Leo Armstrong Image Source: The Panthers: Men in Black
Murray Leo Armstrong
Director, Chairman Penrith Rugby League Club Ltd
Murray Leo Armstrong — Leo — was one of the most significant and well-respected figures in Panthers history. A distinguished World War II veteran, respected community leader and long-serving chairman, he helped guide Panthers through some of the most important and turbulent years in its development.
Leo Armstrong (2nd from left) and crew in front of Lancaster bomber G for George. On an “away” to Canberra, the 2003 Panthers squad visited the Australian War Memorial and were inspired by this photo and the story of Leo’s service. (Photo: Australian War Memorial)
Armstrong served on the Panthers board from 1980 and became chairman in 1984, following the unification of the licensed club and football club boards. He remained chairman until 2000, making him the longest-serving chairman in the club’s history.
His chairmanship spanned many of the defining events of the modern Panthers era, including the move to Mulgoa Road, the club’s first premiership in 1991, the Super League conflict, the transition to the NRL, and significant growth in both the football and licensed club operations.
Role in the Narrative
Leo Armstrong appears throughout the Panthers, Passion & Politics narrative as chairman during many of the events described in the Roger Cowan years.
His relationship with Roger Cowan was generally characterised by mutual respect and trust. Armstrong frequently found himself chairing the organisation through periods of intense debate, organisational change and external pressure. His calm demeanour and measured approach were important stabilising influences during some of the club’s most challenging periods.
He was also instrumental in supporting the unified governance model that ultimately transformed the management of Panthers.
Background
Born: 4 November 1922, Gayndah, Queensland Died: 22 June 2015, North Parramatta, New South Wales
Military Service: • Royal Australian Air Force, World War II • Served with 460 Squadron RAAF • Navigator, Bomb Aimer and Front Gunner • Flew 32 operational missions over Europe • Flew the final three missions aboard the famous Lancaster bomber G for George
Profession: Commonwealth Bank of Australia, retired (1984) as Manager of the Penrith Branch
Recognition by Panthers • Life Membership, Penrith Panthers (1991)
Relevance to Events Described
Armstrong became chairman at a pivotal moment in Panthers history. The newly unified board had adopted a radically different management structure, the Mulgoa Road development was underway, and the football club was struggling both financially and competitively.
Throughout the following sixteen years, Armstrong chaired the organisation during a period of extraordinary transformation. Under his leadership, Panthers grew into one of Australia’s most successful licensed clubs while simultaneously establishing itself as a competitive force in first-grade rugby league.
His tenure was not without controversy. Board disputes, the Super League war, questions about governance and growing political tensions within the organisation all occurred during his chairmanship. Yet Armstrong’s personal dignity and steady leadership earned him widespread respect from many who worked with him.
For many involved with Panthers during this period, Leo Armstrong represented a style of leadership that was thoughtful, measured and deeply committed to both the club and the wider Penrith community.
Although the new structure fell short of the model Cowan had long advocated, it was seen at the time as a significant step forward.
Both Cowan and the board were pleased with the appointment of Charlie Gibson. He was part of rugby league’s inner circle1, a close friend of Kevin Humphreys, and the man recommended by Mackie and the Super Six for the role of rugby league secretary at Penrith.
The ad appearing in the SMH in August 1980 produced a large number of applicants and resulted in the appointment of Charlie Gibson.
Gibson came with excellent credentials. He had been secretary of the South Sydney club for ten years and was there during the club’s winning streak of four premierships between 1967 and 1971. While the structure fell far short of the ultimate solution Cowan had been fighting to achieve for more than ten years, it was a huge step in the right direction. The Board and Cowan made an agreement that he would concentrate on the licensed club and take no further part in rugby league management. Cowan recalls;
We all thought – great! Charlie really knows his way around the rugby league world and that is what we need. We thought it could be the turning point in our rugby league fortunes.
I thought the board was making a mistake by having him report direct to the board, but I was willing to give it a go. I even agreed to have my contract changed to reflect that rugby league was no longer part of my responsibilities.
Charlie’s role was going to involve a lot of co-operation with the licensed club management in areas of accounting, ground maintenance, and in football-related marketing and promotions.
