and don't really care about the details. Many WT supporters came from either a 'Wests' or 'Balmain' past history so to me that's not relevant. Those teams no longer exist and the Wests Tigers are it.
When I read this, I read the passion of a supporter for his team.
Clearly the team itself is not able to share that passion and turn it into results. The memory of Tommy Raudonikis will attest to that. That passion is what this team needs to find, pride in the colours and the badge.
Until then we're grasping at straws.

 

[Lauren]

It has long been said Wests Tigers have a serious identity crisis. An elephant with a high heel fetish in a gay bar full of African poachers.
Retrieved from: http://the81stminute.com/2021/08/tales-from-tiger-town-wests-tigers-documentary-nothing-more-than-an-inner-city-circle-party/

Based on all comments, my own angle is that I think it's vital we also stay true to our heritage because it's an important part of the club's unique makeup.
It clarifies the significance of the merged clubs in forming the WT, and how each player are part of a legacy which has not only unified both Wests and Balmain, but the supporter bases too.
This year has been absolutely brutal but the Tommy Raudonikis tribute round was honestly the most distressing thing to see this year. It further validated the club's identity crisis but also showed fans that our current team were somewhat disconnected to a fragment of history linked to our club, and incapabale of truly honouring and commemorating him.
I believe as representatives of the WT club/team/jersey it's essential to (the players to) embrace and celebrate the club's roots with both foundation clubs, so as to achieve a sense of privilege and passion for being a member of this club and where it's come from.
It would also help create/evoke a sense of belonging - to something special

 

[Tiger_Bond]

After reading most comments here I realised the real problem is that it starts with our fans who are entrenched in “cancel culture” (I don’t like what is being said so forget it and move on)

The article is about how the club’s we followed had a soul and an identity (no matter which side you came from) and that we need to make changes to recapture that, some so-called die hard fans on this forum like to dismiss other people’s experiences because it doesn’t suit them.

Our club is so divided under the surface, it’s like a married couple that hates each other but are only staying together for the children.

As long as we keep demonising each other’s origins we will stay a club that just makes up numbers like we have the last 10 years.