Keith Rhind speaks about the personalities in the boardroom.
John Bateman was a great stickler for procedures. He had been on council, where things are often deferred over and over again. He thought that things should be tabled, discussed, and directors should go away and come back and resolve it the following meeting.
Roger would bring things to meetings, usually on paper, but sometimes supported verbally, but they were always well put together, and well prepared. There were times when he asked for a matter to be treated with some urgency and this did not go down very well with some of the directors. But sometimes it was very important, if a decision needed to be made immediately to save money or secure a business opportunity.
A classic example of this was the purchase of The Mekong Club in Cabramatta.
The Mekong Club had a bad reputation. Its founding chairman, Phuong Ngo, was eventually convicted of masterminding the assassination of local MP John Newman and sentenced to life imprisonment. The club had also been associated with a number of serious licensing breaches, and a shooting had occurred on the steps of the club. Other crime in the area had attracted intense media coverage.
One Friday, Cowan and John Wilson were travelling to a function with John Gould, then with Aristocrat poker machines, and The Mekong Club came up.
John told us that the owner of the building had recently made the decision to sell it and close the club. He said that after paying rent of $350,000, the club’s operating profit was currently about $500,000 per year. The asking price for the building was $1 million.
On the face of it, it seemed like an unbelievable opportunity. But we had to act fast. We phoned from the car to see if it was still available and made an appointment to see the Mekong club manager that same afternoon.
The Mekong’s receivers had already made approaches to about 14 clubs, and Gould said he felt that somebody was sure to grab it in the next few days.
The next morning Cowan sent an email to the directors informing them of the opportunity and giving then some preliminary information. He said management would present a recommendation at the next board meeting, only three days away.
That Saturday night, Cowan and a number of other managers did a tour of clubs in the area and then visited the Mekong club. They became even more excited about the opportunity. The team worked on Sunday to have a report ready for the board meeting the following Tuesday.
Cowan could not recall whether particular responses came from Geoff James or Craig Terry, but remembers the exchange going something like this:
Cowan:
Clubs in that area are amongst the most successful in the state, and they were all busy on Saturday evening. We visited the Mekong Club around midnight, assuming that if there were to be any problems they would be more likely later in the evening. In fact, we were impressed by the customers and by the staff. Our inquiries indicated that there have been no serious behaviour problems there for a long time.
‘f we move quickly, we can buy the premises for $1 million, and the Mekong Club will become a tenant paying $350,000 per annum. The club appears to be well managed, and profits are around $500,000 per annum. We don’t have to commit to amalgamation at this stage, but I want to forecast the likelihood that there will be a recommendation later.
James or Terry:
This is unsatisfactory. We have not been given sufficient notice to make a decision involving $1 million. It should be deferred to the next meeting.
Cowan:
If we can’t make a quick decision, it is almost certain we will miss out. A property investment showing a return of 35% a year is not going to hang around forever. The return could be 85% if we go to the amalgamation. There are other clubs looking at it as we sit here.
James or Terry:
We should have been given more notice.
Cowan (starting to show impatience):
We were not aware of the opportunity until last Friday afternoon.
James or Terry:
It is management incompetence rushing things this way.
Cowan:
You don’t seem to understand. We found the opportunity at 5 pm on Friday afternoon. Since then a team of managers has inspected the club, visited other clubs around it, talked to management and staff, and written a report for the board. It was simply not possible to give any more notice.
Terry:
Well, if we had better relations with the auditors, we would have been told about it sooner. So it’s still management incompetence.
Craig Terry apparently believed that because there had been a connection in the past between Panthers and the company that audited Mekong, Panthers should have known earlier what was happening.
James and Terry both voted against the proposal. The other members of the Footy Five did not join them, and the purchase was approved.
The purchase proceeded, and The Mekong Club subsequently amalgamated with Panthers.1
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 Mekong Club operated as Mekong Panthers from 2001 until 2012. The club (and the building) was then sold to the Mounties Group as part of a broader financial restructuring of the Panthers Group aimed at reducing debt. ↩︎
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.
When Cowan returned to the boardroom on 6 June, the immediate confrontation was over, but the issue that had provoked it remained.
The Board passed a resolution requiring the executive to report on Cowan’s contract.1 The aim was to determine if his package was appropriate, in line with industry benchmark figures, and with companies of a similar size. The exact details were to remain confidential to all but the executive and the auditors — accepting, at least implicitly, the pre-existing confidentiality conditions of Cowan’s contract.
An important point needs to be made here. Members of the Footy Five began to joined the Board of Panthers from late 1995; all departed in late 2002. In those seven or so years, this was the only resolution ever passed on the subject of Cowan’s contract, either in relation to the remuneration itself, or the confidentiality clauses.
