Major Player: Greg “Brandy” Alexander

Greg “Brandy” Alexander

Player, Premiership Captain, Director, Commentator

Not many individuals connect the different eras of the Panthers story as completely as Greg Brandy Alexander.

He emerged from the Penrith district as one of the most gifted footballers the club had produced, became its first premiership-winning captain, represented New South Wales and Australia, and eventually returned to Panthers in another capacity — as a director.

His playing career coincided with the period in which Penrith finally moved from being an occasional contender to one of rugby league’s leading clubs. More than a decade later, his election to the Board placed him inside an entirely different Panthers story: the bitter struggle over governance and direction that forms an important part of Panthers, Passion & Politics.

Those two roles — player and director — make Alexander a significant figure in the narrative for quite different reasons.

Role in the Narrative

Greg Alexander represents perhaps the clearest footballing expression of the transformation Panthers had been attempting since the early 1980s.

The changes begun during that period were not simply about finding better first-grade players. They involved restructuring the relationship between the Football Club and the licensed club, improving coaching and development systems, and placing much greater emphasis on producing elite footballers from the enormous junior base available to Penrith.

Alexander became one of the clearest demonstrations of what that emerging system could produce.

By the time Penrith reached its first Grand Final in 1990 and won its first premiership the following year, he had become both captain and one of the most recognisable players in Australian rugby league.

His importance to Panthers, Passion & Politics, however, extends beyond the playing field.

Eleven years after lifting the premiership trophy, Alexander stood for election to the Panthers Board during the bitter 2002 election campaign. His election therefore provides an unusual bridge between the footballing rise of the 1980s and early 1990s and the governance conflicts that dominate the later chapters of the book.

Background

Gregory Peter Stephen Alexander was born in Penrith on 4 March 1965 and grew up in the district. He attended St Dominic’s College before completing his schooling at Patrician Brothers’ College, Fairfield, and represented the Australian Schoolboys in 1983.

His emergence was immediate.

Alexander was both Penrith’s and the Dally M Rookie of the Year in 1984. A year later, still only in his second season of first grade, he won the Dally M Player of the Year, Dally M Halfback of the Year and Penrith’s Player of the Year award in 1990.

His emergence coincided almost exactly with a fundamental change in the way Panthers approached football.

The move to the Mulgoa Road complex and the adoption of a unified approach to the licensed club and football operations were accompanied by a deliberate effort to develop elite players from Penrith’s junior system. Alexander became compelling evidence that the district could produce players capable not merely of playing first grade, but of competing at the highest levels of the game.

In 1986 Alexander and Royce Simmons became the first Penrith players selected for a Kangaroo Tour. Alexander subsequently represented New South Wales and Australia and developed into one of the outstanding attacking players of his generation.

By the end of the decade, Penrith itself was changing around him.

Tim Sheens had helped rebuild the football operation and Ron Willey consolidated that progress, while players including Alexander, Simmons, John Cartwright, Mark Geyer, Brad Izzard and the emerging Brad Fittler gave the club a playing strength it had rarely possessed before.

When Phil Gould arrived as coach in 1990, he therefore inherited a very different football operation from the one Sheens had encountered earlier in the decade. The foundations were already there. Gould provided the standards, preparation and tactical discipline that helped take the team the final step.

Profession: Rugby League player, Media Commentator; Director

Panthers Involvement
• First Grade Player (1984-94; 1997-99)
• Premiership-winning Captain (1991)
• Director (2002-current)

Representative Honours
• Australian Schoolboys (1983)
• NSW State of Origin (6 games)
• NSW Super League Tri-Series (1997)
• Australia (6 Test matches)

Major Honours
• 1984 — Dally M Rookie of the Year
• 1984 — Panthers Rookie of the Year
• 1985 — PDally M Player of the Year
• 1985, 1989, 1991 — Dally M Halfback of the Year
• 1985, 1990 — Panthers Player of the Year (renamed Merv Cartwright Medal)
• 1991 — NSWRL Premiership winning Captain
• 2000 — Australian Sports Medal
• 2001 — Panthers Life Membership
• 2006 — Panthers Team of Legends
• 2016 — Inaugural Inductee, Panthers Hall of Fame

Relevance to Events Described

Alexander captained Penrith into previously unexplored territory.

In 1990 the Panthers reached their first Grand Final, losing 18–14 to Canberra. Twelve months later the same clubs met again.

This time Penrith won.

Alexander’s contribution to the 1991 Grand Final was characteristic of the player he had become. His second-half kicking game helped turn the match, including a long-range field goal that put Penrith ahead, before his sideline conversion of Royce Simmons’ late try helped seal the club’s first premiership.

Yet Alexander’s significance was greater than his performance in one match.

The premiership represented the culmination of changes that had taken place over many years. Penrith had developed from a club hoping to compete into one capable of producing its own international players and ultimately its own premiership-winning captain.

Alexander stood at the centre of that transformation.

What followed gave the story a profoundly different dimension.

In June 1992, Greg’s younger brother and Panthers teammate Ben Alexander was killed in a motor vehicle accident. Greg had already been sidelined by a knee injury and returned only later in the season. The loss had a deep impact on Greg personally, the Panthers playing group, the entire Panthers staff, and the wider community.

The full story of Ben Alexander belongs elsewhere in Beyond the Book. Within Greg’s profile it is enough to recognise that the tragedy became inseparable from the years that followed.

Alexander eventually left Penrith for the newly established Auckland Warriors, spending two seasons there before returning to the Panthers in 1997. He remained until his retirement in 1999. Across his two periods with Penrith he played 228 first-grade matches and scored 1,100 points.

Retirement did not end his association with Panthers.

In 2002 Alexander nominated for the Football Club Board at a time when the organisation was deeply divided. His candidacy would subsequently become associated with the group of candidates commonly described as the “management ticket”, but Alexander himself presented his nomination rather differently.

Alexander had told the Penrith Press that he had been considering standing for the Board for three years, since retiring from football, and wanted to give something back to the club. He also spoke positively of Roger Cowan’s contribution to Panthers. In a subsequent interview with the Western Weekender, Alexander acknowledged speculation about whose election “ticket” he might be running on, but said he had given it little thought. He wanted to be regarded as his “own man”, elected on merit, and said that decisions coming before the Board should be assessed individually.

Alexander also circulated his own recommended group of candidates. Significantly, it did not simply reproduce either of the principal groupings contesting the election. Among those he recommended was John Bateman, one of the five sitting directors whose conflict with senior management lay at the centre of the Board dispute. The issue later arose during the Temby Inquiry, when Alexander said that Rob Weaver had assisted him with the wording accompanying that recommendation.

Alexander topped the poll.

The election was subsequently examined closely by Ian Temby QC, particularly the extent to which senior management had become involved in determining the composition of the Board to which management itself was accountable. When Temby put that governance problem directly to Alexander, Alexander accepted the difficulty.

The episode placed Alexander in a very different Panthers environment from the one in which he had first become prominent.

The premiership captain had become a director.

The questions were no longer about football tactics, leadership on the field or winning Grand Finals. They were about accountability, organisational authority and the relationship between management and the Board.

Alexander’s relationships within Panthers also extended well beyond the Boardroom. Glenn Matthews later recalled that, when he decided to resign as Panthers CEO, Alexander was the only person outside his immediate family whom he told before announcing the decision to the Board. Matthews described a friendship stretching across virtually their entire adult lives.

Beyond Panthers, Alexander also established a substantial post-playing career in rugby league media, becoming a prominent television and radio commentator and analyst.

Legacy

Greg Alexander occupies a distinctive place in Panthers history.

There have been more premierships since 1991, more representative players and new generations of local juniors who have achieved things that once seemed almost unimaginable.

But somebody had to be first.

Alexander belonged to the generation that demonstrated what Penrith’s enormous junior base and increasingly sophisticated football system could produce. He became an Australian representative, an elite player and, ultimately, the captain who lifted the premiership trophy when Panthers won the competition for the first time.

That alone would secure his place in the club’s history.

Panthers subsequently recognised that contribution formally. Alexander was made a Life Member in 2001, selected at halfback in the club’s Team of Legends and, in 2016, became one of the four inaugural inductees into the Panthers Hall of Fame. He had also received the Australian Sports Medal in 2000.

His later service as a director adds another dimension. It connected one of the defining figures of Panthers’ first great football era with the difficult organisational period described in the later chapters of Panthers, Passion & Politics.

In that sense Alexander’s Panthers story spans an unusually wide arc.

He became the captain who helped vindicate it.

And years later, he became — and remains — one of those entrusted with helping govern the organisation it had helped create.

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

Editorial Note

This profile is presented as contextual background.
Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

Major Player: Donald Feltis OAM

Donald George Feltis

Police Inspector, CEO Penrith Junior League, CEO PDRLFC, Director

Few people had an association with rugby league in Penrith that stretched as far across its history as Don Feltis.

As a young man, Feltis was there when volunteers began laying the foundations of the original Penrith Leagues Club in Station Street. Decades later, after serving as a player, coach, Junior League administrator, football executive and director, he became Chairman of Panthers.

That span alone makes Feltis an important figure in the Panthers story. The significance of his contribution lies less in the number of positions he occupied and more in the different eras of Penrith rugby league those positions allowed him to influence.

His most enduring and constructive contribution was probably made at the grassroots level — in the administration of the Penrith & Districts Junior Rugby League.

Later he moved into senior football administration as the football club CEO — he was in charge for the breakthrough 1991 premiership. He also had to guide the football club through the tragedy of Ben Alexander’s death and the years that followed, culminating in the mid-season departure of Phil Gould.

Feltis was elected to the Panthers Board in that controversial October 2002 election and, in 2009 took the chairmanship of the organisation. He remained in that chair until 2015 and faced some of the most difficult financial circumstances in its history.

It was a long contribution, and an important one. It was also more complicated than a simple record of positions held and honours received might suggest.

Role in the Narrative

Don Feltis appears at several quite different points in Panthers, Passion & Politics.

In the early history, he is a direct connection with the people who physically built the first licensed club. During the 1980s, he became an important part of the team recruited by Roger Cowan for the specific task of transforming Penrith’s approach to developing footballers. By 1991, he had moved into senior football administration as Penrith won its first premiership.

A decade later, Feltis appears again in very different circumstances.