My vision for the club had always been a structure that united all the expertise available. For example, the club’s catering manager was far better qualified to manage rugby league functions than honorary committees or a rugby league manager. The club’s maintenance and cleaning managers could look after the ground. Financial management could come under the club’s finance manager. Making rugby league successful would require a united effort and a high degree of co-operation.
Problems began to emerge quite early.. They were used to working as a team with overlapping needs, and they felt there was a lack of co-operation that was making their jobs difficult.
The fact is that we were not ready for such a radical departure from the way football was managed in those days.
Although no one realised it at the time, we were again seeing culture at work. This time it was a clash of cultures. Charlie was new to the organisation and we probably should have done more to talk through the tensions that were building. Culture can be a building force but it can also be destructive.
Keith Rhind says that Charlie Gibson was very much a part of the old rugby league ethos. Penrith was developing a culture that was unique, and Gibson often found it hard to adapt. It started out well enough, but eventually the cracks began to appear as the management culture developing at Penrith came into conflict with the rugby league culture that had helped Gibson achieve success at South Sydney.
Tension between the club and rugby league was growing. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. The Gibson appointment would also create a bitter division within the board and ultimately destroy a long-standing friendship between the chairman and Cowan. It would also light the slow-burning fuse that culminated in Detective Sergeant Mick Howe’s raid on the club a few years later.
When the election was held in 1980 for the first joint board, John Hewett became chairman. He had held that position on the licensed club board for the previous ten years, and he and Cowan had become good friends and built a strong working relationship.
Rhind says that Gibson also developed a close relationship with Hewett, taking him to events and functions to meet the high-profile people in his rugby league circles. Hewett was enjoying the attention. Another director from those days describes him as ‘basking in the reflected glory’.
When a Kangaroo tour was coming up, Hewett told others on the board that Gibson was going to use his influence to take him on the tour. It seems likely that Hewett was pushing for this favour and Gibson was doing his best to accommodate him. But there was disquiet among other members of the board, and Gibson himself also appeared unhappy about it.
Looking back, it was a relatively minor issue. Yet it became one of those moments where personality, disappointment and misunderstanding combined to produce consequences far beyond the original dispute.
Hewett believed that he was about to be invited to join league heavyweights on a Kangaroo Tour2, but that belief was against the designs of the heavyweights themselves. When it didn’t happen, Hewett was devastated and the conflict within the Board intensified. His disappointment, and the atmosphere of conflict on the board, caused him to resign as chairman in 1982. But his bitterness remained.
Deputy chairman Barry Hubbard, who was Hewett’s close friend, also resigned, leaving two vacancies on the board executive. Both men remained on the board. Keith Rhind, then deputy chairman, moved into the chairman’s role, which he held until the following AGM. At that meeting, Leo Armstrong was elected unopposed, and would become the club’s longest serving chairman.
Few could have known it at the time, but Armstrong would go on to become the longest-serving chairman in Panthers history and preside over some of the most significant years in the Club’s development.
Nevertheless the tensions that had been building were far from resolved — and the consequences were only just beginning to emerge.
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Readers of Parts 19–21 may wonder why Roger Cowan spent more than sixteen years arguing for what appeared to be a relatively simple administrative reform. Why did the issue matter so much to him? Why did he keep returning to it despite repeated setbacks, opposition and criticism?
The answer lies in a question that had troubled Panthers almost from the beginning:
How could the Club pursue a unified direction when rugby league and the licensed club were governed separately?
The issue was not new.
Readers familiar with the events of 1971 may recognise some familiar themes. The removal of football club secretary Merv Cartwright and treasurer Ron Partridge arose from concerns about the administration of rugby league affairs and accountability for financial decisions. Although the circumstances were different, the disputes that emerged again in the late 1970s centred on many of the same questions. Who should make decisions? Who should be accountable for those decisions? And what happened when agreements were not honoured?
From the time Penrith entered first grade rugby league in 1967, the football club and licensed club operated under separate governance structures. The arrangement was common in rugby league, but Roger increasingly came to believe it created problems that could never be fully resolved.
It would be easy to assume the conflict was simply about money. Certainly finances played a part. Rugby league required increasing investment, while the licensed club was trying to strengthen its financial position and pursue long-term development projects. Yet Roger’s frustration was not that football sought resources. In his view, the licensed club had repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to support rugby league and invest heavily in its future.
