At their home in Perth last week, Bruce King called out to his wife Lydia to ask how she’d feel about a trip to Sydney. Not for a holiday, but to join a rally for Wests Tigers fans at Ashfield’s Pratten Park on Saturday.
“I was sitting at home reading about this whole kerfuffle with the board, being sacked and everything,” the 74-year-old said. “I said, ‘Lydia, how do you feel about going to Sydney?’ And she goes, ‘What for?’ I said, ‘We gotta go to this bloody rally. They’re having a rally in Pratten Park and we gotta be there. Scream for the team’.”
Wests Tigers fans gather in Ashfield on Saturday to call for better governance.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
The Kings were just two among hundreds of fans who gathered on the lawn of the Pratten Park Bowling Club on Saturday to call for better governance at their beleaguered NRL club.
Wests Tigers chief executive Shane Richardson resigned last week following the sacking of four independent board members, including chair Barry O’Farrell, by the club’s majority owner, the Holman Barnes Group. After an intervention by Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys, the ousted board members were reinstated on Thursday.
Saturday’s rally was organised by Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne, who used his speech to announce the formation of a new fan group which, he said, would hold the Holman Barnes Group to account.
“Today I announce that we will form Wests Tigers Unite, a new grassroots organisation to give fans a real say at Wests Tigers,” Byrne said. “We will draw from the successful examples around the world of fans associations at different sports that have been set up when this sort of situation occurs.”
Lydia and Bruce King getting some shade inside the Pratten Park Bowling Club after the fan rally.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
The new association has a high-profile member in Fox Sports commentator and former Balmain Tigers forward Steve Roach, who was in attendance on Saturday.
“I’m a fan. I’m a Tigers supporter, so I’m just like everyone else,” Roach said. “I want the power to go back to the fans and get them to have a say. They’re the people that pay their hard-earned week in and week out to go and watch the team play, so they should have a voice.”
