Although the odd “Come on the Bears” went through the waiting crowd at the long-suffering rugby league club’s spiritual home on Sydney’s lower north shore when Western Australia Premier Roger Cook officially announced their return to the NRL as the Perth Bears, there was only one, deafening chant: “North Sydney! North Sydney! North Sydney!”
Greg Florimo bit his nails as he listened out for the exact season the club would start – Cook confirmed it would be in 2027, not 2028 – but didn’t hear beyond the first line.
“I just needed to hear it because … We’ve had so many of those false starts,” says Florimo, a Bears veteran of 295 first-grade games before their 1999 NRL exodus and a long-time advocate for their return.
“My mum has rung me four or five times over the last two years saying, ‘Well done’. I said, ‘Not yet, not yet’.”
There should have been no reason for Florimo to be nervous. Cook had already pre-empted the details of Thursday’s official announcement, made in Perth alongside ARLC chairman Peter V’landys and NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo at 1pm AEST, or 11am AWST – a time zone NSW fans will have to get their heads round.
But most of the supporters at the watch party at the club’s Cammeray headquarters, who cried, sank beers, or hugged children born long after 1999, are simply relieved their torment is over. For them, the Bears may always be North Sydney, even if they’ve already had to get used to the idea of playing in the Central Coast, or, god forbid, Manly. If Perth is their salvation, all the better – they’re looking forward to the travel.
North Sydney Bears supporters react to the announcement the club will return to the NRL in 2027 as the Perth Bears.Credit: Steven Siewer
Bears die-hard Katie Lowe is matter-of-fact: “We’ll fly there.” Her husband Justin is more imaginative: “I haven’t told the family, but we might move there.”
Mark Sayers is among the older fans for whom the news is bittersweet. “It’s hard, it’s happy, sad – a lot of things. My mum’s not here to see them come back, that’s a sad thing.”
Is Sayers sad the team is leaving NSW? “No, not really” he says. “It’s been accepted for a long time that the club was looking to move elsewhere.”
Bears fans are a stoic bunch. But Dave Kerslake is almost mystical when he describes the moment he calls “the biggest thing to happen in sport worldwide”.
“We’ve been out of this competition for 26 years, and we have risen again like Lazarus,” he says.
That 26-year struggle comes after the Bears fell foul of an agreement with Rupert Murdoch’s Super League to reduce the number of NRL teams to 14 (there’s a cheer when the stream for the press conference is switched to Channel Nine from the former Murdoch-owned Fox Sports).
That history also includes a brief partnership with former rivals Manly as the Northern Eagles (a boo echoes through the room when this is mentioned by a TV announcer) and long-term attempts to move the club to Gosford as the Central Coast Bears. Talks to take the franchise to WA were revealed in 2018.
Bears chief executive Gareth Holmes, who was appointed in 2021, has been instrumental behind the scenes. “We’ve made sure everyone knew that the Bears were still here,” he says.
Holmes confirmed the North Sydney club, which has served as a feeder for no fewer than four NRL teams – most recently Melbourne Storm – will continue to play in the NSW Cup, and help recruit for the WA team.
Several hundred people gathered at the Bears’ Cammeray headquarters.Credit: Steve Siewert
Scott Cable and Ben Pickering, both 35, were nine years old when the Bears last played in the NRL. They don’t have strong memories of that time, but never thought about abandoning the team as it dropped to rugby league’s second tier, even if others strayed.
“There’s been other supporters that follow other teams, but I’m pretty sure they’ll jump back on board with the Bears.” V’landys has said there are 200,000 hibernating Bears fans in NSW, and the WA government has banked on the club’s ability to appeal to new fans.
Bears chairman Daniel Dickson has said the club had several “non-negotiables” when it came to taking the franchise to another city: two to four games at North Sydney Oval, and no changes to the name and logo, although it’s not clear exactly what that will mean.
Pickering admits to being “very nervous” about the logo, which has already had “North Sydney” removed in a bid to make the club a more attractive prospective franchise. “But at the end of the day we’ve still got a team,” he says.
For now, until fans get used to calling them just “the Bears”, or “Perth”, the club will still be “North Sydney”. Even Florimo can’t avoid the slippage, as he praises the sponsors and supporters “that have helped us through, that have seen the light at the end of the tunnel”.
“That’s North Sydney blood.”
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