‘Your Shire, Your Sharks’: The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks and Delocalization v. Glocalization in Australian Rugby League

Abstract

Delocalization has become an enduring theme in sports historiography. In Australian rugby league much of the work on this theme has been associated with the so-called ‘Super League War’ and the disconnection of sporting teams from place and local identity. Not all clubs, however, suffered such a fate. The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are one such team that endured the travails of the 1990s and maintained a strong connection with their geographical community. Problematizing delocalization in this context, the study explores the Sharks' Super League experience and finds strong evidence to support the contention that the Sharks provide a local sporting example of ‘glocalization’.

Notes

[1] See for example Little, ‘Sport, Communities and Identities’; Moore, The Mighty Bears!; McConville, ‘Footscray, Identity and Football History’; Andrews, ‘The Transformation of “Community” in the Australian Football League’; Piggins, Never Say Die; Courtney, Moving the Goalposts; Fontaine Souths; Kallinikios, Soccer Boom; Mallory, ‘Key “Milestones”’; Frost, ‘Crossroads Blues’; Haimes, ‘Organizational Culture and Identity’; and Horton, ‘Football, Identity, Place’.

[2] Phillips and Hutchins, ‘Losing Control of the Ball’, 225. See also Smart, The Sport Star, 99; and Mason, ‘What is the Sports Product and Who Buys It?’.

[3] Hughson et al., The Uses of Sport, 12.

[4] For the phrase ‘Super League War’ see Sydney Morning Herald, 26 March 2005. For discussions of its impact, see for example Colman, Super League; Moore, ‘Opera of the Proletariat’, 68; Rowe, ‘Rugby League in Australia’. For a dedicated examination of the English Super League see O'Keefe, ‘The Economic and Financial Effects’.

[5] Elder, Being Australian, 293.

[6] Hyde, ‘Rugby League: Business or Sport’.

[7] Cottle, ‘The Death of the Magpies’, 73; Phillips and Hutchins, ‘Losing Control of the Ball’, 218; Williams, Out of the Blue.

[8] Nauright and Phillips, ‘A Fair Go for the Fans?’, 43.

[9] Little, ‘Sport, Communities and Identities’, 4. For an American example of this opinion, see Harrigan, The Detroit Tigers, 48.

[10] Nauright and Phillips, ‘A Fair Go for the Fans?’, 43. Noted author Thomas Keneally once suggested that ‘Those players out there are representing all our unfulfilled desires’: Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March 1987.

[11] Headon, ‘“Putting Soul in the Cemetery with Lights”’.

[12] South Sydney was expelled from the National Rugby League before a successful court battle saw its reinstatement. It was subsequently privatized by a syndicate that included the actor Russell Crowe. For a discussion of resistance see Maguire and Possamai, ‘In League Together?’; Phillips et al., ‘The Media Sport Cultural Complex’; and Falcous, ‘Global Struggles, Local Impacts’.

[13] For a general history of the Sharks see Lester, The Sharks. For general histories of the Sutherland Shire see Larkin, Sutherland Shire, and Ashton et al., Sutherland Shire.

[14] Ingham and McDonald, ‘Sport and Community/Communitas’, 17.

[15] Crudafer's posting was made on 16 April 2008. See forums section of ‘Sharks Forever’, available online at http://www.sharksforever.com/, accessed 12 May 2008.

[16]http://www.sharks.com.au/, accessed 15 February 2008.

[17] Sage, Power and Ideology in American Sport, 191. See also Harrigan, The Detroit Tigers, 6. There are of course exceptions in the United States as well, for example the Green Bay Packers.

[18]Shark Attack News, November 1993, Subject Files, Sutherland Shire Library Local Studies Collection (hereafter LSC), Sutherland.

[19] For further examinations of Super League see Westfield, The Gatekeepers, 302–75.

[20]Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Nov. 1996. This despite a subsequent ARL meeting when Gow insisted that the Sharks were ‘absolutely loyal’ to the ARL but that clubs should not close the door on Super League. See Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Nov. 1995.

[21]Sydney Morning Herald, 16 March 1996; Shark Attack, June 1995, Sutherland LSC.

[22]Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Nov. 1995.