In 2002 he was elected to the Football Club Board during the bitter struggle between Roger Cowan and the directors who became known as the Footy Five. The Temby Inquiry subsequently examined that election and the role played by Panthers management in attempting to influence its outcome. Feltis was among those elected.

His later career extended beyond the period covered by the original book. He became Panthers Chairman in 2009, held the position during the Group’s subsequent financial difficulties and restructuring, and was Chairman when Phil Gould returned to Penrith in 2011.

Feltis therefore connects several of the central themes running through the Panthers story: junior development, professionalisation, football success, organisational politics, governance, and financial pressure.

Background

A 2012 NSW Legislative Council tribute recorded that he began playing rugby league at age 14 and subsequently played for Penrith, St Marys and Richmond. His involvement expanded into coaching, including junior teams at Penrith, St Marys, Richmond and Emu Plains and district representative teams.

Rugby league initially ran alongside another long career.

Feltis joined the NSW Police Force in 1955 and served for more than three decades, eventually retiring at the rank of Inspector in 1986. His police postings included Penrith and other parts of western Sydney as well as country NSW. When he retired from the Police Force in 1986, rugby league became his full-time occupation.

Throughout those years in the Police Force, his involvement with Penrith rugby league continued.

One of his recollections preserved in the original manuscript reaches back to the construction of the first Penrith Leagues Club in Station Street. Feltis remembered joining other volunteers to help lay the foundations and recalled a character known as “Nobby” Hunter pre-empting a planned drawing of straws to determine who would break the ground by simply digging the first hole himself.

It is a small story, but an evocative one. Feltis’s Panthers involvement began in an era when the club was being built quite literally by its members and volunteers.

Feltis’s administrative involvement with the Penrith District Junior Rugby League eventually became one of the defining parts of his career.

The scale of that task can easily be underestimated. The Junior League was not simply an adjunct to the Panthers first-grade club or a mechanism for identifying talented young footballers. It administered rugby league across one of the largest junior districts in the game, extending from Blacktown in the east to Katoomba in the west and from the Hawkesbury in the north to Wallacia in the south.

Its responsibilities extended from the youngest children’s competitions through the various junior age divisions and into senior district football. Behind every season sat the less visible work of administering clubs, teams, registrations, competitions, rules, disputes, representative programs and the large volunteer network required to make community rugby league function.

From the 1980s he occupied a succession of senior positions within the Penrith Junior League, including president, vice-president, secretary-administrator and chief executive. Even after periods working in senior football administration, he returned to the Junior League and remained closely involved with its administration for many years. A 2014 parliamentary tribute described him as a “driving force” behind the Penrith Junior Rugby League since 1985.

It was a form of administration very different from running an NRL football operation. Its success was measured not primarily by premierships but by whether thousands of players could participate each week in properly organised competitions spread across a huge geographical area.

Feltis proved exceptionally capable at it.

Recognition & Awards
• Life Membership, Penrith & Districts Junior Rugby League Football Club (1994)
• Life Membership, Penrith Panthers (1995)
• City of Penrith, Wall of Achievement (1999)
• Australian Sports Medal (2000)
• Life Membership, New South Wales Rugby League (2006)
• Medal of the Order of Australia (2014)
• Don Feltis Cup — Penrith Junior League Sunday Division 1 Competitions. (2022)

Relevance to Events Described

Perhaps the most important part of Feltis’s contribution came during the transformation of Penrith’s football development program in the 1980s.

After years in which Penrith struggled to convert the enormous potential of its junior district into sustained first-grade success, Panthers began looking much more deliberately at how talented young players were identified, coached and retained.

One expression of that new thinking was the Five-by-Five program.

The objective was deliberately ambitious: within five years, Penrith wanted five locally developed players capable of representing Australia.

Feltis was one of the people involved in developing the strategies intended to make that possible.

Five-by-Five was not simply a prediction that Penrith’s enormous junior nursery would eventually produce outstanding players. It represented an attempt to create a system capable of turning that potential into elite footballers.

Feltis believed the exercise made Penrith considerably more professional and provided a platform for its future football operations.

The results that followed gave considerable weight to that assessment.

A generation containing players such as Greg Alexander, Mark Geyer, Brad Fittler and others emerged from the Penrith system. The club reached its first Grand Final in 1990 and won its first premiership in 1991.

Feltis had by then moved into senior football administration by then. Contemporary accounts variously describe his roles as coaching and development manager, Rugby League Manager and Chief Executive. The distinction is worth preserving: these were football administration roles rather than leadership of the much larger Panthers licensed-club group.

The NSW Parliament’s 2012 account describes Feltis as Panthers’ Rugby League Manager when the club won the 1991 Winfield Cup.

For Feltis, who had spent so much of his life working within Penrith’s junior system, that premiership represented something more than first-grade success. Many of the players had emerged through precisely the development environment he had helped create.

From administration to the Board

Feltis later returned to the Junior League, an organisation with which he maintained an exceptionally long association.

His next important appearance in the narrative of Panthers, Passion & Politics came in 2002.

By then Panthers had become engulfed in the internal struggle between senior management and the group of directors who became known as the Footy Five.

Feltis stood in the October 2002 Football Club election.

The result was significant. Feltis received 1,072 votes and was elected, followed by Keith Rhind with 1,058 and Kerry Lowe with 954. Immediately behind them were the five directors whose return Roger Cowan and other members of senior management had publicly opposed.

The election later received considerable attention from Ian Temby during his inquiry into Panthers.

The election marked a transition for Feltis. His influence had previously been exercised predominantly through football and junior league administration, it was now part of the governance of the wider Panthers organisation.

The post-Cowan Era — Difficult Years.

Feltis replaced Barry Walsh as Chairman of Panthers in 2009.

The organisation Feltis chaired was substantially different from the one he had first joined. It was also substantially different from the Junior League where his administrative skills were suited.

Panthers had become a large multi-club group, but it was also carrying substantial debt and would soon face serious financial pressures. The Board itself formally carried responsibility for oversight of the Group’s financial management, viability and performance.

The difficulties did not originate during Feltis’s chairmanship, nor can responsibility for them reasonably be assigned to one individual. Some of the warning signs, and proposals for addressing them, predated his elevation to Chairman.

In 2007 Panthers engaged hospitality consultants Australian Leisure to review the operations of the Panthers Entertainment Group. After visiting the Group’s sites, the consultants presented their findings in early 2008. An off-site workshop involving Australian Leisure, Panthers management, ING and another external adviser was then convened to develop an action plan. The resulting recommendations were presented to the Board, but consideration of them was repeatedly deferred.

Glenn Matthews, who was Group Chief Executive at the time, recalls later raising the debt-reduction strategies again with Feltis after he became Chairman. According to Matthews, Feltis told him the Board did not want to pursue them at that time because “it is an election year”.

After leaving Panthers in June 2010, Matthews says he identified a further opportunity through which the ING debt could have been discharged for substantially less than its face value. He offered to assist Panthers with the negotiations, but says the Board declined the offer and chose to handle the matter itself. Matthews later maintained that the financial crisis should never have been allowed to become as serious as it did.

It is Matthews’s account, and he attributed the decision to the Board rather than specifically to Feltis. Nevertheless, it provides an important perspective on the governance of Panthers during the early period of Feltis’s chairmanship.

What is beyond dispute is that the organisation subsequently required substantial change.

Two of the most consequential decisions made during Feltis’s chairmanship was the return of Phil Gould to Penrith in 2011 and the appointment of Warren Wilson in March 2012 as Group CEO.

Gould was given wide responsibility for the football operation and became central to a long-term restructuring of Panthers’ football program. Feltis and the Board supported that process, and Gould later publicly thanked Feltis and his directors for their continuing support of the rugby league program.

Following Warren Wilson’s appointment as Group CEO in March 2012, Panthers embarked on substantial debt reduction, divestment and restructuring. The principal measures adopted reflected strategies that participants in the 2007 management workshop recall having recommended five years earlier.

Feltis therefore occupied the chair through both sides of a difficult period: the financial pressures confronting Panthers and the beginning of the restructuring from which the organisation subsequently emerged in a much stronger position.

He resigned as Chairman in July 2015, bringing to an end an association with Panthers administration that had extended across much of his adult life.

Legacy

Feltis made important contributions to Panthers’ elite football development, particularly during the Five-by-Five period, but that should not be confused with his broader contribution to the Penrith District Junior Rugby League.

The Junior League may ultimately provide the strongest measure of his administrative legacy. For decades, Feltis helped run an organisation responsible for providing rugby league to thousands of players across an enormous part of western Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Most would never become professional footballers. That was not the point. The competition existed for the children, teenagers and adults who played for their local clubs every weekend, and for the families and volunteers who sustained those clubs.

Administering an organisation of that nature required skills quite different from those involved in running an elite football team or governing a large licensed-club group. It was an area in which Feltis demonstrated considerable ability.

His record at those senior levels of Panthers was more complicated.

Yet two decisions made during Feltis’s chairmanship — bringing Phil Gould back to Penrith and appointing Warren Wilson as Group CEO — would have consequences extending well beyond his own time in the chair and stamp his legacy on Panthers.

Those consequences belong to the post-Cowan history of Panthers and fall beyond the scope of Panthers, Passion & Politics. Their full assessment is a story for another Panthers historian.

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

Editorial Note

This profile is presented as contextual background.
Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

Major Player: Barry Walsh OAM

Barry John Walsh

Press Room Manager, Director, Chairman

Barry Walsh’s association with the Penrith Panthers extended across almost four decades and encompassed both sides of an organisation that, for much of its early history, struggled to reconcile the competing interests of football and the licensed club.

A Football Club director from the early 1970s, Walsh became a director of the Licensed Club in the 1980s and ultimately Chairman of Panthers. Along the way he served for decades as a delegate to the NSW Rugby League, managed a NSW representative side, became a Life Member of Panthers in 1987 and a Life Member of the NSW Rugby League in 2002.

His importance to the events described in Panthers, Passion & Politics, however, extends well beyond his longevity.

At several critical points in Panthers’ history, Walsh occupied a position between competing interests.

Around 1980 he helped bridge the deep divide between the Football Club and Licensed Club.

Almost two decades later, he became Chairman as divisions within the Panthers Board were becoming increasingly bitter.

He would occupy the chair through the Parramatta merger controversy, the expansion of the Panthers Group through amalgamations, the Board conflicts of 2002 and the subsequent Temby Inquiry.

