BARRACKING FOR THE NORTH SYDNEY BEARS

And now the teams are vanished from the field,
But still an echo of their presence clings;
The moon discovers what the day concealed,
The gracefulness and grief of passing things.

J.A.R. Mackellar, 'Football Field: Evening'

I don't really care who wins, loses or draws anymore – no Norths, no interest.

Don McKinnon, Rugby League Week, 28^th April 2004

Recently I was asked to contribute an anecdote to a 'Memorable Moments' segment of a rugby league web site. For a North Sydney fan the likelihood is that one's favourite (and indeed one's worst) memories are probably linked to games against Manly-Warringah. They certainly are for me and when I pulled my scrapbook out of the filing cabinet and flipped back through time I settled on a match that took place over twenty years ago. The date was 13th June 1982, an almost balmy winter Sunday afternoon at North Sydney Oval when the Bears showed their claws and growled and, for once, it was their north-harbour rivals who lost their nerve.

It was a game characterized by everything I love about rugby league. Big forwards relentless in their hard Don-McKinnon

running mayhem, intelligent, precision passing that saw the ball fly from the ruck to the point of greatest impact and long, lyrical runs that lifted the crowd from their seats. There was, of course, the inevitable moment when the expected North Sydney collapse seemed imminent but also instances of almost light-hearted magic as the ball was spirited from the arms of the enemy and sped on a dazzling trajectory to the try line.

In many ways it was Don McKinnon's day, the giant front rower who was so often at that time a symbolic focus of our passion for football. A local policeman whose father had also played for the Bears, McKinnon was something of an icon at North Sydney during the 1980s, though not above censure (it was not unknown for him to drop the ball at crucial moments!) from the unforgiving judges on the Hill. On this day, though, he could do no wrong. In the press the following week 'Big Don' was dubbed the “Terror Bear”.

When the game finished the scoreboard read 31-12 to the Bears. Reluctant to leave the ground, with the fig tree at the northern end darkening in the late afternoon light, it was as if we belonged there. This was the place to savour the elation we were feeling.

Along with many other Sydney folk, I used to enjoy rugby league a lot more than I do now!

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