North Sydney Bears - History

History

North Sydney was formed as a foundation club of the newly arrived rugby league game in 1908 and were known as the Shoremen. Like the other Sydney district clubs, Norths were largely born from players and officials from the local Rugby Union club, Northern Suburbs Rugby Club. The club initially struggled to obtain access to North Sydney Oval, but council obstruction was removed and the Shoremen played their first real home game in 1910. Many good players such as Andy Morton, Jimmy Devereaux and Sid Deane were lost to English clubs in the years after making the semi-finals in the season of 1908.

They were nearly dropped from the competition during World War I because of dwindling spectator numbers. Towards the end of the war, Norths' fortunes improved, playing quality and spectators numbers increased and they won 2 premierships in 1921–22 coached by Chris McKivat. Unfortunately, these would be their last first grade premierships and their last grand final appearance was in 1943. when an injury riddled North Sydney were beaten by Newtown 34–7.

The team became known as the North Sydney Bears during the 'fifties after accepting a sponsorship from the nearby Big Bear supermarket at Neutral Bay.

The 1952 season saw North Sydney reach the finals for the first time since 1943.

The Bears continued to make appearances in the finals during the next few decades, and produced arguably the greatest winger the game has ever seen in Ken Irvine. Irvine still hold the record for most first grade tries for one club (171).

New South Wales representative Queenslander, Bruce Walker, captained the Bears in the final of the 1976 Amco Cup.

The nineties saw finals appearances and near misses in 1991, and 1993–1998. On 14 July 1994 the club was fined $87,000 for breaching the salary cap. That year they came within one match of the grand final.

North Sydney remained loyal to the Australian Rugby League during the Super League war of the mid 1990s. In the 1996 ARL season the Bears came within one match of the Grand Final.

The following year saw two separate national rugby league championships, and confirmation of the club's intention to move north to New South Wales' Central Coast. By the start of the 1999 NRL season the future looked bright, with plans for the move north well underway, but one unfortunate and apparently non-negotiable outcome of the Super League war's peace deal was a criterion designed to reduce the number of teams in the NRL to fourteen.