For at least three of those years, they had a majority. Yet, they told the Inquiry they only raised it at the second last board meeting they attended as directors.
There was certainly knowledge among directors that Phyro Holdings existed and was associated with Cowan. Evidence presented at the Temby Inquiry was inconsistent with the suggestion, made by some, that there was a knowledge vacuum within the Board around Phyro.
But, to be fair, knowledge that Phyro existed was not necessarily the same as knowledge of the nature and extent of its financial dealings with Panthers. That distinction would later become an important issue in the Temby Inquiry.
A number of meetings followed, between the board executive members themselves, and between Cowan and the executive. The second meeting, was held at the Lone Star restaurant in Penrith. An issue at the Temby Inquiry was whether Geoff James, a member of the Five and the newest member of the board executive had sighted the three Phyro contracts. Keith Rhind maintains they were on the table at the meeting, and Cowan says there is no way that he would attend such a meeting, given its purpose, without presenting all the relevant documents.
Geoff James told the Inquiry that he did not see the contracts. He did admit being told the total figure, at which, according to Rhind, he commented, ‘I thought we would be paying him much more than that’. He also scribbled the figure on one of the documents he had with him.
Temby was unable to resolve the conflicting evidence. After examining the contemporary documents and the recollections of those involved, he said he could not confidently determine whether James had been told of the Phyro agreements, shown copies of them, or both.
Temby also questioned James’ actions in faxing documents relating to the meetings and the executive’s enquiries to John Bateman. James said that when Bateman had called him to ask how everything was going, he had offered to ‘fax him some details’. Various draft copies of the report that the executive was preparing for the board were also faxed.
The written report to the Board on the remuneration package took eighteen months to be presented. . For Cowan, the delay added weight to his belief that the directors had all the information they wanted and, for the most part, must have been satisfied.2
In fact, only one member of the board expressed dissatisfaction at the package. Greg Evans says he felt it was ‘an extraordinarily large amount’, particularly since at the time, there was no mechanism in place for a performance review.
We were trying to make management in general come under the direction of the board, says Evans.
But he asks, how much direction can a board give?
Yes, it should give policy direction, but these days, it should do more. Directors have much more liability now. So they need to take more responsibility for what goes on in the company. A director of a company was put in jail because scaffolding fell down and a worker died.
For management, however, increased Board involvement could itself become a source of frustration. Glenn Matthews says the situation often got beyond frustrating and frequently cost the Club money.
Once we had an opportunity to introduce some kind of equity funding, or quasi equity funding into the group. We wanted to reduce our reliance on debt. We spoke to Westpac, our banker, who said it had a department that could take on such a project. It operated completely independently from the one that held our loans.
The proposal was carefully analysed by the management team and then a recommendation was made to the board. The Board agreed to proceed with a feasibility study at a cost of $60,000. They resolved that providing it all stacked up, we would go ahead. We spent a lot of time, and the $60,000.
The Westpac report was positive. Matthews recalls that it concluded between $20 and $35 million could most likely be raised in a retail bond issue, with minimal risk to the Club. Matthews says it would have been ‘sticking our toe in the water’. If it was successful, it would open the door to other opportunities. They took the report to the board, feeling reasonably optimistic.
The night we presented it, Craig Terry just threw his hands up in the air and said, “What are we doing this for? They’re just fucking junk bonds”.
That was it. They had the majority, of course, and that was the end of it.
No rational questions or debate, just an emotional reaction. The money, time and effort had all been a waste.
The resolution had been passed months before – if it stacks up, go ahead. Now they were asking, “Why are we dealing with Westpac?” That issue had also been dealt with before we spent the money.
And they talked about corporate governance!
That was $60,000 just thrown out the window!
Matthews concluded,
I think that might have been the night I threw the papers at him.3
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.
Temby records that the Board resolved on 6 June 2000 that the Executive should consider whether Cowan’s contract was relevant to the position, in line with industry benchmark figures and comparable with companies of a similar size. The resolution arose from the governance policy work undertaken following the Kilmister workshops. ↩︎
Temby noted that the Chairman’s report was not presented to the Board until 18 or 19 December 2001, more than eighteen months after it had been requested, adding: “I do not know why so much time went past.” He subsequently described the report as “belated” and “inaccurate”, identifying errors concerning the structure and date of Cowan’s agreements and the provisions governing annual increases. ↩︎
In the early nineties, when the Club had restructured and flattened its management structure, some employees had difficulty coping with the changes. Cowan engaged a change management consultant, Robert McLellan, to work within the club, and help the staff through the process. He conducted regular training sessions with managers and staff covering all aspects of change management.1 The experience provided a contrast with the problems that later developed between Board and management. Lynch says there did not seem to be the same recognition that this had become a major organisational problem requiring intervention.
Cowan says that there were attempts made to find a solution.
Kilmister was one attempt, but we know how that blew up. And after almost every board meeting, I would get together with managers and try to come up with ideas for improving things. We changed the board reporting system a few times to see if it would help. But there was no trust of motives, and you can’t negotiate with people if they have secret agendas. You just don’t know what has to be negotiated.
Sometimes we would have a board and management joint planning session spread over a few days, and we would live and work together in a convivial environment, and it all seemed positive. But afterwards it would be on again as usual.
Cowan was not alone in his concerns about the Board. One of the managers who was close to the action, Tony Lackey,2 recalls the change in atmosphere in the boardroom and the frustration it was causing. From Lackey’s perspective Craig Terry was an instigator of much of the disharmony and he says it seemed that Evans and Terry had quite opposite requirements of management reports.
After most board meetings the managers who attended would get together to discuss what was happening. We could not understand the dysfunction that was creeping in.
By that time there was a confusing attitude towards management reports. The management team believed it should share as much information as was practical with the Board.
Suddenly the attitude seemed to change. Every report became the subject of intense discussion and questioning. Board meetings were going way past midnight with most of the time being spent on petty detail that had nothing to do with policy.
Roger raised this issue with the Board and was told that anything in the report had to be discussed. Somebody suggested that a lot of the information was unnecessary. The managers complied by limiting the information to only support agenda items.
Later there was criticism that the Board was not getting enough information. It was fast becoming impossible to know what they wanted.
We could see the frustration building in Roger. Several times he would get home very late, so angry he could not sleep, and be back in his office at 5 am writing a hard-hitting letter to the Board about the lack of rational decision making and the disregard for longer term thinking.
He would ask for our opinions about his letters and most of the time we talked him out of sending them. We were all conscious of the need to keep trying for a more harmonious solution and when he had cooled down, he agreed.
The attempts to address the problem had begun even before the Kilmister workshop described in Part 52. In 1999, Cowan recommended the holding of a seminar involving the full Board and all the senior managers. It was his hope that this would help to achieve unity between board and management.
His recommendation included a list of desirable outcomes of such a seminar. Two of the items on his list were to have agreement about the roles of Board and management; and to compile a list of all weaknesses within the organisation. He believed that these might shake out the issues causing conflict and get all the problems out on the table.
The proposed seminar would have provided an opportunity for directors and managers to identify concerns about their respective roles, management accountability and other sources of tension within the organisation.
Later, in another attempt to achieve unity of purpose and more productive decision making, Cowan recommended a workshop, to be facilitated by an external consultant specialising in Corporate Governance and Board/Management relationships.3
A short summary of his written recommendation to the board again hinted at his frustrations. It included:
The board has to establish policies, delegate responsibility to a CEO who is trusted, and ensure accountability by monitoring results.
Board meetings should be for the purpose of reviewing policies, reviewing outcomes, considering reports on achievement of outcomes, and evaluating the CEO’s performance against the achievement of outcomes.
Cowan hoped this would finally bring into the open whatever was causing the dysfunction in the boardroom. Those interviewed about the period describe an atmosphere increasingly marked by suspicion, animosity, conflict and a lack of teamwork, trust and co-operation.
None of those attempts produced a lasting resolution. Eventually, as the relationship between Board and management deteriorated still further, Cowan proposed the most drastic solution available: he would step aside and give the Board a completely fresh start.
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.
A key focus of McLellan’s work was establishing better communication between individuals and teams, including an understanding of concepts such as “twin citizenship” — the responsibility people have both to their own team and to the wider organisation. ↩︎
Tony Lackey was a long-serving senior manager who, for a period, attended Board meetings to take the minutes. His presence gave him direct exposure to the changing atmosphere in the boardroom. ↩︎
The Kilmister process produced a substantial body of governance work. Temby records that on 6 June 2000 the Board accepted 21 of 24 policies arising from it. The three policies deferred for further consideration concerned monitoring the CEO’s performance, financial performance benchmarks and assessment of the CEO’s contract against the position, industry benchmarks and comparable companies. ↩︎
For two years Cowan had been agonising about how to improve the decision-making process. His recommendation to the Board in 2000 to employ an external consultant was intended to improve those relationships. Instead, the workshop would expose an issue that took the conflict to a new level.
In 1996, Cowan had negotiated a new contract with the Board Executive, which would take him to his planned retirement date of 2006. The same confidentiality over his remuneration arrangements that he had insisted on since 1965 was written into the contract. In 2000, that confidentiality would become another catalyst for conflict.
We help you clearly define your board’s role and distinguish board from executive accountabilities.
Cowan contacted the company, and board and management agreed to hold an evening workshop, in May 2000, facilitated by John Kilmister. Cowan held high hopes that an independent consultant might help board and management work together more productively and harmoniously.
Kilmister made a number of recommendations that were designed to improve board/management relationships.
In the course of the workshop, somebody asked the consultant if he thought it was appropriate for senior management remuneration packages to be disclosed only to the executive of the board and the club’s auditors. The consultant’s opinion was that it would be preferable for the full board to have that information, but he added that there was nothing illegal about that sort of confidentiality.
Despite Bateman’s later evidence that he had been curious about Cowan’s remuneration since joining the Board, the issue had not previously been raised with Cowan in the boardroom.
In his first day of evidence at the inquiry, John Bateman told Ian Temby that he had been curious about the remuneration of the CEO from the time he first became a director, in December 1995. He cited his experience as a Penrith councillor as the reason for his interest. What is notable is that, despite that longstanding interest, he had apparently not previously raised the issue in the Panthers boardroom.
At the next board meeting1, John Bateman asked Roger Cowan a seemingly simple question. The answer was straightforward. Its significance would not become fully apparent until some four years later.The question?
Does any manager employed by Panthers hold an interest in any company doing business with Panthers?
Although John Bateman maintains that he never asked such a question, Cowan says he has a vivid recollection. It seemed rather confrontational and was quite unexpected, which is why it stands out in his memory. He recalls the question very well because of his reaction to it.
My immediate thought was that he was asking a question when he knew the answer. I sensed that he was trying to lay a silly trap, thinking that I would try to fudge an answer. To me, this was crazy because there was no secret about Phyro Holdings. Everybody in the office knew about it, all the managers knew about it, and then there were all the external companies where we booked our advertising, etc – all through Phyro. I had no reason to think anyone would not know about it.2
I didn’t know that in the week leading up to the meeting, someone in Bateman’s office had carried out ASIC searches on Phyro Holdings. But I still believed he was up to something, and, given my immediate suspicions, can anybody imagine that I would have failed to answer the question?
I replied that the only one that I was aware of was Phyro Holdings.
The discussion became more and more heated as some directors demanded that the confidentiality clause in the contract be ignored in favour of full disclosure to the Board. But confidentiality was a condition of his contract, Cowan told them, and that same confidentiality covered all senior managers. It was quite legal, he told the meeting, and everything was subject to audit at any time by the board executive and the club auditors.
He also told them that his experiences over the previous two years made it clear that once the full board learned the details of his contract, Ron Mulock would have them by the next morning. And the whole of Penrith would be reading it by the end of the week in the Western Weekender. From Cowan’s perspective, his experiences over the previous two years demonstrated that confidentiality could no longer be relied upon once information reached the full Board.
The friction in the meeting increased. Some directors were insisting that the confidentiality provisions be waived, and Cowan was telling them an agreement was binding and they had no right to change it. After a final outburst, Cowan walked out, declaring he would not work for such dishonorable people.
In hindsight, Cowan says the words he used at the time were only slightly less stupid than his decision to walk out:
The day this board finds out the details of my remuneration I will leave the club
But in that moment, he says, he had decided enough was enough. How could he have respect for a Board dominated by directors demanding that a long standing contract be broken? He told Ian Temby that in doing what he did, he knew he was resigning.
When I nearly got back home, I thought this is a stupid thing I am doing, I’ve let a lot of people down, I am acting selfishly. I drove back and went into the room, and nobody said anything. When I walked back in, I fully expected them to say, “No way, you resigned.”3
Terrence Lynch is a barrister who has acted for Panthers on several occasions4. He says that Cowan’s rigid stance on the whole confidentiality issue was out of character.
It always surprised me that Roger wasn’t prepared to open up his salary and remuneration arrangements to the full board, particularly when it became such a contentious issue.
I was also surprised that he let it continue. Given my understanding of how he had run the place, I am amazed that he allowed it to become an issue. Why didn’t he just step aside and shut it down? I went to many meetings with various groups at the club, and my impression was that it was a very open and relaxed place, and there was no factionalism or camps. I never ever sensed any party lines there at any time.
This was the environment he’d created, so it’s even more surprising that he dug in. It is the one time that I have ever seen him let ego get in the way, though maybe ego’s not the right word. But he was definitely acting more undisciplined than you would ever expect. It was a concentration on self rather than seeing the big picture – which he had always done for nearly forty years – and what he is known for.
Viewed dispassionately, the dispute was not simply about whether Cowan’s remuneration was excessive. Cowan maintained that his package was commensurate with the responsibilities of running a business approaching $300 million in annual turnover.
The argument had become one about disclosure, confidentiality and trust.
So, why didn’t somebody ever move to hose it down?
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.
This refers to the next Board meeting after the May 2000 session with John Kilmister. ↩︎
Temby’s later findings drew a distinction between knowledge that Phyro Holdings existed and was the Cowan family company, and knowledge of the extent of its financial dealings with Panthers. Evidence before the Inquiry indicated that some directors knew of Phyro but said they did not know the extent or nature of the transactions passing through it. ↩︎
Temby later summarised the outcome starkly: “In the result nothing was achieved.” The existing arrangement remained: Cowan’s remuneration was known to him and the Board Executive, as was Phyro’s involvement. ↩︎
Lynch, a prominent Sydney barrister, was junior counsel representating Panthers during the Temby Inquiry. It should be noted that in that role he was not representing Cowan, he was representing the Panthers Board and ex-members of the Board including the group that had been labelled “The Footy Five”. ↩︎
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.
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:
Click to enlarge
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.
Media Release — 16 Sep 2002. Click to enlarge
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.
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. ↩︎
2000 and 2001 should have been years of high optimism for Panthers. The Club had emerged from the tumultuous 1998-99 years without its rugby league team being eliminated from the competition or being forced to merge with Parramatta.
The new NRL competition was underway, and the club was about to complete its first two amalgamations.
But the situation in the boardroom was still tense.
In 1996, Cowan had negotiated a new contract with the Board Executive, which would take him to his planned retirement date of 2006. The same confidentiality over his remuneration arrangements that he had insisted on since 1965 was written into the contract. In 2000, that confidentiality would become another catalyst for conflict.
It would ultimately become one of the major criticisms levelled at Cowan, and a significant issue at the Temby Inquiry. But it was only one element in a Board-management relationship that was becoming increasingly dysfunctional.
During the amalgamation program, there were many important decisions to be made, and a lot of business to be dealt with at Board meetings.
On many occasions decisions were held over to the next meeting, and then another, and another, over what were just petty points. When it takes 12 months to make a relatively straightforward decision that is of ‘real time’ importance to the business, there was evidence of dysfunction. It took that long for the Board to agree on a policy governing amalgamations with other clubs.
I can’t remember any important decision that we needed to make in that period that we didn’t make eventually. But time – and more importantly – opportunities, can be lost.
A push by management to decrease membership fees was an example.
In 2001, Panthers membership was set at $22 a year, but many of the club’s competitors were advertising their fees at around $5.50. There was great concern in the management team that membership numbers at the Penrith site were decreasing.1
There was also confusion over trying to implement a system that would allow the members of amalgamating clubs to continue to pay the lower fees they were paying before amalgamating, but without breaching the 50% regulation.2
Having one lower membership fee right across the group was felt to be a good solution. It could also be used to push a more aggressive membership drive. It took well over a year – and some drastic measures – for the Board to agree to a reduction in fees.
Beyond the Book: The membership issue was considerably more complicated than the fee reduction alone suggests. Amalgamation had created questions about membership categories, voting rights and representation within the expanding Panthers Group. Read: Why Cutting the Membership Fee Wasn’t So Simple.
We eventually did get the fee down to $8.80, but it was a very complicated process.
In the meantime, our market was diminishing, and everyone knows that lost market share is not easy to recover. Once it was done, I think we increased the membership at Penrith by about 15,000. There were obvious benefits to our business, and the reasons they came up with for the delays were just not logical.
At one stage one of the Five came out and said that management wanted to lower the fees to get more members so we could get rid of those directors.
The membership fee deadlock was broken using tactics that would never have been considered in the open environment of the old Panthers. It demonstrated how confrontational life in the boardroom had become by July 2002. In the week leading up to a home game, Cowan asked Rob Weaver, the club’s media manager, to prepare a press release. A Board meeting was scheduled for the morning before the game3.
The release was very strongly worded, and it spelt out the situation in detail. In part, it read:
“Five out of the nine directors have shown that they care more about their seats on the Board than they do about our members and the focus of our organisation. It brings a new meaning to the phrase ‘bums on seats’, Mr Cowan said. “I will not stand by and watch them destroy what previous boards and managers have built, which is why I am going public to let members know what is going on.”
Cowan took the document to the meeting, held it up and told the Board part of what it said. He told them that Rob Weaver was already at the football ground. He had 30 copies of the release in his briefcase, and it would be handed out to every journalist at the game unless they agreed to the new fee. They demanded that Cowan show them the release, but he refused.
Rob Weaver recalls that day:
I was sitting in the media box in the western grandstand with a briefcase full of press releases, watching the board box on the other side of the ground through binoculars. As soon as I saw Roger arrive, I was to call him for instructions.
But he called and said they had agreed to reduce the fees.
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 concern about members in regional areas being resistant to any increases. This was expressed strongly at regular meetings of venue General Managers. ↩︎
Section 30(9)(a) of the Registered Clubs Act required a “majority” of the clubs full members must be eligible to vote for the Board. Social Members were legally classed as a subclass of Ordinary Members and therefor were included as “full members”. In 2006 the ratio was reduced to 25% provided this was approved by a majority of full members. ↩︎
The game was Penrith v Melbourne which Penrith won 36-16. ↩︎
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. ↩︎
John Bateman, a Penrith solicitor, joined the board in 1995. He had previously stood unsuccessfully for the Board and his patience was rewarded when a vacancy occurred between elections. He was a local councillor. The Board considered he would be a valuable addition to the expertise available on the Board.
Around three years later, another seat became available on the Board, and Greg Evans was also invited to join. He owns a local newspaper, the Western Weekender. He had also served on council. He had stood for the Board two years in a row and had been unsuccessful. He confided in Barry Walsh, then a member of the Board Executive, that he could not afford to fail a third time. Walsh advised him that there was a vacancy coming up and that the Board would probably invite him to fill that.
So, a solicitor and a local businessman had been invited to fill vacancies on the Board – both experienced in local government – should have strengthened the board. Both were also sponsors of the rugby league team, and so were well known to the club management.
Four of the directors who became the Footy Five were actually invited to join, rather than securing their seats through a members’ vote. Craig Terry and Dennis Coffey joined In the latter part of 1998 and early 1998. Terry’s credentials were in accountancy and it was thought he would be a suitable replacement for the retiring Leigh Mawhood, also an accountant. Terry, too, had also stood unsuccessfully for the Board a couple of times.
The 90s saw Merv Cartwright back on the board after a hiatus of many years. Some of Cartwright’s history with the club is already documented, including the cancellation of his membership. When his sons began playing for the Panthers, he wrote letters to the Board asking that his membership be reinstated. He gave a written undertaking that he had no interest in becoming a director, and would not take any part in club politics.
The Board relented, and Cartwright was a member again. Soon after readmission he stood for the Board on a platform that criticised Cowan. When he eventually decided to stand down, he pushed for his son-in-law, Dennis Coffey, as his replacement.
Coffey is an ex-rugby league player for Penrith, and founder of Coffey Engineering, a successful Penrith-based industrial engineering company. He was a popular choice with all board members to fill the vacancy. Cartwright’s son John, one of the players in the 1991 premiership winning team, had married Dennis Coffey’s daughter.
Geoff James had been a director for several years as part of what had been a reasonably cohesive and productive board. James had a friendly relationship with chairman Leo Armstrong. They had been next door neighbours for many years and used to look after each other’s homes if one was away.
When Craig Terry arrived, he and James quickly established a good rapport. Cowan and the other managers came to believe an alliance was forming between them and Bateman, Coffey, and Evans. From that time, the dynamic on the board totally changed.
The situation in the boardroom began to deteriorate to become what has been described as ‘horrific’.
There is a lot of evidence of Cowan’s efforts – through Board management seminars, recommendations to Board meetings, and the employment of consultants to get the Board to clarify what it wanted from him and the management team.
Greg Evans says that members of the alliance of five were trying to get Cowan to ‘come under the direction of the board, and to work within the parameters that they set’.
He denies there was a hidden agenda, but says,
He’d been the boss for so many years, and things were going OK. Boards got used to going along with him. He always felt that his way was the right way; he just wanted to get things done. Any questioning by the board was just a nuisance, so he used to get impatient.
But Evans does not identify any of the ‘parameters’ that the Board wished to impose. The real problem was that the main protagonists in this drama saw their role – and the others’ – very differently.
It was a clash in values that caused me to walk out of a meeting in June 2000. I was angry that people saw nothing wrong with breaking a contract when it suited them.
I could not understand how they could even consider reneging on the amalgamation deal with Newcastle. It took more than a year to get the Board to make a decision about amalgamations. It is true that I used to get impatient. How can it take 12 months to make a simple decision about amalgamating with another small club? I could see great advantages for Panthers and I wanted to get started.
While we were talking around in circles we failed to take advantage of an opportunity to amalgamate with Kingswood Bowling Club and Eastern Suburbs snapped it up. Panthers’ management could see some big potential for that club but it was almost impossible to get the Board to look at proposals rationally and objectively.
Management and Board both have an important job to do. If I do a bad job, then the Board has to step in, but there has to be a line between Board and management, and that applies in any business.
I always insisted from the moment I started on that three month trial in 1965 that I would be totally in charge of all staff matters, all the hiring, firing, and all the discipline. It would be my responsibility. The Board was not to interfere in any of it. And they agreed with that.
It ultimately evolved into a strong part of the Panthers culture. As long as staff matters were my responsibility, I was able to oversee the day-to-day running of the place. I do know of some other clubs where board members interview and employ staff. They are even able to fire them.
In that kind of environment, the sailors are not taking their orders from the captain of the ship. They’re being told what to do by the owners of the shipping line.
Roger Cowan says the culture of an organisation is what sets it apart, and to be effective, it must be strong at all levels – from the chairman, all the way through to casual employees.