[23]Sydney Morning Herald, 21 Nov. 1994 and 10 June 1995. In December 1994 Cronulla had paid for a phone poll of 200 St George fans. The poll found 67 per cent favoured merger with Sharks over Canterbury. Of those surveyed 52.3 per cent named Cronulla as their second team: Sydney Morning Herald, 4 Dec. 1994. Talk that St George had also been talking to Canterbury had fuelled discussions in November 1994 between Wests and Sharks after St George had made an approach to Canterbury: Sydney Morning Herald, 21 Nov. 1994.

[24]Sydney Morning Herald, 25 April 1995; Shark Attack, June 1995. News Ltd had also assumed that the ARL would remain as a ‘second-tier feeder league’: Sydney Morning Herald, 28 Sept. 1995.

[25]Shark Attack, June 1995. Prior to the Sharks' entry into first grade in 1967, the Sutherland Shire had been seen to fall within the St George district and provided both fans and players for the Dragons. As the state Liberal Member of Parliament for Cronulla Malcolm Kerr observed in 2003: ‘Before the Sharks, there was the Dragons’: Hansard, Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, 6 May 2003, 280.

[26]Ibid. Despite rejecting the Cronulla overtures, by June 1995 St George was in negotiations with Eastern Suburbs for a possible merger within the ARL: Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 1995; uncited clipping from Big League Magazine, 1995, archived on the ‘Sharks Forever' website.

[27]Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Nov. 1995.

[28]St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 6 April 1995.

[29]St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 6 April 1996; Sydney Morning Herald, 13 April 1995.

[30] Lester, The Sharks, 234.

[31] The survey results are held in the subject file on Cronulla-Sutherland Leagues Club in the Sutherland LSC.

[32] Uncited clipping from Big League Magazine, 1995, archived on the ‘Sharks Forever’ website.

[33] Carr suggested of the deal: ‘It was more of a takeover than an amalgamation’: St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 27 July 1995. Roy Masters, ‘Privatisation: the Big Election Issue’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 Feb. 1996. In 1986 the Sydney medico and businessman Geoffrey Edelsten had toyed with buying the Sharks. The purchase would have been the first privatization in rugby league (and followed very quickly after a consortium led by Edelsten had purchased the Sydney Swans Australian Rules Football Team). The deal, in which Gow was involved, collapsed under the weight of media and member opposition: see Sydney Morning Herald, 5 June 85; St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 28 Aug. 1985.

[34] Uncited clipping from Big League Magazine, 1995, archived on the ‘Sharks Forever’ website.

[35]St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 6 April 1995.

[36] Packer had of course revolutionized the game of cricket in the 1970s with World Series Cricket. For an examination see Haigh, The Cricket War.

[37]St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 6 April 1995; Sydney Morning Herald, 5 April 1995.

[38]Shark Attack, June 1995.

[39]Cronulla Super League, June/July 1997, held in Sutherland LSC.

[40] Peter Gow, letter to supporters, 26 April 1995. A copy is held in the Sutherland LSC.

[41]Sydney Morning Herald, 25 April 1995.

[42] Davison, ‘The Imaginary Grandstand’, 5.

[43]Cronulla Super League, Christmas, 1996, Sutherland LSC.

[44]Leader, 4 April 1995. The Sutherland Shire holds an important place in Australian history as containing the southern shores of Botany Bay, where Captain James Cook ‘discovered’ Australia in 1770. The local community has long traded on its mantle as the ‘Birthplace of Modern Australia’.

[45] The protection of juniors from being poached by other clubs was another argument. See Cronulla Super League, Christmas 1996, Sutherland LSC.

[46]Cronulla Super League, June/July 1997.

[47]Cronulla Super League, Christmas 1996.

[48]St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 6 April 1996.

[49]St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 18 Jan. 1996.

[50]Cronulla Super League, Christmas 1996.

[51]Shark Attack, June 1995; St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 17 Aug 1995; Cronulla-Sutherland Leagues Club, Annual Report, 1995–6, held in Sutherland LSC.

[52]St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 13 Sept. 1995.

[53] Lester, The Sharks, 234.

[54]Cronulla Super League, undated 1997, held in Sutherland LSC.

[55] Gardiner et al., Sports Law, 309.

[56]Sunday Telegraph, 17 Oct. 1999.

[57]Hansard, House of Representatives, Commonwealth of Australia, 6 March 2000, 13907.

[58] Ibid, 13910.

[59] Andrews, ‘The Transformation of “Community”’, 112.

[60] Maguire and Possamai, ‘In League Together?’, 100. This resilience has also been identified in association football. Adam Brown's recent essay on Manchester United identified a ‘reassertion of the local’ despite the club's 54-million fan base spread around the globe. See Brown, ‘“Manchester is Red”?’, 187. Looking at the broader issue of the survival of indigenous football codes, Lionel Frost also calls for calm. See Frost, ‘Globalisation and the Future of Indigenous Football Codes’.

[61] The term was introduced to English language discourse by Roland Robertson in his 1995 study ‘Glocalization’.

[62] See Pacione, Urban Geography, 2. Damien Murphy offered an interesting footnote to this phenomenon when reporting on the Cronulla riots. The international context of the ‘War on Terror’ saw those involved in the riot almost ‘thinking globally and acting locally’: Sydney Morning Herald, 13 Dec. 2005.

[63] Armstrong and Giulianotti, Fear and Loathing in World Football, 13. See also Crawford, Consuming Sport, 84.

[64] See for example Jarvie, Sport Culture and Society, 117.

[65] The term is from Maguire and Possamai, ‘In League Together?’, 87.

[66] Cronulla-Sutherland Junior Rugby Football League, 10th Annual Report, Season 1972, held at Sutherland LSC.

[67]Cronulla Super League, 1997, held at Sutherland LSC.

[68] Ibid.

[69] Ibid. This view had also been expressed by ‘imports’ such as Dave Cooper, who played for the club between 1967 and 1972: ‘Cronulla was different to any other part of Sydney – like a big country town. The people were different. They talked about the Shire – it was everything to them. I don't think a community feeling for a place exists like it anywhere else in Sydney’: Lester, The Sharks, 49.

[70] From the days of Tommy Bishop and Cliff Watson, ‘imports’ were quickly naturalized to connect with local fans. In 1995 English import Alan Bateman told supporters: ‘The welcome I've received from the players and fans has been fantastic. To make things even better is the beautiful Sutherland Shire with magnificent beaches and waterways’: Shark Attack, June 1995. Former Bronco and South Queensland Crusher Chris McKenna told fans: ‘It's a great place to live’: Cronulla Super League, 1997.

[71] These figures come from the club's website, available at http://www.sharks.com.au/index.php?id=203, accessed 17 Feb. 2008.

[72] It is interesting to contrast this issue with English football. Within the top ranks of association football a dearth of local players had become a fact of life for the London clubs before the Great War. See Kerrigan, Teachers and Football, 162. Northern English and Scottish football had somewhat different priorities, and Glasgow Celtic are a good example of the player connection to the local. See Cox et al., Encyclopedia of British Football, 225. Hill and Williams have noted how the fact that a northern team's players were ‘local’ was very important and did inform local identity. See Hill and Williams, Sport and Identity in the North of England, 102. By the 1970s the debate about the local had been extended to the nation and foreign players. See Crolley and Hand, Football, Europe and the Press, 44–5.

[73]Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 4 Jan. 2006.

[74]Daily Telegraph, 6 Jan. 2006.

[75] A useful introduction to the subject is the collection of papers published in the Australian Journal of Anthropology VIII (3) (2007). See also Collins, ‘The Landmark of Cronulla’.

[76]Hansard, Senate, Commonwealth of Australia, 7 Feb. 2006, 128.

[77]Hansard, House of Representatives, 7 Feb. 2006, 100. Sharks president Barry Pierce, general manager Greg Pierce and first-grade player Jason Stevens became members of the Inter-Community Dialogue which was established with the Sydney Lebanese Muslim community in the wake of the riot. Hargreaves's quote is from Sport, Culture, and Ideology, 64.

[78] ‘Fosman91’, posting 10 Feb. 2007, ‘Sharks Forever’, available online at http://www.sharksforever.com, accessed 12 May 2008. An interesting further line of enquiry would be the degree to which some members of the external support base accepted the ‘Shire’ component of supporting the Sharks because of their perception of what the Sharks and the shire represent for some sections of the community. Are they supporting the Sharks because they see ‘The Shire is a white, Anglo-Celtic Christian heartland. But ominously, this white sanctuary is hemmed in by the great Middle Eastern melting pots of Sydney’: Weekend Australian, 17 Dec. 2005.