Throughout much of that period he was also a longstanding colleague, supporter and friend of Roger Cowan. It was a relationship that placed Walsh close to many of the events that dominate the later chapters of this story, but one that did not always mean agreement.

Role in the Narrative

Barry Walsh first assumes particular significance in the narrative during one of the earliest struggles over how Panthers should be governed.

By the end of the 1970s, relations between the Licensed Club — which generated the money — and the Football Club — which needed much of it — had become increasingly difficult. Roger Cowan believed the answer was to bring both organisations under the control of a single board.

Walsh was then acting secretary (CEO) of the Football Club after replacing Ian Maurice — Walsh’s roots were therefore firmly on the football side of the divide.

According to Walsh’s later recollection, published in Men in Black, Cowan convinced him that the existing arrangement was becoming untenable. Walsh then took the argument back to his fellow Football Club directors. There were 14 directors on the Football Club Board and 12 on the Licensed Club Board and, as Walsh recalled it, the two groups were increasingly pulling in different directions. He urged his colleagues to think about Penrith rather than about themselves.

Eventually both boards agreed to amalgamate.

The decision placed the positions of 14 directors in jeopardy — so there were no guarantees for anyone. When the new Board was elected in December 1980, the Licensed Club directors had the numbers and secured all 12 positions. Not one Football Club director was elected.

Walsh had therefore helped persuade his colleagues to support a structural change that ultimately cost all of them their Board positions.

In December 1983, Walsh was elected to the combined Board until he resigned in 2010.

The episode established a role that would recur during his Panthers career.

Walsh was fundamentally a rugby league man, but this episode demonstrated his willingness to look beyond the immediate interests of the Football Club and towards what he believed were the wider interests of Panthers and its future.

Background

Away from Panthers, Walsh spent his working career with John Fairfax, where he was a press room manager before his retirement.

His involvement with Penrith rugby league began in the early 1970s and developed into what was effectively a second career. By the time he retired from the Panthers Board in December 2010, he had effectively recorded 37 years as a Football Director, and 28 years as a Panthers director. He was highly regarded and was affectionately known as The Football Director by many.

His rugby league involvement extended well beyond the Board room. He managed the NSW Rugby League representative side in 1978, served for some 30 years as a delegate to the NSW Rugby League and was Patron of the Penrith District Junior Rugby League. He was also closely involved with Panthers on the Prowl and served as its Chairman.

Walsh was made a Life Member of Panthers in 1987. In 2002 his contribution to the game was recognised more broadly when he became a Life Member of the NSW Rugby League.

In 2006 the City of Penrith recognized Barry’s contribution to the City by assigning him a position on their Wall of Achievement.

As part of the Queen’s Birthday Honours on 8 June 2009, Barry Walsh was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to Rugby League football through administrative roles in the Penrith district.

These were not incidental associations. Rugby league — and Penrith rugby league in particular—formed the foundation of Walsh’s involvement with Panthers and are important to understanding the positions he subsequently took during some of the organisation’s most contentious periods.

Recognition & Awards
• Life Membership, Penrith Panthers (1987)
• Life Membership, New South Wales Rugby League (2002)
• City of Penrith, Wall of Achievement (2006)
• Medal of the Order of Australia (2009)

Relevance to Events Described

The struggle for Penrith’s survival

By the late 1990s Australian rugby league had emerged from the Super League war into another period of uncertainty. The newly formed National Rugby League intended to reduce the number of teams, and Penrith’s place in the competition could not be assumed.

Cowan wanted the Board to investigate all available options, including a possible merger with Parramatta. The proposal became extraordinarily contentious.

Walsh later drew a clear distinction between investigating the possibility and supporting it. He said he had made it clear from the beginning that he would never vote for a merger with Parramatta, but believed the Board nevertheless had an obligation to investigate the option.

Walsh was a member of the Stand-Alone Committee established to develop and pursue initiatives aimed at advancing the Club’s position on “The Criteria”.

His position therefore reflected something already evident in the Board amalgamation debate almost two decades earlier: a willingness to investigate structural change without necessarily supporting the outcome being investigated.

Becoming Chairman

At about the same time, the composition and culture of the Panthers Board were changing.

Following the death of Deputy Chairman Vern Mychael, Walsh joined the Board Executive. As new directors arrived and began making their mark, the previously stable Board became increasingly divided.

In 1999 Leo Armstrong was replaced as Chairman by Walsh.

Walsh’s elevation occurred in unusual circumstances. He had been a supporter of Armstrong and was not part of the group seeking his removal. John Bateman initially approached Keith Rhind to take the position. When Rhind refused, Bateman approached Walsh. Faced with the reality that Armstrong no longer had the numbers, Walsh accepted the chair.

His subsequent description of his position was telling:

I never had control of the Board.

It was a difficult environment in which to chair an organisation. The Board was becoming divided between directors demanding greater scrutiny of management and others who retained greater confidence in Cowan and the existing management structure. Walsh’s longstanding relationship with Cowan inevitably placed him closer to the latter group, but the events that followed demonstrate that his support was not automatic.

Amalgamation and expansion

As Chairman, Walsh was closely involved when Panthers began pursuing amalgamations with financially troubled clubs elsewhere in New South Wales.

Walsh recalled that management had researched the concept extensively and that it had been discussed for more than a year. He saw potential advantages in expanding the Panthers brand, developing a broader rugby league following and building assets and cash flow. Because many of the clubs being considered were in financial difficulty, he also believed Panthers could acquire substantial assets on favourable terms.

His involvement was therefore more than ceremonial. Walsh understood and supported the strategic rationale behind what became one of the most significant expansions in Panthers’ history.

The expansion would, however, produce unforeseen governance problems — particularly over the voting rights of members joining Panthers through amalgamation.

The aborted election

Those problems came to a head in March 2002.

An election was underway in which members of the newly amalgamated clubs were voting in unexpectedly large numbers. Faced with the possibility of a substantial change in the composition of the Board, the directors unanimously decided to abort the election.

Walsh voted with the other directors to cancel it, despite Cowan strongly opposing that decision.

The episode provides an important qualification to any portrayal of Walsh simply as a dependable Cowan vote.

Walsh subsequently recorded concerns about how the actions of the Board might be viewed by the Department of Gaming and Racing. He stressed that he did not himself believe the directors were improperly manipulating the process, but worried that some recent Board actions might be perceived by the regulator as an attempt to influence the election outcome.

His concern was not merely about what the Board believed it was doing, but about how its actions might appear to an external regulator.

The controversy did not end there. The eventual Football Club election in October 2002 removed five sitting directors. Walsh, Leo Armstrong, Keith Rhind and Terry Heidtmann survived, while Greg Alexander, Greg Chapman, Don Feltis, Kerry Lowe and Col Bentley were elected.

Temby would later describe Walsh, Armstrong and Rhind as strong Cowan supporters. That was Temby’s characterisation, and Walsh’s longstanding friendship and confidence in Cowan certainly formed an important part of his position within the Board. But the cancelled election itself demonstrated that the relationship did not prevent Walsh from supporting a course Cowan strongly opposed.

The Temby Inquiry

As Chairman, Walsh inevitably became an important witness when the NSW Government established the Penrith Rugby League Club Inquiry under Ian Temby QC.

Temby found that significant elements of the information conveyed were incorrect and concluded that Walsh had misled the Board, although he considered this probably resulted from “confusion, rather than mendacity”, on Walsh’s part.

The episode exposed one of the tensions inherent in Walsh’s position. His relationship with Cowan had developed over decades and involved considerable personal trust. But as Chairman and a member of the Executive, Walsh also carried responsibility for independently scrutinising the arrangements surrounding the Chief Executive.

The Inquiry therefore forms an important part of Walsh’s record. It identified shortcomings in governance and oversight for which, as Chairman and an Executive member, he shared responsibility. At the same time, its findings need to be viewed within a much longer Panthers career rather than allowed to define it.

Beyond the Cowan years

Walsh remained Chairman after the Temby Inquiry and after Cowan’s retirement in 2005.

An episode recalled by Glenn Matthews provides an insight into the relationship between Chairman, Board and Chief Executive during this later period.

Matthews had decided to sign Matt Elliott as Penrith’s next first-grade coach before informing the Board. When he approached Walsh at a function and said he needed to speak with him, Walsh immediately asked:

“What have you done?”

On being told that Elliott had already been signed, Walsh responded:

“You what?”

Matthews subsequently prepared a paper explaining his decision for the directors. After considering his reasoning, he recalled that the Board supported him completely.

The episode is revealing. Walsh was plainly surprised that such an important decision had been made before the Board was consulted, but the Board was nevertheless prepared to consider the case Matthews put before it rather than simply react to the way the decision had been made.

Walsh continued as Chairman through much of the decade that followed. He was replaced as Chairman by Don Feltis in 2009.

He resigned from the Board on 22 December 2010, ending an association as a director stretching back almost four decades.

Legacy

Barry Walsh’s contribution to Panthers cannot readily be reduced to a single achievement or controversy.

He was, first and foremost, a rugby league man. His 37 years as a Football Director, decades representing Penrith within the NSW Rugby League, Life Memberships of both Panthers and the NSW Rugby League, and the award of the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to Rugby League administration attest to that.

But his importance to the Panthers story lies equally in the positions he occupied when the organisation was changing.

Around 1980, he helped persuade Football Club directors to look beyond their own positions and support a governance structure bringing the football and licensed clubs closer together. Nearly two decades later, he became Chairman as another struggle over the organisation’s governance was beginning.

He subsequently presided through the fight to preserve Penrith’s place in the elite competition, the expansion of the Panthers Group, the bitter Board conflicts of 2002 and the searching scrutiny of the Temby Inquiry. He then remained Chairman as Panthers moved into the post-Cowan era.

His longstanding loyalty to Roger Cowan was part of that history, but it does not fully explain Walsh’s actions. At important moments he took positions independently of Cowan, including supporting cancellation of the 2002 election despite Cowan’s opposition.

Their friendship nevertheless survived the conflicts and controversies surrounding the final years of Cowan’s career.

When Cowan was later incapacitated by strokes and living in a nursing home, Walsh was among the relatively small number of former Panthers colleagues who continued to visit him.

Following Cowan’s death in 2017, Walsh reflected on the man with whom he had shared so much of Panthers’ modern history:

Icon is an over-used word, but if ever there was an icon in the licensed club industry it is Roger Cowan.