People have to know where they stand and feel good about the contribution they are making. He and most of the other managers were disappointed that the strong culture that had been built over many years was being eroded.
The problems in Panthers’ boardroom were exacerbated by the rugby league merger issue. Rumour had abounded about Cowan’s alleged plan to merge with Parramatta. Claims in Ray Hadley’s radio show that it was a ‘done deal’ added to the tension. Alliances that were initially tenuous now became solid.
The time was now right, says Cowan, and the group – Bateman, Coffey, Evans and Terry – made their move to unseat the chairman, Leo Armstrong.
Leo had been chairman for 14 years and was generally acknowledged as a fine figurehead for Panthers. He was respected and admired by the other directors and by management and staff. He was popular with the members and the general public, who recognised him from public appearances, and as the person who often presented cheques to community organisations on behalf of the club.
Leo often became quite angry with Bateman in Board meetings. But removing Leo was a problem for the Bateman camp. He had the support of four directors, and with his own vote could hold his position. They would need to shift the balance.
When Geoff James accepted the dangled carrot of the deputy chairman’s job, the die was cast.
Somehow the group managed to convince Geoff James to move against the chairman. Once Armstrong was removed from the chair, James moved into the position of Junior Deputy Chairman.1
Becoming a deputy chairman would automatically elevate him to the Board Executive. More importantly, even though many executive matters were supposed to be confidential, his appointment could open new doors for the alliance, and thus give it an added measure of power.
James would later admit faxing confidential executive material to John Bateman –an action questioned by Ian Temby in the Inquiry.
Once they knew that the alliance was solid, Bateman made his move. He first approached Keith Rhind, a deputy chairman at the time, telling him the Leo Armstrong was to be removed as chairman, and asking Rhind to take over the chair. Rhind refused the offer.
Bateman then went to deputy chairman Barry Walsh, making the same offer. Armstrong was going whatever happened, Bateman said. If Walsh also refused the chairman’s job, Bateman would take it himself.
Walsh, like Rhind, was a loyal Armstrong supporter. It was a terrible decision to have to make. Walsh opted for the lesser of the two evils and agreed to stand.
Preferring to avoid the ignominy of being voted out, Armstrong stood down. Cowan says he was bitterly disappointed to learn that his trusted neighbour had turned against him.
Cowan has some theories as to the motives of the group in putting Walsh in the chair instead of Bateman, who would be the logical choice.
They may have wanted to avoid the impression of a coup if both Armstrong and Walsh were deposed in one hit. Both were well known in the community, and popular with members, supporters, staff and management.
Also, there was the friendship between Barry and Bateman. Barry was godfather to one of Bateman’s children. Maybe Bateman hoped that that friendship would give his faction another supporter. I suspected it was just an interim measure.
Walsh stepped into the chair, but in many ways, he lacked the power of the position. In a very telling comment in the 41X inquiry, he told Department of Gaming & Racing (DGR) counsel Vickie Hartstein, ‘I never had control of the Board’.
The five had the numbers, and they used them.
Panthers’ group CEO Glenn Matthews described the board meetings as dysfunctional.
It often seemed that some of the Footy Five were being deliberately obstructive. They’d ask you for the same information again and again. Meetings usually went on till after midnight. I used to cop personal abuse all the time. Many times, I was called names, frequently a liar, in Board meetings. Often, we had the most trivial things to be approved by the Board, and they questioned every single item. Yet I can remember one night when they voted to spend over $100,000 on a player in some deal. There was no rhyme or reason. It was a nightmare.’
One night Craig Terry’s usual barrage of illogical, petty comments and accusations got the better of me. I became totally frustrated and in anger I hurled the papers I was holding in his direction. Later I was with John Wilson as we waited for the meeting to finish. I was regretful about losing my cool and I said to John, “I’m in for trouble when the boss gets out of the meeting. He is not going to like what I just did.”
One night Craig Terry’s usual barrage of illogical, petty comments and accusations got the better of me. I became totally frustrated and in anger I hurled the papers I was holding in his direction. Later I was with John Wilson as we waited for the meeting to finish. I was regretful about losing my cool and I said to John, “I’m in for trouble when the boss gets out of the meeting. He is not going to like what I just did.”
The meeting broke up and Roger came over to us. He said,
“Glenn, next time you throw something at Craig Terry make sure it is heavier than paper and make sure you aim better.”
We all laughed, and I was off the hook.
