Category: Removed Sections

Rugby League’s Inner Circle

A removed section from the original Chapter 7: The 16 Year Struggle to Streamline Rugby League.

Cowan says that at the time of his campaign for one board, the NSW Rugby League was run by a clique. This was a widely held view within rugby league circles at the time. The General Committee consisted of delegates and vice-presidents from every club – more than 40 delegates attended the monthly meetings. It was extremely unwieldy and inefficient. It is difficult enough for a 15-person board to get to good decisions in reasonable time, says Cowan. He recalls his time on the NSWRL executive in the early seventies.

What’s really funny is that for a while I thought that I was in the clique. We used to meet before every general committee meeting and decide what we were going to support that night. There were about eight of us, and we all thought we were involved in the important decisions.

But I found out later that I was never really “in”. The “in” team was quite small. It was a bit like an archery target – you have the inner and outer circle of the bullseye. So, even though I was on the executive, I was on the outer circle. It took me till 1974 to work it out, and one night I publicly resigned from the executive over a decision they made, but I stayed on the committee as a delegate.

The week after his resignation Cowan crossed paths with Jack Gibson, the coach of Eastern Suburbs, who congratulated Cowan on making a stand. He said a lot of people were sick of the fact that a small group were running the league to suit themselves. The clique still existed in some measure until Super League came on the scene in 1995.

Tom Wilson also remembers the workings of the clique. At the time of the Mulgoa Road
purchase, he was a delegate to the NSWRL. The league was concerned about the bad state of many of the playing fields and was pushing clubs to make improvements.

Back then, the Penrith ground was leased to us by the Department of Lands. For us to commit to spending any large sums of money on doing anything, we would need them to guarantee us something like a forty-year lease. Anyway, there was some talk of having our own playing field on the new land. When I tried to explain all this at a league meeting, the chairman, Kevin Humphreys, accused me – in his inimitable fashion – of hedging. Basically, he said I was bullshitting. I objected and asked for an apology, which I got.

But of course, that was not the end of it. When we all went downstairs for the usual drink after the meeting, I was completely ostracised. The only person who came near me was Peter Moore [former Canterbury CEO]. It was a strong lesson.

Charlie Gibson was widely regarded as part of that inner circle. He was a good friend of Humphreys, and the man that Mackie and the Super Six recommended for the job of rugby league secretary for Penrith.

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Conflict · Governance · Football Club

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Culture — An Early Instance at Panthers

A removed section from the original Chapter 6: Building a Culture — by Accident and Design. This is Roger Cowan’s descirption of the culture of the licensed club in te early days.

The following reflection from Roger Cowan describes how elements of that culture were already taking shape in the early years — often without formal structure.

The importance of managing the culture arose out of the efforts to find better ways of managing Panthers after its rapid growth from 1984 on, and our difficulties coping with it.

Before that, whatever was happening in the culture was happening quite naturally with no thought of planning it. No matter who takes the position of CEO, the culture of the organisation will reflect many of that person’s values, behaviours and beliefs.

The one thing I believed in most strongly was that getting results required hard work and long hours. I think I probably went a little bit overboard, and the family paid the price. But I led the way and before long I had a management team prepared to give a lot of time to chasing the club’s goals.

Don Ellks, Leo Trevena and Bob Donaghy were the key drivers of the business in the early days, and they were prepared to put in whatever time was necessary to make sure they got things done. Leo left after a few years, but Don and Bob were linchpins for many years.

An interesting story shows how recruitment plays a part in building culture in a team. It concerns the promotion of Don Ellks. He came to Panthers as a casual barman, and it was not long before his qualities started to shine through. He was promoted to a supervisory position.

At that time Bob Donaghy and Leo Trevena were the club’s two assistant managers. We needed another assistant to help cover the long hours of operation and Don was suggested. But I was not sure whether he was the sort of person who could handle the hours. I did not want anyone on the management team who would crumble if asked to work long hours, sometimes for a seven-day week. We were a small club and there were a lot of demands.

I asked Bob and Leo to give Don a really tough roster for a couple of months to see how he would handle it. He came through with flying colours and was promoted to assistant manager – where he continued to shine for more than 25 years.

This is a good example of how a culture builds. By that time there were four of us leading the way and you might imagine that the expectations and beliefs of staff was that you would not get far in Panthers if you were not prepared to give a bit extra in time and effort. In those years none of us had ever heard of culture in a business sense but we were building one anyway.