The real problem arose after decisions had been made.
Budgets would be negotiated. Agreements would be reached. Plans would be approved. Yet time and again, football expenditure exceeded agreed limits or new commitments were entered into without the knowledge or approval of those responsible for managing the Club’s overall finances.
From Roger’s perspective, this was not simply a financial problem. It made long-term planning almost impossible.
A licensed club board could approve a football budget, commit to major development projects and make decisions based upon expected cash flows. If those assumptions later proved incorrect because spending commitments had changed, the consequences extended well beyond rugby league. The entire organisation could be affected.
By the late 1970s, these tensions had become increasingly public. In December 1979, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on financial difficulties and disagreements between the football and licensed club administrations. Around the same time, Panthers was preparing for the enormous financial challenge of constructing its new Mulgoa Road complex.
SMH 1979 Dec 9 – click image for full article.
Reports to members in 1980 revealed the extent of the concern. Directors reported that the football club had exceeded an agreed annual budget of $485,000 by more than $100,000 during 1979, while additional commitments had already been entered into for the following season. To the licensed club board, the issue was not simply the amount involved. It was that decisions affecting the future of the entire organisation had been made outside the framework that had previously been agreed.
These events helped bring the governance debate to a head, but they do not fully explain Roger’s determination.
For him, the issue was ultimately one of organisational unity.
He believed Panthers would never achieve its potential while parts of the organisation operated according to different priorities, different assumptions and different lines of accountability. A football club and licensed club could share the same colours, the same members and the same ambitions, yet still find themselves working against each other.
His solution was straightforward.
One board would determine policy and direction for the entire organisation. Management would then be responsible for implementing those decisions. Everyone would work towards the same agreed objectives and everyone would be accountable to the same governing body.
Not everyone agreed.
Some viewed Roger’s campaign as an attempt to centralise power. The perception is understandable. After all, he was advocating a structure that would eventually place responsibility for football and licensed club operations under a single administration. His persistence over sixteen years inevitably raised questions about motive.
Yet there is another interpretation.
Roger was not arguing that football should receive less support. Nor was he arguing that rugby league was less important than the licensed club. Rather, he believed the entire organisation should operate according to a common plan and that all parts of Panthers should be accountable to that plan.
Many years later, Panthers would use concepts such as “twin citizenship” to describe the idea that people belonged not only to their immediate team but also to the wider organisation. While that language did not exist in the 1970s, the philosophy behind it helps explain Roger’s thinking. He wanted rugby league, club management, directors and staff to see themselves as contributors to a single enterprise rather than separate interests competing for influence.
The first major breakthrough came in 1980 when a single board was finally established. Yet even then, the model remained incomplete. Rugby league and the licensed club continued under separate chief executives. As described in Parts 20 and 21, the compromise produced its own difficulties and did not resolve the underlying tensions.
It was not until the end of 1983 that the structure Roger had advocated for so long was fully implemented. One board and one chief executive became responsible for the entire organisation.
Whether that decision alone explains the improvements that followed is impossible to know. Organisations are rarely transformed by a single reform. Nevertheless, the years that followed saw a stronger emphasis on cooperation, planning and shared ownership. The workshops that led to the Five by Five program, closer relationships throughout the rugby league district and a more integrated approach to football and club operations all emerged during this period.
Reasonable people may still disagree about whether Roger was right. They may also disagree about the extent to which later successes flowed from the governance reforms he championed.
What is difficult to dispute is that he regarded the issue as fundamental. For more than sixteen years he returned to the same argument, often in the face of resistance and disappointment.
Ironically, that persistence contributed to one of the enduring myths about Roger Cowan — that he was somehow anti-rugby league.
The evidence suggests a more complex reality.
His long campaign for “One Board, One CEO” was not driven by a desire to diminish rugby league, but by a belief that Panthers could only achieve lasting success when every part of the organisation was working towards the same goals and operating under the same commitments.
Whether one agrees with that belief or not, it became one of the defining ideas in the history of Panthers.
