Tag: Growth

Building a Framework

Part 44 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 13: Amalgamations Not Takeovers

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

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‘We are one club, with 14 sites.’

When Roger Cowan made that statement to Ian Temby, it reflected the philosophy that he had held since he first embraced the concept of amalgamations. It was another factor that helped to put him in that very courtroom on that day in June 2004.

The topic of amalgamations was first raised at Panthers in 1998 by John Wilson, who was then the Club’s gaming manager. The Registered Clubs Act had been amended to encourage the practice, and Wilson had come to believe there was a great opportunity there.1

For a number of reasons, the rate of club closures had been increasing, and the change to the law was aimed at slowing down the trend.

At management meetings Wilson continued to argue strongly for the concept. Eventually a model was developed that overcame most of the concerns and it was agreed that an amalgamation strategy should be recommended to the Board.

The board resolved to test the strategy with a small struggling club not far away from Penrith – the Hawkesbury Sporting Club in Richmond.  This first amalgamation would be a pilot for bigger things in the future.  It had some reasonable potential, although it would not deliver the level of benefits that we hoped to achieve in other amalgamations. 

It would help us learn more about what difficulties might lie ahead and to develop systems to overcome them.  We believed that we could easily turn the club around, by introducing our management systems and by taking advantage of our purchasing power.

We would support them in every way needed, but our model provided that they would always be able to retain their identity and a strong sense of ownership of the club. This would, in turn, encourage a strong commitment to service their local members

When a business is considering something as important as this, the focus has to be on the desired outcomes rather than what has to be done. Management decided on a set of outcomes for the future that show us our amalgamation strategy had been successful. We needed agreement between Board and management on that future picture, and it was extraordinarily difficult to achieve. The failure to reach agreement delayed the start of the strategy for nearly twelve months. 

On the one hand, we could look upon each amalgamation as the formation of a new entity in which all stakeholders would have equal rights.  In the alternative picture, one club is in the centre, having the power and control over all its subsidiaries.  The first model is a true amalgamation.  The second example is effectively a takeover. 

The management of Panthers always believed the first model would be the pathway to success, whereas the takeover path would eventually create limits and barriers.  We believed that we finally had an agreement with the Board on the vision when we submitted a detailed list of the criteria that would be used to qualify clubs under consideration. Everything seemed to be covered and it was discussed to death before the Board gave it the final approval.

The word ‘takeover’ does appear in some early documents, but from day one, Cowan’s original concept was of amalgamation.2 Later, some of the Five would claim that they thought they were agreeing to takeovers, not amalgamations, and that they had been misled by management.

Barry Walsh was chairman of the board when management first floated the amalgamation idea. He says they discussed the concept for more than a year, but there were problems convincing some directors. ‘I saw a number of benefits’, says Walsh.

The outcomes described by management sounded plausible, achievable and worthwhile. We were given a lot of information, and it was obvious to me that they had gone into an extensive research and analysis process. I could see the benefits of spreading our brand into other areas of the state, developing a larger rugby league following, and building assets and cash flow. Because of the financial situations of these clubs, we could get them at very good rates.

While documenting the benefits of amalgamation, the management recommendation put to the Board also highlighted one of the negatives. It would open the possibility that members of another club could nominate for the Board. At the time, this was not seen as an immediate problem, because it was thought they would have to be members for three years before they could stand.

Nevertheless, the prospect that members of an amalgamated club could stand for the Board, even after three years, raised the concerns of some board members to the extent that they simply could not reach agreement. The spectre of ‘reverse takeover’ had entered the picture.

The boardroom delays on the Hawkesbury proposal became very frustrating for management. They tried to explain that amalgamations could help the club to overcome some of the problems it was currently facing in a changing local market.

The threats it faced included over-capitalisation on one site, and the maturity of the local gaming market. Hotels and other clubs were continually improving. In previous years it had been commonplace for bus companies to bring tourists to Panthers from other areas such as Manly, Wollongong and country NSW. The improvement in club facilities in other areas had weakened that business.

Another threat was the attitude of the state government towards clubs, and the associated rumours of higher taxes and restrictive legislation.

There was also the danger of being dependent on one business, in one location, which was already suffering under the strains of its size.

At one Board meeting called specifically to consider whether to adopt an amalgamation strategy, the discussion circled laboriously for nearly four hours. Cowan says the final hour could have been completely eliminated had there been a recording of the first hour. After all that time, the only resolution was that management should prepare further documentation to prove that the threats actually existed. 

