If you travelled in a
tram down George Street Sydney in 1932 you would have
passed a site as sacred to Australian Rugby League
followers as the George Hotel in Huddersfield is to
the English fans. A pub then called Bateman's Hotel,
and more recently known as the Tatler, is where Rugby
League in Australia was founded on 8 August 1907.
Rugby Union had been
played in Sydney since the 1860's and both soccer and
Australian Rules Football since 1880. But by the
early 1900s Rugby Union was by far the most popular
football code in New South Wales.
However Rugby Union
remained strictly amateur and, as in the North of
England ten years earlier, there was much discontent
among working class Rugby players over the issue of
compensation. None of the proceeds from large gate
takings went to the players - not even to cover the
medical costs related to serious injuries caused in
the game.
This issue came to a
head in the 1907 season - Rugby's "Winter of
Discontent". Interest had arisen in both
Australia and New Zealand in the "Northern
Union" breakaway game in the North of England. [See: English RL Beginnings.] In New Zealand Albert
Baskerville began signing up Rugby Union players for
a planned professional Rugby trip to Europe. That
tour was later changed to a tour to Sydney in August
after the formation of the NSW Rugby League. Because
the players were paid they were disparagingly
referred to as the "All Golds" rather than
All Blacks.
Meanwhile the drive for
a breakaway code with player payments was growing in
Sydney led by Jim J Giltinan, Henry Hoyle, Victor
Trumper, Peter Moir, Alex Burdon, Jack Feneley and
Jim Moir. By July 1907 "... the murmurs of
discontent in rugby circles was becoming a roar.
Players muttered about having to pay for outfits,
boots and travelling expenses, and sometimes even
having to pay the trainer for each rubdown while
large crowds poured thousands of pounds into the maw
of the Rugby Union. ... and if injured and forced to
miss working days there was no compensation. This was
a particular and deeply held grievance, and
eventually the one that motivated the breakaway
movement." [Heads 1992, page 22.]
Finally, at a highly
secretive meeting at Bateman's Hotel on 8 August 1907
the NSW Rugby League was founded with Hoyle voted in
as President, Giltinan as Secretary and Trumper as
Treasurer. The Founding Fathers denied the breakaway
league was "professional" but stated that
the aim was to merely fairly compensate players for
out of pocket expenses and time lost from work.
The first club formed
was Glebe on 9 January 1908, followed soon after by
Newtown, South Sydney, Balmain, Eastern Suburbs,
Western Suburbs and North Sydney. The other two
foundation clubs were the short lived clubs
Cumberland and Newcastle. The first matches were
played as double headers at two venues on Monday 20
April 1908. Easts v Newtown and Glebe v Newcastle at
Wentworth Park, and Souths v Norths and Balmain v
Wests at Birchgrove Oval.
Rugby League in
Australia was off and running and as early as
September 1908 there were rumours that a Manly side
would be entering the 1909 competition. But it would
be another 39 years before Manly would actually gain
district status and join the big league.
Source: Heads
1992
English Beginnings
Origins of Rugby League
at Manly