There was another thing I learned in those early days. Most people are more comfortable when they know there are good controls in place. There was a lot of dishonesty in the culture before I arrived – people believing the game was to get what you could without getting caught.

As the controls started to take effect, employees would sometimes very privately give me the tip where something was still going wrong. The culture was changing. The honest people were starting to dominate. They knew that what was happening was wrong and wanted to do something about it, wanted to stop others from getting what they could.

Most people were willing to work together to make the club successful. All they needed was someone to show the way.

Later accounts from those who worked within the Club at the time reinforce this description of the early culture — particularly the expectation that staff would contribute beyond defined roles, and that leadership was demonstrated through action rather than hierarchy.

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Culture · Growth

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The Thomas Paynter Story

A removed section from the original Chapter 6: Building a Culture — by Accident and Design.

At the time of publication (2006), around 25 CEOs of clubs in NSW had spent their ‘formative’ career years at Panthers.

Thomas Paynter is one of those managers.

Now the CEO of Port Macquarie Panthers1, he started at Penrith in 1987, working in the bars, picking up glasses. As he began to work his way up, he was given a couple of opportunities early in the piece, which he says he ‘stuffed up’.

I was lucky enough to be given another chance, and I think that’s why I am here today.

Bathurst was the first of the Panthers amalgamations to be finalised. Paynter was sent there as caretaker for three months, but ended up staying a couple of years, before taking on the job at Port Panthers.

It was a huge learning curve for me. The culture of Penrith was really open. People did their job and knew what was expected of them. Coming into an organisation where there were no systems or procedures in place was very difficult. Everything at Bathurst had been quite dictatorial. People would come up and say, “Well, what should we do?”, and I would answer: “Well, what do YOU think you should do?”  I persevered, and a lot of those people picked up and ran with it.

Coming from the culture of Panthers — with its teams, and systems, that sense of natural ownership — and then walking into the other clubs was like stepping back in time.

Bathurst was a bit of a baptism of fire, especially once I knew I was staying. I had never dealt with a board before, never dealt with the community, or even outside suppliers.

But Roger puts very big shoes on people, so you wear them. The fact that Panthers, and Roger – believe that you can do it — you believe you can too.

Janette Hyde2 is the marketing manager of Port Macquarie Panthers. She is one of the original Port staff and has worked at the club for more than 20 years. Panthers amalgamated with the club in 2002. In a classic example of the way that a culture filters through an organisation, Hyde speaks about the management style of her boss, Thomas Paynter. Her words are almost an echo of the words he used to describe the Cowan management philosophy.

Thomas gets the best out of all of us, because he gives us autonomy, he allows us to grow and use our own initiative. He believes we can do it. Underneath the business thing, which is a very big part of it all, there’s also a strong sense of caring about people.

Thomas Paynter’s journey from bar staff at Penrith to CEO of Port Macquarie Panthers illustrates how the club’s culture of trust, responsibility and opportunity translated into leadership beyond the organisation.

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Culture · Growth

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  1. Thomas left the Panthers organisation in November 2008. He spent a further four years in the club industry before moving into the insurance sector, where he has continued in specialist and leadership roles.
    ↩︎
  2. Janette Hyde retired from Panthers in 2011. She has continued to contribute to the Port Macquarie region through leadership roles in Business Port Macquarie and the Greater Port Macquarie Tourism Association, and was named 2019 Citizen of the Year. ↩︎

Negotiating with Council — The Station St Road Closures

A removed section from the original Chapter 5: Building the Basics — Business Principles and Property. This examines the challenges faced in negotiating with Council over the Station Street site.

Roger reflected that certain individuals within Council held the view — and perhaps the expectation — that he would eventually be taken down a notch or two. To this day one aspect of this attitude irks Cowan, describing it as one of his worst memories.

While others involved in the negotiations may have viewed the issues differently, Roger believed the Club received little recognition for its contribution to the community. In his view, the charges and conditions imposed during the sale and development process reflected a lack of support for what Panthers was attempting to achieve.

I think the Club was treated very unfairly by Council. Before we could start building on Mulgoa Road, we had to sell the Station Street site. Council made it extraordinarily difficult. One of the conflicts related to two roads on the Station Street property. One of them was no more than a line on a map. It had never been a road. But the only way we were going to be able to sell that property was to negotiate with Council. The price Council sought was $850,000 — around a quarter of the total amount the Club expected to receive for the entire property.

I tried everything to get a better deal. I told them of a similar case where a club had been able to negotiate an agreement with its local council to close a road for the nominal sum of $1, as a sign of support for the club.