He added that Cowan was one of those who had “put Penrith on the map”.

Walsh’s own place in that history is different, but substantial.

He began as a representative of the football side of a divided Panthers, helped bridge the gap between its competing arms, and eventually chaired the much larger organisation that emerged. Across almost four decades, he experienced—and at important moments helped shape—the transformation of Penrith from a football club struggling for its place into one of rugby league’s largest and most complex organisations.

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

Editorial Note

This profile is presented as contextual background.
Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

On a Lighter Note

A removed section from the original Chapter 17: Aborting the Election. It has been removed from the main Series because it sits apart from the chapter’s account of the decision to stop the 2002 Board election and its consequences. It is retained here because it provides a revealing—and rather lighter—glimpse of what happened afterwards, when Roger Cowan and members of his management team informally reconstructed what the result might have been had voting continued.

The aborted election at Panthers in March 2002 added a little comedy to a stressful period. Voting was a subject of conjecture by Ian Temby and counsel at the Inquiry. The conclusions they reached were not accurate, according to Cowan.

On the Saturday after the election was cancelled, Cowan invited the management team and their partners to a barbecue at his home. To add interest, he promised they would find out who would have been elected had the ballot not been aborted. At first there was a little soul searching about the legality of counting an aborted ballot, but a quick call to the club’s legal expert soon put everybody at ease.

The clubs other than Penrith were a simple matter. They had all completed voting before the ballot was aborted. Penrith was a little more complicated because there were still two days of voting to go when the election was called off. But there were sufficient votes in to determine the trend. Up to the cancellation, a certain percentage of voters had, for example, voted for Barry Walsh. It was likely that the percentage would be similar in next lot of votes.

There was also sufficient experience of elections at Penrith to estimate the number of votes that would likely have been cast in those final two days. It then became a simple calculation to arrive at the probable number of votes that each candidate at the Penrith site would have received. These estimates could then be added to the actual votes from the other sites that would be very close to the outcome the election might have delivered.

The missing two days of voting at Penrith was vital to the calculation, and it was not taken into account by the Inquiry.

It was a pleasant evening. A few good bottles of red wine had added a bit of sparkle to proceedings and everyone took a place around a table that would serve as the tally room.

Who would have been elected had the ballot been completed?

There were a few guesses – even a few friendly challenges. Would the How-to-Vote ticket at Newcastle and Port Macquarie swamp the Penrith votes, and fulfil the fears of the Five? If Newcastle and Port Macquarie were successful in getting their four candidates elected, which four of the current Board would miss out? In that gathering it was a unanimous hope that it would be the Footy Five.

The total number of votes cast for all clubs including Penrith was only a little over 3,000. Penrith accounted for more than 1,000, around 900 voted at Newcastle and about 700 at Port Macquarie. The other clubs made up the total.¹

The ticket distributed by Newcastle and Port was partly effective, but there was another voting result that came as no surprise to the management team. A large proportion of the voters at both sites supported the re-election of the existing board in its entirety.

Before the counting of the Penrith votes, the candidates at Port Macquarie and Newcastle
were in front of some of the Penrith candidates.

The votes cast at the Penrith site were strongly in support of retaining all sitting directors. As the votes mounted, the candidates from the other clubs continued to slide down towards defeat. At the end of the exercise, the management team and their partners erupted in laughter and called for more wine.

For those around the table, the irony was irresistible. Their reconstruction suggested that, by aborting the election, the Footy Five may have outsmarted themselves. All but one appeared likely to have been returned with a clear majority. Evans would have missed out. He had resigned the previous year, and as a non-sitting director, his name did not have the customary asterisk beside it on the voting form. Terry Heidtmann was in a neck and neck battle for the ninth seat. With only a few more votes than the number estimate for the missing two days of voting, the reconstruction indicated that he too was likely to have been re-elected.

Related Themes

Conflict · Board Decisions · Governance

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

The 2002 ballot was not a conventional Panthers election. It was the first in which members from the amalgamating clubs participated and voting had been completed at the other sites before the election was stopped. The reconstructed result therefore combined actual votes already cast with an estimate of the remaining two days of voting at Penrith; it should be understood as an informed reconstruction rather than an official election result. ↩︎

Major Player: Rob Weaver

Rob Weaver

Media & Communications Manager, Panthers Group, 1996–2008

Rob Weaver joined Panthers in 1996. His appointment was a first for Panthers — there had never been a full-time position. The catalyst for creating this role was the Penrith Panthers joining Super League. Super League required all clubs to have someone covering this role. Funnily enough Rob suspects that he might not have got the job at Panthers had a number of well-qualified sporting journalists not been wary of any involvement with Super league.

It was quickly evident that the pathway to Panthers was made clear for Rob for very good reasons. Panthers was entering a challenging era.

Weaver brought to the position extensive experience in journalism and communications in Australia and overseas. That background placed him in an unusual position during the events described in Panthers, Passion & Politics: he understood both the Panthers organisation, whose position he was responsible for communicating, and the media through which much of the public battle surrounding Panthers would be fought.

Role in the Narrative

As Media & Communications Manager for the Panthers Group, including rugby league, he became closely involved in communicating responses to the many challenges faced by the Group. His years at Panthers subsequently encompassed the formation of the National Rugby League, the fight to retain Penrith’s place in the competition, the Group’s expansion through club amalgamations, the increasingly bitter divisions within the Panthers Board, and the Temby Inquiry.

Weaver appears in the narrative as the senior communications figure within Panthers during some of the most turbulent years in the club’s history.

During the struggle for Penrith to retain its place in the rationalised rugby league competition, he worked with senior management in developing and communicating Panthers’ case for survival.

As Panthers expanded through amalgamations, communications again became important in explaining Panthers’ intentions both internally and publicly.

By the early 2000s, however, the environment had changed. Disagreements, once largely contained and internal, increasingly became public disputes. Media statements, advertisements, newspaper coverage and eventually online discussion became part of the conflict itself.

Weaver therefore occupies a distinctive position in the story: he was actively involved in many of the events described in Panthers, Passion & Politics, yet for the reader he remains largely behind the scenes.

Background

Before joining Panthers, Weaver had spent all of his working life in journalism, broadcasting and communications.

His career included work as a senior journalist and newsreader with the 2GB Macquarie News Network; postings with Australian Associated Press in Singapore and London; chief subeditor on ABC flagship radio news program, morning National Radio News, and later as staff correspondent for the Indian subcontinent; and senior television news positions overseas, including Visnews bureau chief in Cairo and Tel Aviv, foreign editor with CNN, and managing editor of a major ITV station in the United Kingdom.

After returning to Australia, he became Marketing and Communications Manager for the Water Board, now Sydney Water, and later became a partner in the media training company Image Media Services.

Unlike those sporting journalists who were wary of Super League, Weaver was not. He had been steeled by events encountered in his career.

I went to boarding school in the Blue Mountains, had family connections in Penrith and have never baulked at a challenge. I wasn’t bad at sports such as swimming, tennis and cricket and had played a little soccer and rugby league at schoolboy level. Nothing to match professional rugby league, of course, but having people firing a .50 calibre machine gun five or six feet above your head or trying to stone you to death and still getting the story requires a certain amount of physical and mental toughness.

That willingness to enter a difficult environment was soon tested.

Relevance to Events Described

One of Weaver’s earliest major responsibilities at Panthers coincided with the struggle for the club’s survival in the newly rationalised rugby league competition.

Panthers management believed that Penrith should remain a stand-alone club. At the same time, it considered it essential to investigate alternatives should that prove impossible. That distinction became important as speculation grew that Panthers might amalgamate or enter a joint venture with another club.

Weaver became one of the people responsible for communicating that position publicly. The message was essentially that standing alone remained the priority, but responsible management required Panthers to investigate every available option rather than risk being left without a place in the competition.

That communications role was part of a much wider survival strategy.

Management gathered information, challenged elements of the criteria being used to determine which clubs would survive, investigated alternative arrangements and prepared for the possibility that Panthers might need to defend its position. Weaver directed the work of photographer Neil Billington, who was engaged to gather evidence of game attendances — an episode explored in the Beyond the Book article, Counting Crowds to Chase Survival.

Weaver was also responsible for an important change in the way Panthers communicated directly with supporters.

Panthers Interactive

Under his direction Panthers established an official club website at a time when the internet was still a relatively new communications medium. Weaver recalls it as the first official website established by a top-level rugby league club. It introduced innovations including half-time and full-time match reports accompanied by photographs of play.

He also persuaded an initially sceptical Board to allow a supporter forum on the site — in fact, he took the daring step of making the forum the central feature (along with Latest News) of the home page. This was perhaps the most innovative — and controversial — aspect of the site. At a time when sporting organisations were accustomed to exercising considerable control over their public communications, Weaver was placing supporter debate, comment and criticism front and centre. Panthers was not simply communicating with its supporters; it was providing a highly visible place for supporters to communicate back.

This was Panthers Interactive. It became extraordinarily active. Weaver recalls that, at its peak, its traffic exceeded that of the regular NRL website. That is a significant claim and is presented here as Weaver’s recollection. What is clear is that Panthers Interactive developed into an important communications channel for the organisation.

Its significance changed as the internal divisions at Panthers intensified.

What had begun as a means of connecting supporters with the club became another arena in which competing views about Panthers, its management and its Board were expressed. Weaver describes the forum as eventually becoming “an important tool in the Board Wars”.

Some difficult navigations

His communications role was also evident during the Group’s amalgamation program. Those amalgamations brought Panthers into communities well beyond Penrith and sometimes generated substantial local opposition. Explaining what Panthers proposed, responding to criticism and dealing with media coverage became an important part of the process.

By 2002, however, the communications environment surrounding Panthers had become substantially more adversarial.

The divisions within the Board were now being played out publicly, and Weaver’s communications role inevitably drew him into aspects of that conflict. The Temby Report records, for example, Greg Alexander saying that Weaver helped him prepare the wording accompanying Alexander’s recommended ticket of candidates during the October 2002 Football Club election.

The incident illustrates the difficult territory Weaver’s position had come to occupy. Communications were no longer simply about promoting Panthers or explaining corporate strategy. They had become entangled with an internal struggle over governance, amalgamation, Board composition and the future direction of the organisation.

Those circumstances also placed Weaver close to Roger Cowan throughout the period.

Their relationship was not, however, one of unquestioning agreement.