Source Material*
The following documents are extracts of the relevant sections of larger reports:
Despite the promise shown in 1974, the underlying problems did not go away. Ashurst and Stephenson had settled in — the team had shown promise by reaching the finals of the Amco Cup and the budgeting and financial controls were in place. Cowan recommended that it was time for him to hand over to ex-player, Ron Workman.1
The committee agreed and Cowan stepped aside to concentrate on the management of the licensed club.
The potential shown in 1974 was never realised. The first-grade team finished in the bottom four of the competition for most of the seventies.
Cowan’s growing frustration with a system that he considered wasteful, inefficient and noted only for a succession of failures fuelled his determination to convince both clubs of the advantages of a united effort.
If I analyse that history, I can see that the real cause of a lot of the internal problems through the seventies and early eighties was my unequivocal belief that Penrith would never achieve success as a rugby league competitor while it had separate administrations. I harped and nagged boards for ten years before I finally won the argument, and even then, the win was only because of the involvement of the NSWRL [New South Wales Rugby League] executive.
Later critics would portray Roger Cowan as a CEO surrounded by yes-men. The events of the 1970s suggest otherwise. They must have been either unaware of or had forgotten those years. It was an ongoing battle to achieve his ‘one board, one CEO’ ambition. He often thought he would never win. Neither side was willing to make the concessions necessary to bring the two together. Cowan laughs at the ‘yes-men’ tag.
For more than ten years, I did my very, very best – put my absolute best efforts into getting one board, one management. I kept going back, and going back, and it didn’t happen. So, no – they definitely weren’t yes-men.
One time in the late seventies, I was getting so frustrated, I thought I’m really going to make the effort here. I prepared a 19-page booklet for the next board meeting. It had graphs, and charts – every piece of information I could pull together to try and convince them. I was determined to make them see that “this is the only way this club is going to succeed”. I gave it to them a couple of weeks before the meeting to give them time to read it.
On the night of the board meeting, I made sure it was on the agenda. The item came up, and the deputy chairman, Murray Clarke, said: “I move that this document be received”. Somebody else said, “I second that”.
And that was it, there was no discussion, nothing – they just moved on to the next item! I blew my top, lost my temper completely.
It was really stupid putting a 19-page document before a board anyway – boards need concise documents. But I’d tried those for years and they hadn’t worked either.
It took me another couple of years, and a lot more frustrations to win that argument. And we haven’t looked back since. Many other clubs now operate the same way.
Cowan’s commitment to the cause was also used by his opponents to brand him as anti-rugby-league. This is one of the major Cowan myths, and it would be used against him many times by many people. It was also another factor that contributed to his appearance before Ian Temby in 2004. That one small trickle that began as a frustration with failure in rugby league in 1971 combined with some other small trickles along the way, became a raging torrent 33 years later.
Editor’s Note: Roger’s long campaign for “One Board, One CEO” was about far more than administrative structure. It reflected a deeply held belief about accountability, organisational unity and the future direction of Panthers. Readers seeking additional background may wish to read Why One Board, One CEO?
Barry Hubbard says that at one time, Cowan and the board executive even travelled down to the NSW rugby league office in Sydney to talk to Kevin Humphreys [then NSWRL president] to see if there was some way for the licensed club to take over the rugby league club. Hubbard was dead against the idea but still felt it should be explored. Humphreys told them in no uncertain terms that it was impossible. It was unconstitutional, and if they tried, they could be expelled from the game.
Local butcher and prominent cricketing identity, the late Trevor Wholohan OAM2 interpreted Cowan’s trip to rugby league headquarters very differently. His opinion, expressed with his characteristic passion and vehemence, was aligned with those branding Cowan as anti-rugby-league. He declared with his characteristic passion and vehemence, that Cowan’s meeting with Humphreys was “to get rid of rugby league”.
Cowan’s reaction to this was disbelief. He wonders how any rational person could come to such a conclusion.
Imagine meeting with Kevin Humphreys to talk to him about getting rid of rugby league. Any sane, logical person would know that you wouldn’t do that. Humphries would chew you up and spit you out.
Hubbard said Cowan had returned from the meeting with Humphreys undaunted.
Roger was never one to take no for an answer. He had tunnel vision. He went back to the club and resolved to have a meeting with the football committee to decide on holding a joint election for a board that would have responsibility for both clubs.