A frustrated management team came to the conclusion that the entire exercise had been a deliberate waste of time, and that the request for more information was just an excuse to put off making a decision. Deferring a decision was easier than raising logical argument.

To the management team, the threats were very real – and very obvious. They also should have been obvious to the Board. But how could it be proven that the government attitude, for example, was a threat? Today every club in the state would agree that it was the greatest threat of all.3

A major benefit of amalgamation would be the spreading of support for the rugby league team. That, in turn, would boost opportunities in sponsorship, merchandising and television. With the advent of Pay TV, management considered television exposure as a crucial part of its future success, particularly with the possibility of clubs being rewarded through their popularity on that medium. 

Another important consideration was the potential to spread many of the fixed overhead costs over a number of sites, without extra cost. Financial management, poker machine management and purchasing were just some of these.

Many of the clubs seeking to amalgamate had assets far more valuable than their liabilities, which would have a positive effect on the Club’s balance sheet. This could lay the foundation for future expansion into other profitable areas, and most importantly, it could be a way for Panthers to begin to break its dependency on gaming.

Former director Bateman, one of the Five who often spoke out against the amalgamation strategy, told the Temby Inquiry in 2004,

My initial attitude in regards to amalgamations was that we needed to explore it. I accepted there were pressures on our main source of revenue being gaming, and we needed to spread our wings.

He told Ian Temby – that ‘amalgamations were an appropriate way in which to extend outside our current Penrith base’.

Part of the management recommendation was a set of criteria for clubs wishing to amalgamate with Panthers. After 12 months, the Board agreed that an amalgamation strategy should become high priority. At that time, management was given authority to identify and pursue amalgamation possibilities.

The Board stipulated that every amalgamation must meet the criteria. Even then, there was no authority granted for amalgamations to proceed automatically. Each one had to be recommended and approved separately by the Board. Generally, a board sets policy, defines parameters and leaves management to work towards success within those parameters. In this case the Board put each new proposal under the microscope.

Although there was a lot of discussion about members of amalgamating clubs being able to stand for the Board, nothing was built into the criteria to provide against it. John Ralston4, an acknowledged legal expert in the club industry, had advised that it would be highly unlikely that the licensing court would approve an amalgamation unless the members of both clubs were treated equitably. He also reminded the Club that the Registered Clubs Act requires that at least 50% of members had to have the right to vote for the Board.

Management breathed a sigh of relief when it appeared that the five directors had finally agreed to a strategy that ensured all members be treated equally after amalgamation. At long last, it seemed they understood that the amalgamation strategy could only be successful if Panthers protected the rights of the members of the amalgamating club. Such beliefs by management were to prove naïve.

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  1. The regulatory framework under the Registered Clubs Act increasingly recognised amalgamation as a means of dealing with clubs facing financial or operational difficulty. The Act provided for amalgamations subject to approval by club members and the licensing authority, with the Licensing Court supervising the amalgamation process and the transfer of the relevant club licence. The statutory framework governing amalgamations was subsequently expanded substantially in 2001.
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  2. The terminology used in some early documentation was not always consistent. The distinction being drawn here is between the use of the word takeover and the model advocated by Cowan, under which amalgamating clubs would retain identity and local involvement and their members would ultimately share rights within the wider Panthers organisation.
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  3. “Today” refers to the time of writing of the original manuscript in 2007.
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  4. John Ralston BA LLB (Sydney University) was admitted to legal practice in 1975 and is today a consultant with Pigott Stinson. For more than 30 years he has acted extensively for registered clubs and practised across the wide scope of law affecting clubs and the club industry. Pigott Stinson describes him as one of the leading legal practitioners in the club industry. ↩︎

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Commentary and Contributions

Evolution Then Revolution … And Repeat.

Part 26 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 9: An Urgent Need for Research and Change

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

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Growth is not always smooth. There are so many roads that must be paved and most of them start as rough tracks. A good management team seeks improvements continually, every day. Some aspects of the business are given priority; others are set aside until there is time. It is never finished, and it is never perfect. 

One of the biggest milestones in the history of the Penrith Leagues Club was the relocation to its new site on Mulgoa Road in 1984. In the years immediately following the move, the club experienced phenomenal growth.

The growth rate had been consistent from the time that Cowan started as manager in 1965. There were some flat spots, and a few years of concern about lower-than-expected profit levels, but they had always been able to overcome them.

In the years after the purchase of the property in 1971, they had spent vast amounts of time planning the transfer from Station St to Mulgoa Rd. When they left the old Station Street premises in April 1984, Panthers had about 200 employees and annual sales income of around $12 million.