Weaver has used the old expression “taking the King’s shilling” to explain his approach to organisational loyalty. To him, accepting that shilling meant owing the King absolute loyalty — but that loyalty included an obligation to tell the King when he was wrong.

Rob recalls,

Roger Cowan and I had our moments. Indeed, he once threatened to sack me.

The disagreements did not prevent a strong professional relationship developing. Weaver came to regard Cowan as “brilliant and focussed”, while believing that Cowan in turn came to recognise the value of having someone around him prepared to challenge him.

Roger became deeply concerned about confidential Board information finding its way into the media and believed the Weekender sometimes appeared to know of internal developments before management.

That relationship is important in understanding Weaver’s place in the events described in Panthers, Passion & Politics. He was part of the senior group defending management decisions during a bitter organisational conflict, but his own account suggests that loyalty to management did not mean an absence of disagreement within it.

Legacy

Rob Weaver’s years at Panthers coincided with a fundamental change in the way organisations communicated with their members, supporters and the wider community.

When he arrived, newspapers, radio and television remained the principal means by which Panthers communicated publicly. By the time he left in 2008, the internet had created a direct relationship between organisations and their audiences — and Panthers had been an early participant in that transformation.

The establishment of the Panthers website and particularly Panthers Interactive form an important part of that contribution. They demonstrated the potential for a sporting organisation to communicate directly and immediately with supporters rather than relying entirely upon traditional media.

But Weaver’s relevance to the Panthers story extends beyond technology.

During the survival struggle of the late 1990s, communications became part of strategic management. During the amalgamation period, it became a means of explaining organisational change. During the Board Wars, it became part of the conflict itself.

Weaver was involved across all three phases.

His relationship with Roger Cowan also endured beyond their working years. After Cowan suffered a series of strokes in 2014 and was living in residential care, Weaver was among the relatively small number of former Panthers colleagues who continued to visit him.

It provides a moving postscript to a professional relationship Weaver himself characterised as one involving loyalty, disagreement and mutual respect.

Related Themes:

Innovation · Governance · Conflict

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

Editorial Note

This profile is presented as contextual background.
Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

Why Cutting the Membership Fee Wasn’t So Simple

Membership of a NSW registered club is more than a commercial relationship between a business and its customers. Members constitute the club and, depending upon their class of membership, have important governance rights.

Those rights include voting on constitutional changes and electing the directors who govern the organisation.

Before amalgamating with other clubs, Panthers membership was very simple. Members paid $20 annually, pensioners paid $10 for membership.¹ Penrith had approximately 60,000 ordinary members. All members were eligible to participate in the governance of Panthers through voting in Board election, voting on constitutional matters and attendance at general meetings.

Amalgamations brought with it a challenge around the pricing of membership — the membership fees for all the amalgamating clubs was less than half the fee charge at the Penrith club.

To accommodate the price differential, a new category of membership was created — Social Membership. This allowed members from amalgamating clubs to retain their membership at a low rate. Taking Social Membership meant forgoing their rights to participate in the governance of the wider Panthers group.

As the number of amalgamations grew, so did the number of members — 120,000 members in total.

The membership offer was still relatively simple — Ordinary Membership $20; Social Membership $2.

However, Panthers was running the risk of breaching the Registered Clubs Act, which required a majority of the club’s members to be entitled to vote in Board elections and on changes to the constitution.

With Social Memberships proving popular at regional clubs and also with members who held membership in both Penrith and one or more of the other clubs in the group, there was a high potential for Social Members to become the majority.

This was still not regarded as a difficult problem.

A simple price reduction in Ordinary Membership would be the solution.

The recommendation of a lower-fee ($8 +GST) ordinary membership was being urged by every one of the fourteen club venues, the Panthers marketing team and all the management team.

This should have been a relatively straightforward commercial decision.

It turned out not to be so simple.

This recommendation was delivered to the Board who repeatedly rejected it and responded with requests for more information, more research — even asking for an analysis of the price elasticity of membership.

Recommendations to the Board set out the reasoning behind them. Although a potential 60 per cent reduction in membership revenue was an obvious concern, management believed there were strong commercial arguments supporting the change.

After months of rejection, it became clear that the recommendation was going nowhere. It also raised the possibility that the real obstacle was no longer the price of membership at all.

Roger Cowan took an extraordinary step as a final resort.

He went into a Board meeting with a three-page media release already prepared, ready to publicly accuse five directors of putting their own positions ahead of the interests of Panthers members.

As described in Part 51 of The Series, the release was never distributed. The Board eventually agreed to the lower fee.

But the document survives — and it helps explain why something as apparently simple as the price of membership had become so difficult.

From the Digital Archive: Read the original three-page media release prepared on 27 July 2002 — The Membership Media Release: The Art of Brinkmanship.

The document reveals that what began as a relatively simple commercial and marketing issue had become entangled in arguments about voting rights and the future control of Panthers.

The three-page media release was headed.

“Directors put themselves ahead of members” — Cowan

It was dated 27 July 2002 and had been prepared for public distribution if the Board again rejected management’s recommendation.

According to the release, the Board had rejected the $8.80 proposal at its meeting the previous Tuesday.

Cowan said the reason was that the cheaper membership would be available to members across the Panthers Group and would give those members the right to vote at a meeting scheduled for 15 September to consider a constitutional change.

That constitutional change was itself significant.

At the time, Penrith members were guaranteed at least five positions on the nine-member Panthers Board. The proposed change would create a 14-member Group Board, with nine positions elected by Penrith members.

Cowan alleged that some directors wanted to prevent members from the other Panthers clubs from voting or attending the September meeting.

He also said some members of the Board had argued that increasing the number of voting members at the amalgamated clubs could result in Penrith losing control of the Group.

Cowan’s response was blunt. Penrith already had guaranteed majority representation on the existing nine-member Board and, under the proposed structure, Penrith members would elect nine of fourteen directors. If that was insufficient to protect Penrith’s position, he argued, he did not know what would be.

He also claimed that treating long-term members of Port Macquarie Panthers and ClubNova as Social rather than Ordinary Members would deny some 25,000 people the voting rights they had been promised.

These were Cowan’s allegations in a media release prepared during an increasingly bitter Board dispute. They do not, by themselves, establish the motives of the directors he was criticising.

While the Board agree to the new $8 membership — $8.80 including GST — being offered from August 2002. It was still far from simple because this membership price was introduced as an extra option rather than simply changing the price of ordinary membership.

Panthers now had a membership with 3 tiers with prices including GST:

Ordinary Membership: $22
The New Membership: $8.80
Social Membership: $2.20 (Note: this is also referred to as Remote Site Membership – it not available to those whose home club was Penrith)

Ordinary members paying $22 could vote for the Group Board and, subject to constitutional requirements, stand for election to it.

Members paying the new $8.80 fee could attend general and annual general meetings and vote on most resolutions. Their right to vote for the Group Board was initially shown as conditional upon the passage of a special resolution at the general meeting scheduled for 15 September 2002. They could not stand for election to the Group Board

Social members paying $2.20 could attend general and annual general meetings, but could not vote for or stand for election to the Group Board.

All three categories could stand for election to the Advisory Board of their selected home club.

The membership structure was therefore attempting to accommodate different kinds of members within an organisation that had changed enormously in only a few years.

When this was placed into communications for members it confused more than clarified. The following table is an extract the Panthers website circa Sptember 2002:

The September Change

The next step came on 15 September 2002, when a special general meeting approved changes to the Group Board structure.

The existing nine-member Board would increase to fourteen directors. Nine positions would be elected by Penrith members, while five would be guaranteed to nominees from other clubs within the Panthers Group.

A Panthers website announcement published the following day also confirmed that all members except Social Members would have the right to vote.

What had begun as an argument about the price of membership had therefore become part of a much wider restructuring of membership rights and representation within the growing Panthers Group.

More Than a Price Cut

The dispute described in Part 51 began with what management regarded as a straightforward commercial problem. Penrith’s membership was expensive compared with other clubs, while amalgamation was creating a rapidly growing number of cheaper Social Members.

But solving one problem created another.

Membership price became connected to voting eligibility; voting eligibility became connected to Board representation; and Board representation became caught up in the increasingly bitter argument about who would control the expanding Panthers Group.

The $8.80 membership was therefore more than a price cut. It was part of the much larger challenge of adapting the governance of Panthers to an organisation that had grown far beyond Penrith.

That was why something apparently so simple became so difficult.

Related Themes

Governance · Growth · Conflict

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

There was also the innovative Permanent Membership which in this era was $475. With this membership – an ordinary membership carrying full voting rights – there was no annual renewal and the fee was refundable in full if the member resigned, or payable to their estate on their death. Many who held this “perpetual” membership mistakenly referred to themselves as “life” members. Life Membership is an honour awarded to those who have served the club with distinction. ↩︎

Major Player: Greg Evans

Greg Evans

Businessman, entrepreneur, newspaper proprietor, councillor, Panthers’ director.

Greg Evans was a prominent Penrith businessman, newspaper proprietor, local councillor and Panthers director who became one of the central figures in the Board conflicts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Already well known within the Penrith community when he joined the Panthers Board in 1997, Evans became increasingly involved in disagreements over the future of the football club, the respective roles of the Board and management, and the exercise of authority within Panthers. On these and other issues, he increasingly found himself in opposition to Roger Cowan and eventually became one of the five directors who were known as the “Footy Five”.

His significance to the story, however, extends beyond that label. Evans’ business and civic standing, his ownership of The Western Weekender, and his strongly held views about the respective authority of the Board and management gave him an unusually influential position during one of the most divisive periods in Panthers history.

Role in the Narrative

Greg Evans enters the narrative during a period of considerable change on the Panthers Board.

Greg Evans joined the Panthers Board in 1997 after having previously stood unsuccessfully for election. His arrival was part of a period of unusual turnover on the Panthers Board, during which Craig Terry and Denis Coffey also joined.

Evans, Terry and Coffey subsequently became aligned with existing directors Geoff James and John Bateman. Ian Temby later described the emerging group as being determined to make management accountable. From Roger’s perspective, they increasingly represented an opposition to management.

Evans was instrumental in developing division.

He features prominently in the debate surrounding Panthers’ survival as a stand-alone NRL club in 1999, in the later disputes over the respective authority of the Board and management, the cancelled 2002 election and in the events that ultimately developed into the Board wars.