In discussion, the football committee had agreed, in principle, to hold the electionBut when the actual motion was put to a vote, a division was called, and people were asked to vote by moving to opposite sides of the room. It was narrowly defeated. A couple of the committeemen who had agreed to an election now crossed the floor and voted against it.
The internal squabbling at Penrith – and the poor performance of the team – was becoming an embarrassment to rugby league administrators. The executive of the NSWRL offered to help, bringing in Alec Mackie, a highly respected rugby league administrator, who was chairman of St George and a vice president of the NSWRL. A committee – dubbed the Super Six3 – was set up to find a way forward, with three representatives from each board. Roger Cowan was also a part of the committee. Mackie chaired the meetings, which eventually concluded that there should only be one board at Penrith. The two committees, for the second time, came to an agreement.
When the joint election was held in 1980, the new board comprised all the directors of the licensed club. No-one from the football committee had been successful. It became the first board in rugby league history to handle the affairs of both a licensed club and a football club. However, it was only halfway towards the model that Cowan had been recommending.
I believed that a structure comprising one board employing two chief executives would be just as difficult as having two boards dealing with two chief executives.
In many ways it could even be worse. It missed the whole point of the recommendation.
When the boards came together, that is what they did. Rugby league was controlled through a newly appointed chief executive, Charlie Gibson, while I retained responsibility for the licensed club.
A promising coaching strategy for the 1974 season was derailed by a committee modifying it for the wrong reasons. It was years before its time and it might have been successful had it been given a chance. Here we were in 1980 and I had a feeling it was happening again. The system I had been advocating was being half introduced and again the modifications were for all the wrong reasons. You can’t half bake a cake.
And that was exactly the position the Club found itself in.
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Ron Workman is Panthers player number 13, a member of the 1967 foundation team, he retired as a player in 1973 after playing 93 1st Grade matches. In 1975 he was appointed as the Secretary of the Football Club, a role he held until 1978. ↩︎
Trevor Wholohan was a long-standing critic of Roger Cowan, with tensions between the two dating back to 1974 when Wholohan’s butchery supplied the Club. A dispute over an account led Wholohan to claim that Cowan had impugned his honesty. He later attended most sittings of the 2004 Temby Inquiry as an observer. ↩︎
The committee was in fact: Kevin Humphreys (NSWRL), Alec Mackie (NSWRL), John Jennings (Penrith Distric Club), Tom Ellis (Penrith District Club), John Hewett (Penrith Leagues Club) Rocky Davis (Penrith Leagues Club) — that’s the “Super Six” — and Roger Cowan. Keith Rhind (Penrith Legues Club) was on the bench for this team. ↩︎
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.
There was one more monumental event for the Penrith Leagues Club in the seventies.
In 1971, the club became aware of a property on Mulgoa Road that was for sale for around $2 million. It was nearly 100 hectares, with large sections of swampy dairy farmland. Parts of it extended all the way to the Nepean River.
In Cowan’s eyes, Mulgoa Road was destined to be a major link in the future. The part of the property fronting Mulgoa Road, about 10 hectares, had already been zoned for residential development. Because of the residential zoning, he saw the purchase as a low-risk strategy, although it would be a massive investment for such a small club. The land would provide enormous development options for both the registered club and the football club. He became a passionate advocate of acquiring the property.
When he first floated the idea of buying the Mulgoa Road property, most people thought he was crazy. The price on the property was $2.25 million, not an amount that could be shrugged off easily. It had to be financed and the Club’s bankers refused. Undaunted, Cowan negotiated to transfer financial dealings to another bank where the management could see that the Club was going places and was worthy of support.
The criticism came from many quarters. One local newspaper ran the headline, “Roger’s Pipe Dream”.
‘People called it Frog Hollow’, says Don Ellks, one of the senior managers at the time. He says people were either laughing or sceptical. ‘It was very difficult to convince the Board, but Roger persisted and eventually won out. It showed enormous vision when he was being ridiculed from every quarter.’
Don Feltis, later a director at Panthers, was at the time a member of the police force in Penrith. He remembers a police inspector friend telling him the purchase was the worst decision the Club ever made. ‘It’s too far out of town. No-one is going to go that far to go to a club.’