Our involvement in our community was far greater than that of the other club. For instance, we had previously agreed to a joint venture with Council to build a Police Citizen’s Boys Club in Penrith. It was the first boys club ever built without the need to raise funds from the public. We were sponsoring most sports in the area. On top of this the Club’s work to get Penrith to the elite level of rugby League had dramatically increased the city’s profile. I thought we had earned the right to support from Council, rather than obstruction. The city was benefiting on a number of levels from the work we had done, and it was giving nothing back. In fact it was profiteering from our planning.

I told them what we were planning to do would be a tremendous boost for Penrith. But all they saw were the problems, rather than the advantages.

The roads incident was not the only problem imposed on us by Council over that property sale. Another episode contributed to a very nasty police investigation a few years later.

One of the key issues underlying these negotiations related to what are known as paper roads. Paper roads are sections of land set aside by councils for roads in the future. According to Pat Sheehy:

Council planners had discovered the paper road in earlier negotiations for the property. It meant that Panthers did not own the whole site, with the result that Council said “OK, if you want to buy that land back from us, this is what we’re going to charge. All this happened before I was on council, but as far as Panthers was concerned it was absolutely exorbitant.

Robinsons 1957 Street Directory showing Frederick St ( a “paper road”) between Station & Wooddriff Sts. The other street in the negotiation was Park St.

Cowan said the problems extended beyond the property sale and continued into the approval process for the new site:

Council imposed a per hectare sewerage fee on the property based on the total area of land we owned. We were planning to build the club on an area of about 8 hectares. Most of the land was flood-prone, so you couldn’t build on it anyway. But we were hit with this huge bill, based on 86 hectares.

We had to negotiate to defer the payment, but this also became an issue. Even though we eventually came to an agreement, there are still people on Council who believe that Panthers ripped off the Council over that sewerage fee. Under the circumstances, that’s quite laughable

These issues illustrate the complexity of the negotiations and the differing perspectives that would continue to shape relations between the Club and Council.

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Governance · Growth · Board Decisions · Licensed Club · Conflict

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The Bungool Picnic

This is Cowan’s description of what happened when the players were given the news that their pay would be “short”. This was taken directly from the manuscript.

We decided to go ahead with the picnic and pay the players half their contracts in the hope that we would be able to pay more later. When I turned up at the picnic, I found I was the only person from the football committee there. Everyone else, including Cartwright and the club’s president, had suddenly found they were unable to attend. It was up to me to explain to the players.

Most were OK with it, until it came to a player called Billy Tonkin. He was a terrific football player – big, tough, strong – and I’m sitting down. Billy’s next in line, and I say, “Bill, I can only give you half your money.”

Billy growls, “Yeah, Cowan, bullshit! You write my cheque out.”

I say, “Bill, I can only give you half.”

“Write the cheque for the full amount”, says Bill in a very menacing tone, leaning across the table.

The next bloke in the queue is Cec Reddy, who used to play hooker for us. Cec was only slightly built but he was a real pug. He used to box in the ring. Some people used to joke that he should sell advertising on the soles of his shoes.

Cec walks up to Bill and says, “Look, he said he can’t pay you, so leave him alone”. These two proceeded to have a big argument across the picnic area, but in the end, Bill did accept his half pay.

Max’s Notes

The drive to Bungool at Cattai — and back — felt long. The Club’s monthly journal even published directions for members to follow, a reminder of how different travel was at the time.

When I first read Roger’s account, I assumed it referred to the 1964 or 1965 season — certainly before Penrith entered the major competition in 1967. I can remember, even as a child, him returning home frustrated by events at the football club. This felt like one of those occasions, although there were many.

However, the reference to Billy Tonkin complicates that assumption.

Bill Tonkin (pictured right) was signed to Penrith in 1967. He is Player #11 and played in our opening game against Canterbury-Bankstown. Bill played 18 1st grade games in his two seasons (1967-8), scored 2 tries and kicked a goal for a total of 8 points. He was a lock forward who’d previously played for Balmain, Wests, and Souths.

If the player in Roger’s account was indeed Tonkin, the incident must have occurred in either 1967 or 1968 — suggesting it took place after Penrith’s admission to the competition. Alternatively, and almost certainly, the identity of the player has been misremembered.

Either way, the underlying issue remains clear.

The club had committed to player payments it could not meet. Those responsible for managing the football budget failed to address the situation in advance, and were not present when the consequences had to be explained.

Roger, a rookie then, was left to do so alone.

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Related Themes

Growth · Governance · Licensed Club

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