He was subsequently identified as one of the “Footy Five”, alongside John Bateman, Craig Terry, Geoff James and Denis Coffey.

Background

Evans had established a substantial business and community profile well before joining the Panthers Board.

Beginning his career as an analyst programmer, he moved into business management and became involved in computer distribution. After purchasing and operating a computer company, he took over the distribution business of a failed multinational supplier at the invitation of Apple Computer Inc. A later account of his career records that within two years the business had become Apple Australia’s largest distributor.

In 1991 he founded The Western Weekender.

Evans believed Penrith was often unfairly portrayed by the metropolitan media and saw an opportunity to establish a newspaper presenting the district from a local perspective. Under his ownership the Weekender developed into a significant independent local newspaper. Evans remained its owner and Chairman until 2008.

His media interests later extended to other publications and, briefly, local radio through Kick FM. He also owned the Sydney Spirit basketball team.

Evans was also active in civic and economic affairs. He served for nine years as a Penrith City Councillor, chaired the Penrith Economic Development Board for many years and served on a number of other local and regional bodies, including the University of Western Sydney and Western Sydney Institute of TAFE. He was also appointed to the Greater Western Sydney Economic Development Board.

By the time he joined Panthers, therefore, Evans was already a substantial figure within the Penrith community, with business, political, economic development and media experience.

Leadership and Culture

Matthews has consistently acknowledged Roger Cowan as the greatest influence on his development as a leader.

Working alongside Cowan during Panthers’ formative years exposed him to a management philosophy built upon trust, accountability and personal responsibility. Matthews has often recalled the lessons he learnt about treating people with respect, empowering staff to make decisions and responding to mistakes with honesty rather than blame.

One incident early in his career, when he admitted to a significant financial forecasting error, became a defining leadership lesson. Rather than reacting with anger, Cowan focused on solving the problem—an approach Matthews later identified as fundamental in shaping his own leadership style.

Those experiences would later influence Matthews’ own approach to leadership as he assumed increasingly senior responsibilities within the organisation.

Relevance to Events Described

One of Evans’ most important appearances in Panthers, Passion & Politics comes during the debate over Panthers’ future in the rapidly contracting NRL competition.

On 31 July 1999, the Board considered whether to sign a non-binding letter indicating that Panthers was prepared to investigate a possible joint venture with Parramatta. The proposal was intended to preserve an alternative while Panthers continued its efforts to survive as a stand-alone club.

Evans strongly opposed signing it.

He later explained his reasoning:

I really believed that signing that letter was signing to merge with Parramatta.

Despite the document being expressly non-binding, Evans believed that once Panthers entered the process the pressures being applied by the NRL would make amalgamation inevitable.

His position provides an important insight into the disagreement.

All of the directors wanted Panthers to survive as a stand-alone club. The division was over whether prudent planning required investigating alternatives in case that objective could not be achieved.

Evans genuinely appears to have believed that investigating the Parramatta option was itself an unacceptable risk. Others, including Roger, believed refusing even to investigate alternatives could place Panthers’ survival at greater risk.

The disagreement between Evans and Cowan, however, extended well beyond the merger question.

A deeper difference concerned the relationship between the Board and management and where operational authority should reside.

That difference became particularly evident during the crisis surrounding coach Royce Simmons in 2001. When Roger proposed returning responsibility for appointing and dismissing the football coach to management, Evans was vehemently opposed. The Board ultimately authorised Roger to deal with the matter, Simmons was dismissed and Evans resigned from the Board. He subsequently returned.

Evans later described the broader disagreement as an attempt by the group of five directors to get Roger to:

… come under the direction of the board, and to work within the parameters that they set.

Roger saw the governance issue differently. He believed the Board had an essential oversight role but that management needed sufficient authority to manage the organisation and remain accountable for the results.

The distinction was fundamental.

Both sides could argue for accountability and good governance while holding substantially different views about how those principles should operate in practice.

By 2002 Evans was firmly associated with the group that became known publicly as the “Footy Five”. The label would become an important feature of the Board election and subsequently of the way the conflict was remembered.

As explored elsewhere in this project, however, the name simplified a considerably more complicated history. The five directors did not begin as a formal group bearing that name, nor were they necessarily united on every issue. John Bateman later maintained that any real unison among the five developed much later, particularly during the licensed club amalgamation disputes of 2002.

The Publisher and the Director

Evans occupied another position that distinguished him from the other protagonists in the Board conflict: he was simultaneously a Panthers director and proprietor of one of Penrith’s most influential local newspapers.

The Western Weekender reported extensively on Panthers during a period when internal Board disputes were increasingly becoming public.

Roger became deeply concerned about confidential Board information finding its way into the media and believed the Weekender sometimes appeared to know of internal developments before management.

Evans’ dual roles inevitably complicated perceptions surrounding both the Board conflict and its public reporting.

The available material establishes Evans’ ownership of the newspaper and his role in setting its policy direction. It does not, by itself, establish the extent to which he personally influenced individual stories concerning Panthers.¹

Nevertheless, the combination was unusual. Evans was simultaneously participating in an increasingly bitter governance dispute inside one of Penrith’s most important institutions while owning an influential newspaper reporting those events to the wider community.

Legacy

Greg Evans died in July 2025.

The tributes published following his death reflected a life and career extending well beyond the Panthers Board wars. He was remembered as a businessman, newspaper founder, councillor, community contributor and a significant figure in the civic and commercial life of Penrith.

The Western Weekender, which he founded in 1991, remains perhaps his most visible contribution to the district.

The tributes also demonstrated how strongly one interpretation of the Panthers conflict had become embedded in local memory.

Evans was remembered as one of the Footy Five who had prevented Panthers from being amalgamated with Parramatta. One obituary described him as a key figure in ensuring Panthers remained a stand-alone NRL club, while another tribute credited him with helping block a concerted drive for merger.

The events described in Panthers, Passion & Politics reveal a more complicated picture.

There was no Board proposal in July 1999 to amalgamate Panthers with Parramatta. There was a proposal to investigate an alternative while continuing the fight to remain independent. Evans sincerely believed taking that step would ultimately lead to merger. Others believed keeping the alternative available was prudent protection against the possibility that Panthers might otherwise be excluded from the NRL.

That distinction does not diminish Evans’ commitment to the football club. Rather, it helps explain the strength of his position.

Nor does the merger debate alone define his importance to this story.

Greg Evans was an independently successful businessman, publisher and civic figure who became a significant participant in the divisions that developed within the Panthers Board. His approach to the future of the football club, the respective roles of the Board and management, and the exercise of authority within Panthers increasingly brought him into conflict with Roger Cowan.

His role is therefore important not simply because he became one of the Footy Five, but because understanding Evans helps explain the very different perspectives from which the Panthers Board Wars developed.

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

Editorial Note

This profile is presented as contextual background.
Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

The fact that the managing editor of the Western Weekender remians unamed throughout Panthers, Passion & Politics, demonstrates Jennie Bentley’s view of who was driving editorial policy on the Panthers issues during the Panthers conflict and throughout the Temby Inquiry. ↩︎

When Penrith City Became the Major Sponsor

Beyond the Book — Commentary & Contributions

Phil Morehead remembers an unusual sponsorship idea — and the leadership lesson that followed.

Contributor: Phil Morehead

Phil Morehead was a partner in Thomas Marsden Advertising the advertising agency and design studio that supported Panthers for many years. Phil also was a long-time active member and President of the Penrith Valley Chamber of Commerce. In this contribution he recalls how Penrith P Panther came into existence and became a recognisable community figure.

In 1988, the name across the front of the Penrith Panthers jersey wasn’t a company or a commercial product.

It was PENRITH CITY.

The arrangement lasted for just one season. But the story of how it came about provides an interesting glimpse into the relationship between the Panthers, the business community and the city during a period when all three were growing.

For Phil Morehead, however, the strongest memory isn’t really about sponsorship at all.

It is about Roger Cowan.

Phil was a partner in Thomas Marsden Advertising, the long-time advertising agency for Panthers, and at the time was also President of the Penrith Chamber of Commerce. He remembers Roger approaching him because Panthers had been unable to secure what Roger regarded as a suitable major jersey sponsor.

Roger saw another possibility.

The football team was appearing regularly on television and in newspapers, carrying the Penrith name far beyond the district. If a commercial sponsor couldn’t be found, why not use that exposure to promote Penrith itself?

As Phil recalls:

Roger was big on promoting Penrith and realised the massive media exposure our football team was delivering every time they played. It was Roger’s concept to have PENRITH CITY on the jerseys.

Phil was wearing what he describes as his “two hats” — advertising man and Chamber President — and the two began developing a plan around the idea.

A city gets behind its team

The proposal went well beyond simply putting PENRITH CITY on a football jersey.

Bloodied and busted — Mark “MG” Geyer & John “Hoss” Cartwright bringing victory to their city. (Photo from Bound for Glory)

An Art Union was planned. Local motor dealers came on board with a new car as first prize. Other businesses would provide additional prizes, while the Chamber’s extensive business network would help sell and promote the tickets.

Responsibilities were allocated among the various people involved and another meeting was scheduled to check progress.

By then, Roger had acted — the jerseys had been ordered.

Phil had acted too. Retailers were prepared and the posters, tickets and other promotional material had been produced.

Then came the follow-up meeting.

In Phil’s recollection, almost nobody else had completed what they had undertaken to do. He particularly remembers a young Royce Simmons, then working with the junior clubs, apologising because he hadn’t had time to complete his part.

The original plan was in trouble.

“We will have to put this aside”

Roger looked at the situation and made the decision.

The jerseys could no longer be altered. Thousands of dollars had already been spent on promotional material. But without the other elements in place, the broader campaign could not achieve what had originally been intended.

Phil remembers Roger saying:

Well, the jerseys cannot be altered, we’ve already spent thousands of dollars on promotional material and I don’t think we can achieve our goal. We will have to put this aside and go back to the drawing board.

What impressed Phil was not simply the decision. It was the absence of everything that might easily have accompanied it.

No anger. No criticism. No ‘what are we going to do now’?

The plan had not come together. People had failed to deliver what they had agreed to do. Roger was undoubtedly disappointed.

But, as Phil remembers it, there was no attempt to embarrass anyone, allocate blame or prolong the failure.

A decision was made and everyone was allowed to move on.

For Phil, it became an enduring example of Roger’s leadership — particularly his capacity to make a hard decision without condemning the people whose actions had helped make that decision necessary.