The success of the intensive preparation for the move was certainly reflected in the sales. In the first year, sales increased to $16 million, and staff numbers jumped to 300. Most of the systems that had been in place in Station Street
were easily transferred. Despite the issues raised due to Mulgoa Rd being a much bigger building, by and large, the transfer went smoothly.

What they had not anticipated in all the forward planning was the rate of growth.

Within four years, annual sales more than quadrupled, to $65 million. The Club now had 850 staff. Cowan remembers it was an exciting time.

Everyone was highly motivated. It was one of the most enjoyable periods I remember. The new location was successful beyond our hopes. For years we had listened to the knockers saying what a bad move it was, and that our Station Street customers would not follow us that far out of town. 1984 was also a year of significant personal satisfaction. It was the first year of a new administration system for rugby league.1 We narrowly missed the final series that year but made it in ‘85.

Amidst the euphoria there were problems behind the scenes. Apart from a split in the Board and the stress of the misguided police investigation, there was something the matter with the business.

The fact was that while sales were going up, profit was going down. So, something was wrong. It should have been basic maths. Increasing sales, if managed properly, should lead to more profit, but that was just not happening. For more than twenty years we had been managing growth successfully, so what was different now?

In 1990, a chance discussion, a painful back and the Panther’s first grand final combined in a way that would lead to a dramatic change in the management style at Panthers. It would also lay the foundations that have allowed the company to move well beyond what most people ever envisaged.

David O’Keeffe was CEO of the Penrith Lakes Development and a very experienced administrator. He and Cowan were attending a function and their conversation got around to the club. O’Keeffe talked about its growth and asked about the number of employees. When told the staff had grown to 850, he said to Cowan, ‘I’ll bet you are having trouble keeping your thumbs on all of that.’ ‘Unbelievable difficulty’, was Cowan’s response.

‘I’ll send you something that will explain why you are having difficulties’, O’Keeffe promised.

The next day Cowan received an article entitled Evolution and Revolution as Organisations Grow, published by Harvard University and written by Larry E Greiner in 1972.

1990 was our first year in a rugby league grand final. We were to play Canberra on the Sunday afternoon, and coach Phil Gould decided to take the players to Sydney on Saturday and stay overnight. It was one of the times when I was CEO of both organisations and Phil asked me to join them.

For several weeks I had been suffering from a back problem that was giving me pain right down one arm. I had been having physiotherapy, but nothing was working. On Saturday afternoon the pain was driving me crazy. Instead of joining the players for dinner, I decided to go to bed and see if rest would help. I had brought a copy of the Greiner article with me and it was a good chance to read it carefully.

The article explains five evolutionary phases in the growth of an organisation. Greiner says that moving from one phase into the next is never smooth. Each transition is a revolutionary stage with periods of crisis that must be managed and overcome.

Cowan realised that Panthers had already been through some of those evolutionary phases, and had been able to solve some of the revolution crises as they arose. He found himself remembering periods when growth seemed to stall, followed by a struggle to find solutions. Then the feeling that there was a sudden breaking of the chains that were holding the club down, followed by another period of smooth growth.

Somehow the management team had made the right cultural and structural adjustments to get over each hurdle.

Greiner advises that the critical task for management in each revolutionary period is to find a new set of practices. They must then become the basis for managing the next period of evolutionary growth. He warns that many companies fail during the periods of crisis. Companies that are unable to abandon past practices and effect major organisational changes will either level off in their growth rates, or fold.

Reading the article was one of those ‘Aha!’ experiences for Cowan. He was now understanding things that he had never even considered before.

Readers interested in the management theory that produced this moment of insight can explore it further in the accompanying Beyond the Book article, The Article That Changed Panthers’ Thinking.

I suddenly began to see that the Panthers business employing 850 people with sales of $65 million was not a bigger business than the Panthers with 300 employees and sales of $16 million. It was a different business. Systems and management styles that worked for one would not necessarily work for the other. We had to change. We were in one of Greiner’s periods of crisis. Methodologies that had achieved growth in the past had to be re-examined, to see if they would continue to be effective.

That article had more effect on my attitudes towards management than anything else I ever read. It made me realise that I did not know enough to get Panthers through its crisis. I had been operating on the false premise that what we had done in the past would be suitable for the future. It set me off on a discovery path. I read voraciously until I had a picture in my mind of the new direction.

Introducing change is difficult and takes a long time. It causes tension in the organisation. Some find it difficult, even impossible, to adapt. But from that point we were a different organisation, constantly looking for change. We became students of authors on management, and devoted students of a few of them.

