Part 4 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 2: From Small Beginnings – Rugby League Takes Off In Penrith
This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.
Just over twenty years after the First Fleet arrived at Port Jackson, the first land grant in the Penrith district was awarded to Captain Daniel Woodriffe. As the colony grew, the town, with its strategic location on the Nepean River, became an important stop on the Western Road over the mountains, and later on the rail route to Katoomba and beyond.
Some readers may even remember taking the steam train to the Blue Mountains and having a cuppa or a snack while the train paused for ten minutes at Penrith, midway through the journey.
Rugby League came to Penrith around 1912, following the code’s breakaway from the traditional rugby union game. A regular competition was in operation by 1913 but there was reportedly friction in town between the two codes.
The first Penrith team was called the Waratahs, but for much of its history the Club simply played under the name of Penrith. The name ‘Panthers’ was adopted in 1964, after a public competition.
During the First World War times were sometimes tough for the club. One year, when the club was unable to buy shorts for the players, they ran onto the field in cut-down trousers.
Like many country clubs of the period, Penrith rugby league survived largely through the enthusiasm of local volunteers and the loyalty of its players and supporters.
The struggles continued through the 1920s, and in 1926 the club was reformed as the Penrith Rugby League Club. It was at this time that it applied for entry into the Western Division [Country] League, although there was some local opposition due to the travel demands involved.
Rugby League continued to grow in Penrith through the 1940s and 50s — and was, by all accounts, not a game for the faint-hearted. These were hard, tough men, and there was plenty of ‘biff’. They were paid little, or nothing and played for the honour of their town — and also because they obviously enjoyed it.
Max Connors was first a committeeman, and later a director at the club, in the years between 1956 and 1981. He says football games used to be played on a paddock just out of town.
They moved to the showground around ’42-43. Cricket was played there in the summer, and the pitch had to be broken up each year so rugby league could be played. It eventually got to be a problem between the two groups.
Connors speaks of his boyhood in Penrith when the guesthouses at Wallacia were a popular holiday destination for city people. When the steam trains would pull in, he and his friends would descend on them and offer to carry the travelers’ bags to the bus to earn some money.
In the early 1950s, Penrith was still a small town on the outer fringes of suburbia. Its one department store was Western Stores — later to become Myer1. The largest other business in town was Max Young’s produce business, which supplied feed, saddlery and other farming essentials to the district’s many rural properties.
In 1955, the first electric train service came to Penrith2. and former player Merv Cartwright became secretary of the football club. Two other players came onto the scene around the same time — Leo “Trapper” Trevena and Reginald Ronald “Rocky” Davis. Both would have an impact on the growth of the club.
The mid-50s also saw the advent of the ‘district club’. Penrith was part of the Parramatta District and competed in the Parramatta A Grade Competition against clubs from Parramatta, Guildford, Merrylands, Liverpool, Richmond and other teams from a huge geographical area. This large area would later be broken up when Penrith became a District Club in its own right in 1967. Today Penrith and Parramatta have the largest rugby league districts of any Sydney team.
Even in 1956, the Penrith club was already showing its potential as an innovator. It was the first junior rugby league club to be granted a liquor license, and its first licensed club building was completed the same year. It was located in a back street of Penrith.3 It had two regular rooms, and a larger function room that was used for Saturday night dances and presentations, etc.
For almost 20 years, the club also doubled as a boys’ club, and the club funded boxing and gymnastics activities for local youngsters. Its activities were transferred when the club agreed in the early seventies to jointly fund, with Penrith City Council, the Police Citizens Boys Club.
Connors remembers the first club as pretty much just a large garage in Station Street. He says they also bought the house next door, and that was where they held their meetings. The house had previously been a riding school — perhaps an indication of just how ‘country’ Penrith was in those days.
In an ironic twist, the first club building was financed by a gambling venture. Josie Haining — the wife of Bill Haining, a former player – won £100,00 in the Tasmanian Golden Casket, and the club was built using voluntary labour and a loan from Mrs Haining.
Don Feltis has a long history with the Club. He has been a player, football committeeman, football CEO, and is now junior league boss and a director on Panthers’ group board.
He remembers the day that a group of volunteers met to start digging the foundations for the new club:
We decided that the fairest way to work out who would have the honour of turning the first sod was to draw straws. So there we are, standing around organising the straws and sorting out lengths when we hear a ruckus behind us. We turn around and here’s one of the group — a fellow called Nobby Hunter — throwing a pick on the ground and very proudly showing us a hole the size of a bucket he’s just dug.
The building at first had six poker machines — three sixpenny and three one-shilling machines4.
Through the early sixties the club industry was just beginning to show its potential. St George Leagues Club was known as the Taj Mahal, and clubs like Easts Leagues and Souths Juniors were already an established part of the Sydney entertainment scene.
The Penrith Leagues Club, on the other hand, was a very small player. It had a couple of hundred members. It had never really been the mythical ‘tin shed’, but Max Connors, a director between 1956 and 1981, provided some insight into how the story came about.
The tin shed that people talk about was actually a kiosk on the showground where they used to play. It was run by the ladies, and the players used to get three free tickets each, and the supporters could buy three tickets for two shillings.
The kiosk doubled as a dressing-shed for players.
As the 1960s arrived, the club committee began pushing to join the league’s new inter-district competition — later to become Second Division. There was strong opposition from the club’s junior league. It was around this time, Trevena and Davis, along with Cartwright were joined on the football committee by a young high school teacher and player named Roger Cowan.
In 1962, the club joined the new competition, along with nine other Sydney clubs, including two much larger clubs, Ryde Eastwood and Wentworthville. Five years later, Penrith would leapfrog both these clubs to take a spot in the First Division competition.
The following year the licensed club underwent a major refurbishment, at a cost of £150,000. The new club had 26 poker machines. The 27 year old Cowan retired from playing football, but became football club treasurer. It was a move that would change his life.
It was the responsibility of the licensed club to fund rugby league, but at the end of the 1964 season Cowan was astounded to discover there were insufficient funds to pay the players. That year he stood for election for the licensed club committee, and became club treasurer, while still working as a teacher. He immediately began to implement controls and measures to improve the club’s finances. The club had embarked on an association with the man who would define its future.
What were the influences that made Panthers’ future CEO the person he turned out to be? What were the drivers behind the culture he encouraged at Panthers? And why much later did he allow conflict to escalate rather than backing away when the odds were stacking against him?
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- The store referred to was Fletcher’s, which opened in 1941 as a gentleman’s outfitter. By the late 1950s and early 1960s it had become the largest department store in Penrith, employing more than 100 people. Fletcher’s became part of the Myer group in 1962.
(Source: John Carvan, Standing Under the Weir: Penrith Memories.)
↩︎ - The electrification of the railway line to Penrith in 1955 was a major local event. Prior to this, services had been operated by steam trains. The town formed an “Electrification Committee” to organise celebrations for the arrival of the first electric service. Dave Fitzgerald, President of Penrith Rugby League, served on that committee.
↩︎ - Although described as a “back street” at the time, the club was located on the corner of Park and Station Streets. Park Street branched off Station Street roughly opposite the southern end of the swimming pool (near the showground). The area now forms part of the Nepean Village precinct.
↩︎ - Other accounts place the initial poker machine fleet at ten machines, split evenly between sixpenny and one-shilling machines. See Bound for Glory (Greg Prichard and Gary Lester, p.30). ↩︎
Panthers, Passion & Politics - The Roger Cowan Years 