The unexpected result

The original promotional scheme may not have proceeded as intended, but something significant remained.

The jerseys had already been produced.

So, throughout the 1988 season, the Penrith Panthers ran onto the field carrying PENRITH CITY across their jerseys.

The 1988 Penrith City Panthers (photo: Bound for Glory)
BACK (l to r): Rod McNeil, Matt Goodwin, Mark Geyer, John Cartwright, Graeme Bradley, Cal Van Der Voort.
MIDDLE(l to r): Bryan Hider, Neil Baker, Greg Alexander, Geoff Gerard, Chris Mortimer, Steve Colman.
FRONT (l to r): Greg Clements, Peter Kelly, Steve Robinson, Royce Simmons (c), Ron Willey (coach), David Greene, Brad Izzard.
Ballboys (l to r): Tim Bailey, Paul Bicknell, Brad Bateup.

For Phil, wearing his Chamber of Commerce hat, there was a considerable consolation. Panthers honoured the costs already incurred in producing the promotional material, while the Chamber could tell the local business community that its football team would be promoting Penrith City throughout the season without cost to the Chamber.

It was, in Phil’s words, one of the “win win” experiences of his time as Chamber President.

And the unusual arrangement proved short-lived.

In 1989, Calphos became the Panthers’ major jersey sponsor. In 1990, DahDah took over the major sponsorship, apppeared in a grand final, then a major change in colours, and a premiership win — impeccable timing. DahDah remained on the jersey through to 1993.

Phil wonders whether that prominent PENRITH CITY branding across the Panthers jersey helped open the door for the commercial sponsorships that followed.

Perhaps it did. But his recollection leaves another legacy.

A plan had failed. Money had already been spent. Commitments hadn’t been met. Roger had every reason to be frustrated.

Yet the thing Phil Morehead remembers almost four decades later isn’t the frustration.

It is the way Roger treated the people around the table.

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

Not Your Everyday Amalgamation — Shenanigans in Port

A removed section from the original Chapter 13: Amalgamations Not Takeovers. It tells the remarkable story of the contest over the future of Port Macquarie RSL Club — a dispute involving competing amalgamation proposals, an intense local campaign, political intervention and even a bomb hoax. It has been removed from the main narrative because the level of detail interrupts the broader account of Panthers’ amalgamation strategy, but the episode provides important context for both the Port Macquarie amalgamation and the political reaction to Panthers’ expansion.

The Port Macquarie Panthers story reads like the script for a Bruce Willis movie. It had secret meetings and bomb threats, vandalism, office bugging, threatening phone calls, 19 faceless men, and, of course, who let the dog out?

But the most important element of all was people power.

In mid-2000, the Board and management of the Port Macquarie RSL agreed to approach Panthers about an amalgamation. The club was in trouble and had been for many years.

The original RSL club was born in 1947 in a corrugated Nissen hut, in the centre of what was then a small beachside town. The local sub-branch owned the site and leased it to the licensed club.

After a failed attempt to buy the property from the sub-branch in 1986, the club bought the land in Bay Street where its new premises would be built. It was a short distance from the centre of town, in what was to become a prime waterfront location.

The club moved into its new premises in August 1993, but due to the recession and a blow-out in the building costs, it started with a $22 million debt. Within a few months, it became clear that the new location had not attracted local members in the numbers anticipated. The locals were staying away in droves.

By early 1994, management knew they were in trouble. The club went into voluntary administration in May of that year and continued to operate that way until Panthers came on the scene.

An agreement was struck very quickly between Panthers and the club’s chief executive, Greg Willcocks, and board chairman Graham Linn. Board and management of both clubs negotiated a memorandum of understanding. Roger Cowan and Glenn Matthews attended a meeting of around 800 members on 26 November 2000. Linn told members that the amalgamation offered members ‘a brighter and more certain option for the future’.

Contemporary reports and parliamentary records relating to the Port Macquarie amalgamation are available in the PPP Digital Archive: The Port Macquarie Amalgamation — A Contemporary Record: “Shenanigans” at Port .

Roger Cowan also spoke, assuring members that the Panthers model would preserve the club’s local identity, retain local management and that staff would have all their benefits honoured.

He told the meeting that Panthers had been able to negotiate with the bank to bring the club’s debt of $44 million dollars down to around $8.8 million. The members voted almost unanimously to proceed with the amalgamation.

Cowan explains,

The club had been in trouble for a long time, and the debt was growing. A lot of the accumulated debt was unpaid interest. The bank had not been able to bring about any improvements in the club’s trading position and wanted to write it off their books. At that point, they knew that there was no chance that they would ever collect the total debt, so it was just a matter of how far they would come down. We worked out a figure that we thought was manageable and negotiated from that angle.

For Panthers, the next phase began. An application to the licensing court was approved, and it appeared that everything was on track for a smooth transition.

Around the middle of 2001, Cowan received word that the club was looking at an alternative proposition. In the next couple of months, details of the new offer were revealed. A group of 19 local businessmen had put a proposition to the club.

Freely admitting that they were taking advantage of the new, lower debt that had been negotiated by Panthers, they said they had raised $2 million and had finance for the remainder. Their plan was to pay out the debt and take over the ownership of the prime Bay Street site. The club would retain ownership of its bowling club at Hibbard.

The relationship between Panthers and Graham Linn, and to a lesser extent with Willcocks, began to come apart. Unwilling to become embroiled in a local conflict, Panthers decided to back off. To them it seemed that the Port Macquarie club was committing itself to a deal that was almost suicidal, but they could also see there was no point in persisting where they were not wanted.

The nineteen investors were looking at a windfall. They would be buying a prime property for less than $9 million and renting it back to the club. After ten years, or if the club defaulted, they would have the right to sell or redevelop it. Property values in Port Macquarie were increasing, particularly on such a prime waterfront site, adjacent to the only major shopping centre in town. By 2004, the value of Port Panthers site was already close to 25 million. It had increased even more when development opportunities were explored in 2006.

It was a wonderful deal for the investors, but for the club it was a different prospect.

At the end of the ten years it would need to find a new site, in a suitable position, reasonably close to town, in a property market that was going through the roof. If profits were consistently high over the ten years, it may have accumulated the funds to buy the club back or to secure another site and rebuild. If it didn’t, its only alternative would be to relocate to the Hibbard club a few kilometres out of town and build a new club there. It would take an extremely optimistic view to believe that the club could accumulate, in ten years of trading, sufficient capital to start again in a reasonable way. Taking into account its trading history, and that the investors could do nothing to help in that regard, it was more than optimistic.

The biggest complaint from the locals was the fact that these 19 men, throughout the entire process, refused to reveal their identities. The secrecy, the future security of the club, and the enormous profit potential soon had members thinking and talking.

The ‘19 faceless men’ saga became the biggest story in town. Nine months earlier, there had been an overwhelming vote to go with Panthers, but now there were many who now saying that ‘local ownership’ was a better option than letting the big out-of-town super-club come in to take over the world. Today the club is probably much more a locally-owned club than it would have been had it taken the offer to sell the premises.

The club’s chairman and others were now enthusiastically backing the alternative bid. One of the points they would continue to push during the campaign was that the non-Panthers bid would see the club become ‘debt free’. What they failed to mention, however, was that it would also be free of its greatest asset. Instead of paying interest on its loans, it would be paying rent.

One group of members was particularly concerned about the disappearance of Panthers from the negotiating table. These ten ‘concerned club members’ formed their own little consortium. One of them, Col Munro, made a personal phone call to Roger Cowan. He asked, ‘you’re not dumping us, are you?’

I explained to Col that Panthers was not interested in pushing in where it was not wanted. This was a local issue and the members had to sort it out for themselves. He told me that we had been given the wrong impression. A large majority of members still wanted the Panthers amalgamation and the perception in town was that Panthers was letting them down. I finally agreed to meet his group to see if we should become involved again.

The following morning, a breakfast meeting was held in a Port Macquarie coffee shop. It was attended by Roger Cowan, Barry Walsh, and the ten concerned members. Munro was later elected to Port Macquarie Panthers’ advisory board. Another member of the group was David Meidling, also on the advisory board. David also was elected to Panthers’ group board.

Panthers agreed it would honour its original commitment provided there was sufficient support by the members.

The group mounted a campaign, bombarding the local Port News newspaper with letters to the editor. They also got out amongst the townspeople, talking, rallying members and getting signatures on petitions. This tactic would continue over the next three months, and in the end, was the thing that tipped the balance.

A meeting of members was scheduled for 11 October. Both sides would put their case. A local businessman would speak for the 19. It was here that the high farce began. Greg Wilcocks introduced the parties, and Roger Cowan addressed the large crowd for about 30 minutes. A speaker from the other side had just begun to speak when word came through that there was a bomb in the club.

‘Nobody moved for a while, the reaction was quite hostile,’ says Meidling. ‘There were boos and catcalls and the situation became quite ugly. Nobody at the meeting believed there was a bomb, and most refused to leave.’

The police were called and the meeting broke up, but the high farce continued.

Both sides accused each other of staging the hoax, but it did not stop there. Even the Sydney media got involved. In typical tabloid style, a Daily Telegraph story told of ransacked offices, glue in the locks of someone’s car and house, and anonymous phone threats being made to people on both sides. In a particularly bizarre turn, the story said that a gate had been deliberately opened, ‘allowing the general manager’s beagle to wander off’.

Col Munro shrugs that allegation off. ‘That dog had roamed the North Shore all its life’, says Munro. ‘It didn’t know what a fence was.’

‘We also got accused of bugging the boardroom’, says Munro, ‘though I don’t know how we got past security to do it. We used to meet in a little coffee shop near my place.’

Secret meetings became a way of life, for both sides.

Port News editor Janine Graham says the paranoia in people made the bomb threat seem real. ‘That was what pushed it into wierdsville’, she says.

The bomb did turn out to be a hoax, but it was totally unrelated to amalgamations, faceless men, or either club. A local woman had a little too much to drink and made the call. She received a fine and a suspended sentence.

The meeting galvanised the town. It split down the middle, with a massive media campaign. Full page ads ran in the Port News, and the Holiday Coast Pictorial. The latter publication began full-scale attacks on Panthers and the pro-amalgamation group of members. An ad run by a local businessman called the Panthers’ interest a ‘hostile takeover’. The ad stated that Panthers had never clarified the deal and warned that jobs would be in jeopardy.