It all started with a rugby league grand final and that casual conversation. Strange to say, there was a medical lesson in it for me, too.

We returned to Panthers as losers of our first grand final, but to a heroes’ welcome. The club was packed to the rafters.  The celebrations continued right through the night and I probably had a bit too much to drink. By the time I got to bed, the sun was way up and the pain in my arm and shoulder was gone. It did not return. It seems that I was tensing my back to compensate for the pain, which just made it worse. The total relaxation of that celebration let muscles, tendons, and everything else slip into their rightful places and I was cured. That’s my theory anyway! Had I listened to earlier advice to take painkillers, I might have been fixed much sooner.

The Greiner theory placed Panthers in the revolutionary stage he called “Red Tape”, when bureaucratic needs start to take precedence, dominating decision making and slowing down progress. The next evolutionary stage should be growth through collaboration requiring a high level of democratic management, combining teams across functions, flexibility of teams, frequent conferences of key personnel, educational programs, and more. Moving from one stage to the next was the challenge.

The Greiner article was just the tip of the iceberg for Cowan. Now he was on a mission of discovery.

He had always been a reader of books and articles on management theory, but it was done as an interest without any pressure other than to absorb any good ideas he found. Now he felt it was a matter of urgency. He was missing something, and he had to find it.

At that time, he was President of the Registered Clubs of NSW and Chairman of the Licensed Clubs of Australia. Once a month he had to attend meetings on the mornings of three consecutive days and stayed in a self-contained unit in Sydney. He remembers having books spread all over the floor of the living room, cross referencing notes on what might be applicable in a restructure of Panthers.

As the big picture started to take shape, Cowan saw another obstacle. The ideas had to be compiled into a coherent form, communicated to managers, and then filtered through the staff. Implementing change was no small order, even if the changes themselves had been simple. And the big picture in Cowan’s mind was far from simple. He needed help of an unusual kind.

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  1. The change to rugby league management structure is covered in Part 21 — The Right Structure. Finally! ↩︎

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Commentary and Contributions

Building the Future, A Block at a Time

Part 13 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 5: Building the Basics – Business Principles and Property

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

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Long before Mulgoa Road, the Club had already begun to adopt a deliberate approach to property.

From the time that Cowan took on the job, the Club’s philosophy was to invest in property that could support future development – even if it meant increasing debt.

In 1965 the Penrith Rugby League Club was boxed in on all sides. The main parking area for its customers was the Council Swimming Pool on the opposite side of Station Street, or on the streets nearby. The old clubhouse had been built in 1955 and provided facilities for a Boy’s Club. In 1963, a new clubhouse was completed next door, and the old building was dedicated to Boys Club Facilities.

By 1970, the Club needed a major extension, and the Boys Club building had to be demolished. It was replaced by the Police Youth Club, further North on Station Street, in a project funded, uniquely at the time, jointly by the Club and Penrith City Council.

From the time the Club had overcome its financial problems and secured a position in the first division rugby league competition, Cowan and the committee looked for solutions to a parking problem that could only become worse as business grew. The Club quietly began to buy the houses surrounding the site. When the strategy became known, two of the closest residents decided to dig their heels in and hold out for some absolutely extraordinary prices.

As the Club’s fortunes improved, management increasingly found itself paying premium prices for properties it wished to acquire. One five-acre property on the opposite side of Reserve Street would make an ideal car parking area. This and an adjacent property were on the market, but the owners were adamant they would not sell to the Club.

By this time Cowan had established the private family company, Phyro Holdings Pty Ltd.1 When that company made a lower — but still very reasonable — offer to the owners they happily accepted. After settlement, the properties were transferred to the Club at the same cost. Gradually, the Club acquired all the properties around it and on both sides of Reserve Street. Some houses along Station Street were also purchased and rented out until the land would be needed.2

In the late 60s, the Club had also purchased some holiday cabins at Bendalong, south of Nowra, for $25,000. The club sponsored an active fishing club at that time, and it was a popular venue for members looking for a subsidised holiday. A ballot was held each year to see who the lucky tenants over the Christmas holidays would be. That property was sold in the 1990s for $900,000.

Allawah Cabins — Bendalong. Click image to enlarge.

Mulgoa Road was added to the property portfolio in 1971.

Even with the properties it had purchased, the Club was still boxed in and very limited in its potential for growth. Parking would always be a nightmare on this site and the use of the swimming pool carpark by the Club’s customers was causing conflict. It was in the middle of a residential area and noise complaints were building momentum. Long-term planning for this site would be difficult.

However, if all the properties were consolidated, it would be an ideal site for a shopping centre, and around 1978 there was interest from a developer. A price of $3.25 million was negotiated subject to council approval of a shopping centre and the consolidation of all the properties including some roads.3 That caused difficulties, lengthy delays, unforeseen charges and a lot of bitterness but it was finally achieved. At that time, the book value of the properties was less than $1 million and it was a good profit for the club.

But it all hinged on Council approval of a shopping centre. Cowan says the first response was an almost blunt: “no chance”.

More work, feasibilities, and growth forecasts eventually led to agreement for a major retailer — but no specialty shops.

However, shopping centres depend on specialty shops. Further negotiations led to a revised proposal, but the permitted mix remained too limited to be viable, and time was passing.

In the meantime, the developer was spending more money on buying neighbouring properties and updating plans and information for Council.Finally, the development application was approved, and the Club was paid. Within a few days the developer sold the site to another developer for $7 million. The other properties purchased by the developer would allow for a shopping centre quite a bit better than the one we had approved. Nearly four years had elapsed from the time the deal had been agreed. A relatively small annual appreciation would have added well over a million to the value of the Club’s portion. Long delays cost money. And we did not have the experience of developers who could see other ways of doing things for a better result.

The first developer certainly made a nice profit and, eventually, so did Panthers. However, the sequence of events gave rise to one of the enduring myths surrounding Cowan and later became one of the matters that prompted a police investigation.4

This willingness to think beyond conventional boundaries would continue to shape decisions — not just in land, but in how the Panthers brand evolved.

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  1. Phyro Holdings Pty Ltd becomes very important in this narrative. Phyro is derived from the names Phyllis and Roger.
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  2. One of these houses was 138 Station St, where the Cowan family lived from 1968-1972.
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  3. See Beyond the Book — Negotiation with Council — The Station St Road Closures.
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  4. The allegations arising frm these transactions are examined in Parts 22-25. ↩︎

← Part 12 · All Parts · Part 14 →

Commentary and Contributions

Negotiating with Council — The Station St Road Closures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Topics

Related Themes

Governance · Growth · Board Decisions · Licensed Club · Conflict

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The Cow Paddock Purchase

Part 12 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 5: Building the Basics – Business Principles and Property

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

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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 see Beyond 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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  1. Jamison Park already included playing fields, the scrub referred to here was at the southern end of the Park.
    ↩︎
  2. Pat Sheehy retired from Penrith City Council in 2008. He passed away in 2025. ↩︎

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Entertainment, Experience & Prestige

Part 11 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 5: Building the Basics – Business Principles and Property

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

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With a broader audience now emerging, attention turned to what would bring people in — and keep them coming back.

Another early innovation was an in-house band, fully employed by the club. Rhind believes it was one of the first in the industry — and unheard of for such a small club. At the time, the Board was resisting putting poker machines in the upstairs auditorium area.

Roger persisted, finally convincing them to trial half a dozen machines upstairs for four hours on a Saturday night — between 6 and 10pm. He and a couple of the assistant managers would carry them upstairs and bring them back down again later.

The trial was successful; the figures increased, and the machines went upstairs permanently. 

Rhind says he and Cowan were both in their thirties but most of the Board at the time were older men who sometimes found it a bit more difficult to cope with all the change being promoted by management.

However, they all shared a quality that would help overcome obstacles. They had a strong sense of ownership of the club they had helped build, and they wanted it to be secure for the future.

There were no hidden agendas and no ambitions of personal gain. It was about loyalty to a common cause. It was their club, and they would do whatever was necessary to protect it.

In the early 1970s the club began to put on prawn nights, other special nights, Sunday afternoon concerts and talent quests. Max Connors recalls,

Mum and Dad would come in for whatever was on, and they would always put a few bucks in the pokies. Roger was doing surveys all the time. He told the board that we had to start to give a little back to people to encourage them to come to the club, even though we might lose a little money on the prawn nights.

Bringing in the couples meant that women were starting to come to the club. It was changing the whole social scene. Back then, there were not many places that women could go, especially if they were on their own. They could come in either with a partner, or a girlfriend, and enjoy a regular night out.

The final shift away from the club’s traditional male bastion came with the launch of what became known as the “purple passion pit”, one of the new extensions to the club. Kevin McGrath remembers,

The room was quite stunning, with beautiful décor, purple furniture and fittings and large fish-tanks along one wall. It had poker machines, comfortable lounges and a full bar and it very quickly became the most popular area in the club.