Anyone who has ever visited Panthers’ Penrith club, exiting the M4 and travelling along Mulgoa Road, will know that the club is the focal point of a thriving commercial centre outside the city’s CBD.
But in 1971, once it left Penrith’s main street, Mulgoa Road was little more than a country road. It paralleled the Nepean River, heading out in the direction of Warragamba Dam. Along the way it passed through Wallacia, with its impressive Tudor-style hotel, seen by some at the time as an alternative to Medlow Bath’s Hydro Majestic for honeymoons and romantic trysts.
Former director Tom Wilson agreed that many people thought Roger was mad when he proposed the purchase.
But they thought he was mad about a lot of things. At one time we went and had a look at Australiana Village, out along the Hawkesbury near Windsor,when it came up for sale. We looked at buying other land in Penrith too, but at the time we thought it might be overextending. But Roger could see how that whole area was going to go ahead.
Phyllis Cowan remembers that Jamison Park — now one of Penrith’s major parklands with playing fields and recreational areas — was also considered by Cowan as a possibility to expand the club. It was covered in thick scrub and even further out of town.1
There was a lot of discussion about the land purchase, Max Connors recalls.
Many people in town were against it and some on the Board were not sure. But Roger was very persuasive, he saw it as a great opportunity.
Barry Hubbard said the criticism came from locals, club members and from Council. People were saying,
Why on Earth would they want to buy that swamp? You’ll never be able to build anything on it.
The view from corner of Mulgoa & Jamison Rds looking west. (Unknown source.)
After about four months of deliberations, the Board finally agreed to the purchase.
Penrith Rugby League Club 1973 Annual Report – middle page spread. Main image shows the Mulgoa Rd property with various points of interest. The smaller images are an early aerial shot of Penrith Park and an artsis impression of a club design. Click image to enlarge.
Hubbard’s first visit to the property did not go well. He had seen the property from the road, but once the decision was made, he and another director, Murray Clarke, decided they wanted a closer look.
We were in Murray’s four-wheel drive. We drove in about 100 metres, and the car was up to its axles in mud. “You’d better get out and have a look”, Murray said. I stepped down, and I was up to my knees. We eventually got the car out, and I went back to the club to clean myself up before I went home.
The boardroom had its own bathroom, so Hubbard decided to wash his trousers in the basin. It was the classic scenario of ‘one of these days, you’re going to get caught …’ . When sprung by the chairman, in his boxers, doing his laundry in the washbasin, he explained that he had just inspected the club’s new site.
Phyllis Cowan says she could never have imagined in 1971 what the Club would become. She could see the drive her husband had, though.
I think that Roger knew, right from the start. And I think if he was still there, he’d still have the same dreams and visions. He was always very conscious of what it was doing for Penrith, that it was putting the area on the map. His sense of community was very strong. Even in the early days he often talked about Penrith becoming a major centre in the state, and how the Club could help.
Pat Sheehy has been on Penrith Council since 19872, he says:
Panthers has been an asset to the city of Penrith for the very simple reason that people found out where we were. So, we benefited as a community by that exposure – and that advertising didn’t cost us anything.
The relationship between Panthers and Council has at times been symbiotic, and at others almost parasitic, says Sheehy.
What stage it was at depended on where you were standing. Often Panthers thought that we were the greatest mongrels on Earth, and just as often council thought the same about Panthers.
But the two have worked together on many community projects and are always ready to forget their differences in times of local crisis, such as bushfires and floods.
Council was particularly opposed to the development of a club on Mulgoa Road. One of the reasons given was the land’s proximity to the Jamison Hospital and the noise that a new club might generate. But the current club was quite close to the town, in what was essentially a residential area. Ellks says the neighbours were already starting to complain about the noise, and there were some problems with young people hanging around in the street. The Club was growing, so the complaints could only increase.
Although he wasn’t on council at the time of the purchase, Sheehy was living and working in Penrith, and has heard much of the history from council colleagues.
Roger had the vision for that land long before anyone else ever saw it. All the pundits around town were saying, “What do they want to move there for? It’s on the edge of bloody town, no-one’s going to go there”.
He was able to cut through a lot of the wowserism that was current in council in those days. I would think that most councillors were middle-aged men in grey suits, who were not really into the whole club scene.
And he had no background in clubs – it was quite brave. What he was seeing was enormous potential, where most of us were still seeing the country town where we’d grown up. He had this whole concept of what Panthers could become, which I don’t believe was shared by many people. He certainly had to convince the board – and he didn’t get a lot of support from the people on council at the time.
Yes, he was definitely seen as an upstart. Especially wanting to set up this huge expanse of club-land. They thought he was biting off more than he can chew, driving too far, too quickly. To some extent, I think the belief – and hope – in council was that this bloke will end up being put in his place.
That thinking was to continue, at least in some quarters, over the entire Cowan years at Panthers. One particular aspect irked Cowan for the rest of his life — how Council managed the disposal of two roads on the Station Street property. For further background seeBeyond the Book — Negotiating with Council: The Station Street Road Closures.
With the purchase of the Mulgoa Road property going ahead, Roger Cowan faced the prospect of raising the money to develop the site. Cowan came up with some unusual ideas about how to do it, says Tom Wilson.
Anyone who knows Penrith knows that there’s vast deposits of sand and gravel under the land all along the river, right through to Castlereagh. The quarries on the northern side of the city have been operating for many years. One of Roger’s early concepts to finance the development was to mine some of the blue metal under the new site. The idea was to sub-contract the work out to BMG, who would take it over the river to Emu Plains and process it.
The concept did not get very far. There was no way it would ever be approved, given the position and the need for thousands of noisy trucks plying back and forth on the edge of town, holding up traffic on the narrow bridge across the river. But he said it was typical of Cowan’s style, to look beyond what’s in front of your face and see what could be.
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Jamison Park already included playing fields, the scrub referred to here was at the southern end of the Park. ↩︎
Pat Sheehy retired from Penrith City Council in 2008. He passed away in 2025. ↩︎
The term “Footy Five” was coined by Ron Mulock to describe a group of five directors who, during this period, generally adopted a shared position on a range of issues affecting the Panthers organisation.
Despite the name, the distinction between this group and the remaining directors was not based on differing levels of commitment to rugby league. Directors on both sides of the Board were deeply committed to the future of football in Penrith. Indeed, several of the directors outside the Footy Five had devoted decades to building both the football club and the broader Panthers organisation.
The differences between the two groups became most apparent during the Super League era, the merger debate and the wider governance issues confronting Panthers during the late 1990s. These included questions surrounding the club’s strategic direction, its response to the changing rugby league landscape and the future structure of the Panthers organisation.
The four remaining directors—Leo Armstrong, Barry Walsh, Terry Heidtmann and Keith Rhind—were never collectively identified by a comparable title. Ron Mulock occasionally referred to them as “Roger’s Four Kinsmen”, a phrase drawn from the well-known Australian musical group The Four Kinsmen. The expression implied that these directors simply supported Roger Cowan’s position, but it never achieved the widespread usage of the term Footy Five.
Both expressions formed part of the language surrounding one of the most divisive periods in Panthers’ history. While Footy Five became the enduring shorthand used by directors, members, the media and later historical accounts, neither label should be interpreted as a literal description of the directors’ respective commitment to rugby league or of the complexity of the issues under debate.
As the Footy Five is referenced throughout the narrative, it is useful to identify the individuals within the group:
Greg Evans: Owner of the Western Weekender, a local newspaper also prominent in the narrative.
Craig Terry: Financial controller at Liquorland.
Denis Coffey: Owner of successful engineering company. Former Panthers player.
Although the Footy Five were frequently identified as a group, each member brought different professional experience and motivations to the Board. Their backgrounds included law, engineering, finance, investigation and newspaper publishing. While they often acted together on major issues, the narrative suggests that their reasons for doing so were not necessarily identical.
Each member of the Footy Five played a distinct role in the events described in Panthers, Passion & Politics. Individual profiles provide further background on their professional careers, their involvement with Panthers and their contribution to the governance conflicts that followed.
Each member of the Footy Five played a distinct role in the events described in Panthers, Passion & Politics. Individual profiles provide further background on their professional careers, their involvement with Panthers and their contribution to the governance conflicts that followed.
Panthers, Passion & Politics - The Roger Cowan Years 