He had either not been informed that a detailed memorandum of understanding had been signed by both parties, or he chose to ignore it.

The Hastings Council also got into the act, vocally supporting the local bid. One councillor dismissed concerns about the 19 men. ‘It’s not an issue knowing who is in the consortium,’ he said.

Another full-page ad featured local businesspeople and two local politicians, Rob Oakeshott and John Tingle. Tingle called the consortium ‘white knights’ and said their anonymity should not be seen as anything sinister, and spoke of Panthers’ ‘aggressive takeover program’. Richard Face, became involved and asked the DGR look into the situation.

It could all have been clarified with just one phone call: a copy of the memorandum of understanding would have been available to anyone who asked for it within hours. There was nothing secret about it.

The story moved into the annals of NSW parliamentary history. In state parliament, in answer to a Tingle question, minister for gaming and racing, Richard Face said the happenings in Port Macquarie in October 2001 have ‘strengthened my resolve to reform laws relating to club amalgamations’.

Hansard [27.10.2001] records the minister saying,

The new legislation will require that two clubs that are proposing to amalgamate will have to enter into a deed of amalgamation, clearly setting out key information about the amalgamation. One of the key areas … covered in the deed will be a statement as to what degree the management and staff of the dissolving club are to be retained by the continuing club. The deed will also be required to outline how the local identity of the club is maintained by the continuing club after the amalgamation.

Ironically, each of the legislated gaming reform measures were already part of Panthers’ amalgamation model. They had been resolved and approved by the Club’s management and board in 1999, far in advance of the minister’s announcement of the reform package in July 2001.

The minister could have discovered, in less than an hour, that Panthers was actually doing more to protect the interests of the amalgamating clubs than anything he was proposing.

The Port Macquarie issue was finally resolved by a postal vote. Around 15,000 ballot papers were sent to members. Col Munro said a disused police cell was hired to keep the votes secure until they were counted. Counting took place at the police station, each side had scrutineers, and a policeman wandered around keeping an eye on things. Of the 6399 members who responded, 4459 voted to amalgamate with Panthers.

This was the only time that Panthers continued with an amalgamation that was supported by less than 90% of the members of the amalgamating club. This was only a 70% majority. It was the policy of Panthers’ management team to steer clear of local conflicts. If the members wanted to join up with Panthers it would go ahead. In the case of Port Macquarie, the genuine interest and sincerity of people like Col Munro, David Meidling and others was a convincing influence to bend the policy.

Janine Graham says that ultimately it was people power that made the decision.

There was a great deal of ‘spin’ on both sides, but in the end Panthers probably did their job a little better. I would really like to know how they managed to find those agents in Port to wage that campaign for them. It was grapevine and word-of-mouth that made it all happen.

Cowan says it seems that few people in Port Macquarie are aware that it was the ‘agents’ who found Panthers, rather than the other way round. And it was these agents who waged the war and saved the club from a deal that put it at grave risk of having no club at all in ten years.

The 19 faceless men probably agreed to invest $100,000 each. The lower debt negotiated by Panthers meant that the remaining $6.5 million would have been easily borrowed on the security of the valuable real estate they were buying. Recent valuations indicate that each individual investment of $100,000 would already [in 2007] be worth more than $1 million. No wonder they fought so hard to discredit Panthers.

But the politicians had no excuse. They had a responsibility to get to the truth before taking sides – and all it needed was a phone call.

From the Panthers Passion Politics Digital Archive

The Port Macquarie Amalgamation — A Contemporary Record: “Shenanigans” at Port
Follow the controversy through contemporary Port Macquarie News reports and NSW Parliamentary records, from the original support for amalgamation in 2000 through the competing proposals, political intervention and eventual conditional approval in December 2001.

View the Digital Archive →

Related Themes

Conflict · Growth · Licensed Club

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

Major Player: Glenn Matthews

Glenn Matthews

Accountant, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Executive Officer

Few people contributed to—and witnessed—the modern development of Penrith Panthers as closely as Glenn Matthews.

Joining Panthers in March 1984, on the very day the club’s administration moved into its new Mulgoa Road premises, Matthews would spend the next twenty-six years helping guide the organisation through one of the most significant periods in its history. During that time he progressed from accountant to Chief Financial Officer and ultimately succeeded Roger Cowan as Chief Executive Officer in 2005.

His career spanned the club’s transformation from a rapidly expanding regional licensed club into one of Australia’s leading community organisations, providing a unique perspective on both its growth and the challenges that accompanied that success.

Role in the Narrative

Glenn Matthews appears throughout the middle and later pages of the Panthers, Passion & Politics narrative.

Unlike many figures whose involvement centred primarily on football or board administration, Matthews worked across almost every aspect of the organisation. His responsibilities evolved well beyond finance to include commercial development, strategic planning, football administration and executive leadership.

He was directly involved in many of the defining events covered throughout this series, including:

the move into the Mulgoa Road premises;
Panthers’ commercial expansion during the 1980s;
development of the organisation’s management culture;
the organisational restructure of the early 90s;
football administration;
the Temby Inquiry, the conflict preceding it and its aftermath;
Roger Cowan’s retirement;
the Global Financial Crisis;
development of Panthers Property Trust;
Panthers’ transition into a new phase of executive leadership.

Because his career bridged both Roger Cowan’s administration and the years immediately following, Matthews provides an important perspective on the continuity—and eventual evolution—of the Panthers organisation.

Background

Born: 17 September

Raised in Campbelltown before later settling in Western Sydney, Matthews developed an early interest in mathematics and accounting while simultaneously pursuing competitive barefoot water skiing, eventually becoming an Australian representative coach.

He also developed a lifelong passion for endurance sport. A long-time member of the Panthers Triathlon Club, Matthews completed eighteen Ironman-distance events, including the Ironman World Championship at Kona, Hawaii. His achievements earned recognition as an Ironman Legend — an accomplishment reflecting the discipline, persistence and resilience that also characterised his professional career.

He joined Panthers in March 1984 as an accountant – at the very momemnt Panthers was moving from Station Street to Mulgoa Rd.

We looked at it [the Mulgoa Road building] and thought there was just no way the place was going to be ready. But somehow it became ready … People justed pitched in and got stuff done.

from Western Weekender Podcast: On the Record 26 February 2024

That spirit of shared responsibility and willingness to step beyond formal job descriptions would become one of the defining characteristics of Panthers during Matthews’ career—and one of the organisational strengths he most admired.

Panthers Roles

Accountant
Chief Financial Officer
Reserve Grade Trainer
Senior Executive
Group General Manager
Chief Executive Officer (2005-2010)

Throughout his career Matthews accepted responsibilities well beyond traditional financial management, becoming involved in commercial ventures, organisational development, football administration and strategic planning across the wider Panthers Group.

Leadership and Culture

Matthews has consistently acknowledged Roger Cowan as the greatest influence on his development as a leader.

Those experiences would later influence Matthews’ own approach to leadership as he assumed increasingly senior responsibilities within the organisation.

Contribution to Panthers

Matthews’ contribution extended well beyond finance.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he became closely involved in commercial development, organisational planning, tourism initiatives, football administration and strategic projects across the Panthers Group.

Among those projects was the development of the Panthers Cable Ski Park, where Matthews became actively involved in both management and promotion, later overseeing its redevelopment through new accommodation and tourism initiatives. His willingness to move beyond the traditional boundaries of accounting reflected the increasingly integrated management culture that characterised Panthers during this period.

Cheif Executive Officer

Matthews succeeded Roger Cowan as Chief Executive Officer in 2005 during one of the most challenging periods in Panthers’ history.

Rather than inheriting an era of rapid expansion, he assumed leadership as the organisation confronted increasing complexity, significant football decisions, the Global Financial Crisis and growing regulatory pressures affecting licensed clubs, and a Board grappling with the fallout from a major, public and damaging Inquiry.

Matthews has reflected that while Cowan’s strengths lay in innovation and growth, his own strengths were better suited to leading organisations through periods of operational and financial challenge.

Relevance to Events Described

Many of the major events described throughout this series either involved Matthews directly or occurred while he occupied senior executive positions.

His experience provides valuable insight into the reasoning behind many of the decisions discussed elsewhere in the narrative, particularly those involving organisational development, commercial strategy, football administration and executive leadership.

Legacy

Glenn Matthews occupies a distinctive place in Panthers’ history.

He experienced the organisation as a young accountant during the move to Mulgoa Road, helped shape many of its commercial and organisational developments, and ultimately became the executive entrusted with leading the club following Roger Cowan’s retirement.

His career spans one of the most significant periods of change in Panthers’ history and provides an important link between the organisation’s formative vision and its emergence as one of Australia’s leading licensed club organisations.

Although remembered as a senior executive, Matthews’ influence extended well beyond management. His commitment to developing people, embracing new challenges and serving the organisation across multiple disciplines reflected a culture in which leadership was earned through contribution rather than position.

To receive new Parts and occasional project updates by email, you may subscribe below.

Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

Project Updates

Receive updates when new parts are published.

Editorial Note

This profile is presented as contextual background.
Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

Greg “Brandy” Alexander

Role in the Narrative

Background

Relevance to Events Described

Legacy

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates

Editorial Note

Donald George Feltis

Role in the Narrative

Background

Relevance to Events Described

Legacy

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates

Editorial Note

Barry John Walsh

Role in the Narrative

Background

Relevance to Events Described

Legacy

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates

Editorial Note

Related Topics

Related Themes

Project Updates

Rob Weaver

Role in the Narrative

Background

Relevance to Events Described

Panthers Interactive

Some difficult navigations

Legacy

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates

Editorial Note

The September Change

More Than a Price Cut

Related Topics

Related Themes

Project Updates

Greg Evans

Role in the Narrative

Background

Leadership and Culture

Relevance to Events Described

The Publisher and the Director

Legacy

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates

Editorial Note

Beyond the Book — Commentary & Contributions

A city gets behind its team

“We will have to put this aside”

The unexpected result

Related Topics

Related Themes

Project Updates

From the Panthers Passion Politics Digital Archive

Related Topics

Related Themes

Project Updates

Glenn Matthews

Role in the Narrative

Background

Panthers Roles

Leadership and Culture

Contribution to Panthers

Cheif Executive Officer

Relevance to Events Described

Legacy

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates