Parramatta Eels fans Mick Harrison and Steve Thorne maintain their innocence when asked about fuelling the fire that destroyed Cumberland Oval in 1981, but they were there to experience the euphoria it exuded.
It was the night of Parramatta’s first premiership victory over the Newtown Jets, following years of heartbreak from earlier losses in the late 1970s. The grounds were due to be demolished anyway, but Eels fans ignited their own grandstand, expediting the process which Harrison saw as a coming-of-age moment.
“It was a cleansing moment where we grew up as a club,” he said. “The burning of the grandstand and fencing and all that was our way of cleansing ourselves from what was our childhood as a club.”
Harrison, 21 at the time, drove to the game at the SCG in his blue and gold panel van with a couple of mates. They returned to the Eels leagues club before the fire started, but ended up packed like sardines at the bar.
“The club was nowhere near the size it is now, and it was impossible to get away from the bar,” Harrison said. “It was mayhem. You could not move.”
Eventually, the group managed to wriggle through to the oval where Harrison saw the flames flickering. “Somebody had started a bonfire, and it was probably about six or eight feet high” he said. “People started feeding the fire with palings off the little perimeter fence that went around the edge of the ground.”
Parramatta fan Mick Harrison with the Eels top he was wearing on the night of the 1981 grand final.
The fire fanned the passion of the hundreds who had gathered at the grounds, and Harrison was among them. “I felt diehard euphoria and relief from the 1976 grand final when we were ripped by Manly,” he said. “To finally win after some pretty bleak years, it was euphoria, it really was.”
But a moment of clarity amid the blaze stopped Harrison from adding to the fire. “I thought to myself, ‘I want to keep a hold of this’,” he said. “So I grabbed the paling and stuck it in my pocket. I had a piece of timber about two feet long sticking out the back of my pocket.”
The next morning, Harrison returned to see if he could pick up some more souvenirs from the ground but returned empty-handed.
“Not only was the fence gone, but they had effectively demolished the grandstand,” he said. “I walked through what was left of the dressing room area and there were a pair of jocks on the floor.”
A fan stands in front of the burning Cumberland Oval grandstand in 1981.Credit:Fairfax Media
Harrison didn’t pocket those, but they were the subject of banter and speculation. “People were commenting they must have been Mick Cronin’s jocks,” he said.
Western Sydney University sport management lecturer Jess Richards said thousands of fans had turned up to the club before the fire was started and that when the players arrived they couldn’t even get to the door.
“The estimate is that about 5000 people were in the club, and an additional 10,000 began filling the precinct around the club,” she said. “When the team arrived at the club that time, they couldn’t get within 50 metres of the front door. The story goes the players were lifted by the fans and taken to the club.”
Richards said a combination of excitement and frustration likely led to fans burning down the stadium. “I think the fans were frustrated because they’d been advocating for a new stadium, the facilities weren’t up to scratch and they wanted facilities that reflected the top-tier level of the club,” she said.
Scenes at Cumberland Oval the morning after the 1981 premiership.Credit:Trevor James Robert
Steve Thorne saw the flames while walking up to Cumberland Oval with his friend. “We could see before we got there that the place was on fire,” he said. “We got inside and the grandstand was being burned to shreds along with some seats that were located across the ground, which were all wooden.”
But Thorne was happy to see it go. “It was about time it happened,” he said. “The stand was so old.”
Like Harrison, Thorne remembered the atmosphere being electric. “It was brilliant,” he said. “Everyone was so happy, it was just a euphoric feeling.”
Today, the home of the Eels is CommBank Stadium, which Richards said reflected the demographically diverse nature of Parramatta. “Eels fans really enjoy and celebrate their diversity, from the stadium itself, to the way its run on game day with diverse food,” she said.
And although the burning down of Cumberland Oval is a historical moment etched into rugby league history, Richards said it was unlikely to be repeated. “CommBank don’t need to be worried,” she said. “The fans are very proud of that space and very protective of it, so I don’t think we’re going to see a repeat of 1981.”
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