Also, to attract the mixed market, the club began to focus on entertainment. This was an extraordinary time for the Penrith Leagues Club, says Bryn Miller, who was part of the club’s entertainment team in the seventies.

The first auditorium only held 580 people, so by today’s standards, it was not a big room. Don Ellks was the entertainment manager at the time, and he and Cowan formed an association with an agent, John Hansen. The Board approved their recommendation that the club set up its own entertainment agency as a joint venture with Hansen.

Through the new company, Prestige Attractions1, the club set out to bring in major overseas acts — performers who were appearing at leading Sydney nightclubs such as Chequers2, as well as venues like St George Leagues and Souths Juniors — artists such as Roy Orbison, Rolf Harris, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Hollies, and the Mamas and the Papas.

But we would get them on Tuesday nights — traditionally a dead night in the entertainment industry. Most artists didn’t get bookings for Tuesdays, so we could get them at a good rate. We would put on prawn nights, and beef and burgundy nights, and still charge reasonable prices. These shows were every second Tuesday, and the response was phenomenal. People came from all over Sydney.

We needed to find a way to get more people in, and at the time, there was a fountain in the middle of the auditorium. We ripped that out, and the room was able to hold 800.

We started to advertise in Sydney newspapers, which was our first real exposure out of Penrith. Here we were, this little hick country town, and we were really getting known out there.

Miller adds,

Sundays were another big night. It was Australian rock night, with bands such as Skyhooks, Sherbert, the Little River Band and INXS appearing in the auditorium.

But the building of success inside the club was creating pressures that could not be resolved within its existing footprint.

1982 Advertisement for the week’s rock entertainment.

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  1. Prestige Attractions was a joint entertainment venture involving Penrith Leagues Club and entertainment promoter John Hansen during the 1970s.
    ↩︎
  2. Chequers was one of Sydney’s best-known nightclub venues during the 1960s and 1970s, regularly hosting major Australian and international entertainers ↩︎

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Commentary and Contributions

Feeney Electronics – Ahead of its Time

The following material draws upon club publications from the early and mid-1970s, later interviews and recollections from former Panthers staff and executives.

By the mid-1970s, Penrith Rugby League Club was doing something few licensed clubs in Australia would even have contemplated — experimenting with computerised gaming and security systems.

The project emerged from a practical problem. As poker machine revenue increased across the club industry, so too did concerns about theft, scams, inefficient cash handling and poor operational oversight. Panthers had already experienced some of these issues directly. Roger Cowan believed tighter systems and better information could reduce losses and improve efficiency.

What followed was an ambitious venture into electronics and computer technology through a company known as F.C. Electronics Pty Ltd.

Contemporary club material described F.C. Electronics as producing “probably the world’s most sophisticated poker machine security system”. While that language reflected the promotional enthusiasm of the period, there is little doubt the system was unusually advanced for an Australian club environment of the 1970s.

The system attempted to electronically monitor poker machine activity from a central control point.

Early F.C. Electronics monitoring reports published by Panthers during the 1970s showed the system identifying jackpots, abnormal machine activity and security irregularities. Click image to enlarge.

According to material published by the club, poker machine events were coded and transmitted to television monitors around the club, allowing supervisors to immediately identify jackpots and machine activity. The system also attempted to monitor irregularities including abnormal wheel movement, door openings and jackpot inconsistencies.

The operation relied on technology that, at the time, would have appeared extraordinary to most club employees and patrons. The club’s own promotional material featured computer consoles, printers, monitoring screens and electronic reporting systems — all at a time when many organisations still relied entirely on manual record keeping.

Promotional page for F.C. Electronics showed an interconnected monitoring and reporting system linking poker machines to central computer and television displays. Click image to enlarge.

Former Panthers executive Bryn Miller later recalled that the system was “so far ahead of its time” that most clubs did not even possess a computer when Panthers was experimenting with electronic monitoring and reporting.

The project extended beyond poker machine security. F.C. Electronics also produced industrial control equipment and commercial products including lighting dimmers and environmental control systems. Club publications noted that the company’s capabilities had expanded sufficiently for it to seek work beyond the club industry itself.

Yet the venture also carried substantial cost and risk.

Club material acknowledged that F.C. Electronics operated at a financial loss during part of this period, while Roger Cowan later conceded that Panthers may have persisted with the project longer than it should have. Had the technology evolved commercially the way he hoped, the rewards may have been significant. Instead, the project became one of several ambitious experiments that pushed the club into areas rarely explored by licensed clubs of the era.

Club journal material outlined the broader ambitions of F.C. Electronics, which expanded into industrial and commercial electronic products beyond gaming systems. Click image to enlarge.

Even so, many who observed the system believed its core ideas eventually became standard throughout the gaming industry. Automated monitoring, centralised reporting, electronic jackpot recording and machine data analysis are now routine parts of modern club gaming operations.

In that sense, the Feeney Electronics project reflected something larger about the Panthers administration during the Cowan years. The club was rarely content simply to follow established practice. Whether the experiments succeeded or failed, there was often a willingness to try ideas that others considered unrealistic, premature or unnecessarily ambitious.

Feeney Electronics was one of the clearest examples of that philosophy in action.

Related Topics

Related Themes

Financial Management · Innovation

Image Credits: All images in this post — including the feature image — are from Panthers Annual Reports. These were kindly provided by The Ausburn Collection.

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The Bid For First Division

Part 7 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 4: Insolvency to First Division in One Year

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

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The financial stability that had recently been established allowed Penrith to pursue something that had previously been out of reach — entry into the NSW Rugby League First Division.  

Not long after Cowan took over as CEO1, the Penrith club had started making a push for one of two new spots that were being created in the First Division of the NSW Rugby League. It appeared that one of those holes had pretty much been filled by Cronulla. And while the credentials of the Penrith team were strong enough to give it a chance, the financial woes of the licensed club had to be overcome. Penrith needed to prove it had the resources to support a first division club. It also had to have sufficient player strength to be competitive.

The main rival for the position was Wentworthville. It was one of the most successful registered clubs in the state, had been the leading club in the Second Division competition for a number of years and was favoured to win the 1966 competition. It was a David and Goliath match up!

Early in 1966, Cowan advised the football committee that the club could confidently forecast a profit. The licensed club committee agreed it would support the bid for a place in the First Division competition. With a bit of extra money, the committee was able to pick up a number of established first grade players.

All stops were pulled out to build local support for the bid.

One of the more deliberate moves was the establishment of a monthly club magazine for members, largely written and produced by Cowan. Its aim was to push the First Division claim and stir up local support.2

Cowan also began to foster ties with Penrith mayor Bill Chapman and the town clerk, Harold Corr, both of whom would play key roles in Penrith’s promotion to first division.

The football committee led by Secretary Merv Cartwright, had worked strongly throughout the campaign.3

Another factor in Penrith’s favour was that Jack Argent, the Parramatta delegate to the New South Wales Rugby League, didn’t want Wentworthville in there, and he was very influential in those days. Roger Cowan s

Halfway through 1966, Penrith was able to prove to the NSW rugby league that it was profitable. Many factors contributed to the success of the bid, but we would never have got into First Division if the club had remained in the financial state it was. It was a narrow decision and we made it by the skin of our teeth. Six months earlier we would have had no chance of showing we could finance it.

Looking back, it seems logical that Penrith would be a better choice than Wentworthville, situated so close to Parramatta and competing for supporters. It was different back then though.  Souths, Easts and Balmain were good examples of successful clubs competing in the same areas. The NSWRL showed great foresight in considering the geographical qualifications and Jack Argent made sure they did.

Penrith supporters today can reflect that it was a very close call. Just a couple of votes and Penrith would have remained in Second Division.

The entry of the Penrith Panthers into first grade was a time of great celebration in the young city of Penrith. The team would have mixed fortunes over the next 24 years. They first made the semi-finals in 1985 and won their first premiership in 1991.

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  1. Cowan’s formal title was Secretary-Manager, the standard senior administrative role used by rugby league clubs at the time.
    ↩︎
  2. The monthjly Club Journal is the precursor to The Panthers Magazine – which later becomes central to a number of governance issues. See Beyond the Book — The Panthers Magazine
    ↩︎
  3. The campaign involved the efforts of many people, including club officials, local supporters and civic leaders such as Penrith mayor Bill Chapman and town clerk Harold Corr. Chapman and Corr were instrumental to the process. ↩︎

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Commentary and Contributions

The Bungool Picnic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Max’s Notes

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

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

However, the reference to Billy Tonkin complicates that assumption.

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

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

Either way, the underlying issue remains clear.

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

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

Related Topics

Related Themes

Growth · Licensed Club

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The Bungool Picnic and Unpaid Players

Part 6 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 4: Insolvency to First Division in One Year

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

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Penrith in the 60s was, in many ways, still a country town. Some of the trains were still steam hauled, and holidaymakers would pass through on their way to the Blue Mountains – or stop off and catch the Bales’ bus out to one of the many guesthouses at Wallacia, some ten miles out of town.