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 Temby Inquiry records that in 1999 Leo Armstrong was replaced as Chairman by Barry Walsh and Geoff James became a member of the Board Executive. Temby noted that, according to Roger Cowan, these changes had been engineered by the group Cowan saw as opposed to him and had caused Armstrong “bitter disappointment”. See Ian Temby QC, Penrith Rugby League Club Inquiry: The Report, Chapter 2, “A Power Struggle”, p. 8. ↩︎
The club industry in NSW occupies a unique position — strongly regulated by the state government, but still very much a part of its individual communities. Most clubs are heavily involved in sport and recreational groups in their areas, and provide donations, facilities, and other benefits. Many also support local charities and organisations. By 2003, the total cash donations from NSW clubs amounted to around $102 million. The main recipients were health and social services programs, education (cash, scholarships, library support), emergency services and disaster relief, and of course local sport, at both professional and non-professional levels.
The situation of club directors is also unique. The shareholders who elect boards of major corporations have a ‘hip pocket’ interest in who is overseeing the running of the company. The directors are usually there because they bring some skill or expertise that qualifies them to do a good job.
In most club elections, a 1% turnout of members would be classed as good. This changes only slightly where there is a major issue being played out, as at Panthers in 2002. Even then, the 3000 people who voted still only represented a small percentage of the club’s 130,000 members at the time.1
People pay to become shareholders in a company, whereas people become members of a club to enjoy the facilities it offers and the geographical convenience. Few of them have any interest in the politics unless they become aware of major problems that are likely to impact on the amenities they enjoy.2
Craig Fantom3 is now the CEO of a well-known Irish pub on the western outskirts of Sydney. Before moving into hotels a couple of years ago, he had spent 25 years in the club industry, 20 of them dealing with boards. It was the three years he spent as CEO of the Rooty Hill RSL Club that became the catalyst for a change in his career direction.
‘Club directors have the same fiduciary duties as any other director, and often have control of a multi million dollar organisation’, says Fantom, who believes that one of the industry’s major weaknesses is the quality of the directors it attracts.
Roger Cowan says he was aware of the difficulties at Rooty Hill, but his experience at Panthers has been quite different and he doesn’t share Fantom’s view on club directors. Cowan says that some of the directors that have caused the most problems for Panthers over the years appeared to be the best qualified.
Look at the group that set themselves up as the Footy Five.4There was a solicitor, an accountant, two successful businessmen and a private investigator. They should have been the best directors we ever had but the reader of this tale might have some doubts about that.
There are a lot of directors in the club industry who are volunteering their time because of a genuine interest in their club. If they lack formal qualifications they make up for it with common sense, loyalty to the cause and the willingness to listen to expert opinions when they are needed.
One [Panthers] director who stands out in my memory was Lou Brown, a truck driver and a rough diamond if you ever saw one. Another was Poker Ausburn. He was a boilermaker and was chairman of the club for several of our most successful years. I could name a lot more very good directors and they all had one thing in common – a genuine unselfish desire to see the Club succeed. An uneducated director with a genuine sense of ownership and sound common sense will be an infinitely better director than a Rhodes scholar whose heart isn’t in it.
To the allegation that he worked with boards of ‘yes-men’, Cowan says,
It really is quite ridiculous to think that directors would volunteer their time to represent the members who elected them and then turn up to meetings to be told what to do. Human nature does not work like that.
Keith Rhind remembers one amusing example of the myth.
Before Vern Mychael was elected to the board, he would be at every general meeting asking the most probing questions. He made it well known that if he ever got onto the Board, he “was going to put Cowan in his place”. He was elected and became one of Cowan’s strongest supporters and friends.
Rhind recalls that years later Mychael related how different was the reality of the board from the myth.
Nobody in their wildest dreams could imagine Vern as a yes-man. He was a very strong character.
Rhind also points out that nobody could say Barry Walsh was a yes-man, and yet on most issues, he supported Cowan to the hilt.
The fact is that they shared the same vision for Panthers and they agreed on most things. They were both passionate about succeeding. Barry’s greatest passion is rugby league, but he knows the future of rugby league depends on the success of the club in every other way. When they did disagree, they were able to discuss it rationally and with respect for each other. The “yes-men” theory is really quite ludicrous when you think about it.
Another claim was that Cowan could choose who he wanted on the board. Boards are elected – as October 2002 proved. All the campaigning and the tickets made no difference. The members decide who they want.
It was the vagaries of directors that had seen Cowan in court facing charges in 1986.5 It had also taken him ten years to convince a board to implement a change to the way the rugby league club was administered.6
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.
A total of 3273 ballot papers were retruned in the March 2002 election. 110 of these were informal. See: Temby Report page 39. ↩︎
Rugby League Clubs may be slightly different. If the team is performing badly, members appear to take great interest. The 1971 Extraordinary General meeting that saw Merv Cartwright and Ron Partridge resign had an attendance of 1000, when there was only 6000 members. See: Part 8 — Divided Control: The Club and Football↩︎
Craig Fantom held this role at the time of publication. ↩︎
Panthers, Passion & Politics - The Roger Cowan Years 