Through 1963-64, Roger Cowan continued teaching while acting as honorary treasurer of the football committee. What started out as an amicable relationship with Merv Cartwright gradually deteriorated into frequent clashes.

The registered club’s main function in those days was to finance rugby league.

In 1964, the registered club committee had agreed to a football budget of £10,000 and player contracts were agreed within that budget. Payday for the players was planned for the traditional end of season picnic on the banks of the Hawkesbury River — Bungool1.

When Cowan went to the club administration to organise the cheques for the players, he was informed that they didn’t have the money. He had no warning of the problem. Merv Cartwright who sat on the registered club committee and was also secretary of the football club, would known much earlier that the Club was in financial trouble — yet the football club had been allowed to proceed on its merry way without any warning.2

Before this Cowan had never thought about getting into club politics. It was this failure — the inability to meet its obligations to the players — that first motivated him to stand for election onto the committee of the licensed club – ‘to understand how £10,000 could be promised and not paid’.

He was elected, and soon after asked to take on the role of treasurer. It quickly became apparent that the club had virtually no systems of control. Dishonesty was widespread, enabled by the absence of basic procedures.

I started to look into why the club wasn’t making any money. We were losing money hand over fist. The bank was threatening to take action. One of the first things I did was to install control systems for poker machines.  This included a monthly analysis of each of the 26 machines to ensure they were operating within carded percentages.

I also put as much time as I could into getting some systems operating. There was no system for stock control, no cash systems, there was nothing. I began with cash systems. We started to count the money, and balance it against the cash register tapes, and so on. Basic stuff, but it had never been done.

 Cash control was a simple system before then. When trading finished for a shift, the cash would be taken to the vault and tipped into a large container with all the cash from other cash registers. Nobody checked the cash register tapes to see if there was a balance. Each morning the money in the container would be counted and banked.

Rumour has it that one employee boasted that he never bothered taking less than a twenty pound note when he wanted some cash. He bought a new car in less than 12 months working as a bar steward.  After getting a system started, I came in one Sunday morning and discovered a £1,700 discrepancy between the cash register tapes and the money we had. That was a lot of money in those days for such a small club.’

At a special meeting, the board decided that the Secretary-Manager Rocky Davis wasn’t managing things properly, and asked for his resignation. There was no suggestion of dishonesty, only mismanagement.

The Club immediately advertised for a replacement. But the small size and low profile of the Club meant that the quality of candidates was not very high. After three months of advertising, they had still found nobody suitable. In the meantime, Cowan continued holding things together in his spare time – evenings and weekends – and continued to improve the systems.

I was doing the job anyway, as well as teaching. I was convinced in my own mind that I could put systems in place to make the place work. So I just said to the committee one night, “I’m prepared to resign from teaching. I’ll take the job for a trial period if you want to give it to me. And I’ll give you a guarantee that if I’m not making a profit within three months, I’ll resign and you can keep looking”. I agreed to commence on a very low salary.

That was October 1965. The Board agreed, and Cowan remained in the position continuously for almost 40 years.

There is a logical question here, of course. Here is a young man – 29 years old, married, four young kids. He’s a schoolteacher, which is a reasonably secure job for life. He suddenly decides to turn his whole life upside down. There is no contract, no security of tenure – just ‘give me three months to make a success of it. If not, I’ll go’.

Phyllis Cowan says it was the challenge.

He loved school teaching, he was an excellent teacher, but he didn’t like the system. I don’t think he wanted to be doing that for the rest of his life. Many people advised him against it at the time. But he always could have gone back to teaching, she said –- it was easier back then.

It was the challenge that attracted him, and kept him there, she said. He was being successful, the club was making money, it was growing, and he was introducing all these new measures. She spoke of a couple of nights in the early days when he took a blanket and pillow and sat on a roof where he could watch for the people that he knew were stealing stores from the club.

Under Cowan’s stewardship, the club began to more stable financially. The systems he implemented, some while acting as treasurer and others when he took the management role, had already begun to have an impact on the profitability of the business.

Within a year, the club had moved out of the red. For the first time, it had the financial stability needed to think beyond survival.

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  1. Bungool’s location was at Cattai on the Hawkesbury River where Riverside Oaks Golf Resort is today. ↩︎
  2. This failure became evident at the end-of-season Bungool picnic, when players could not be paid in full.
    See Beyond the Book: The Bungool Picnic. ↩︎

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