Hundreds rally against Wests Tigers owners

Bruce King called out to his wife Lydia inside their home in Perth last week to gauge how she’d feel about a trip to Sydney. Not for a holiday, but to join the rally for Wests Tigers fans in 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. I said they’re having a rally in Pratten Park and we gotta be there. Scream for the team.”

The Kings were just two of hundreds of fans gathered on the lawn of the Pratten Park Bowling Club calling for better governance of their club, which this week saw three board members reinstated after four were initially sacked.

The rally was spearheaded by Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne who used his speech to announce the formation of a fan association, which he said would hold the club’s majority owners, 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.”

The new association has at least one member in commentator and former Balmain Tigers forward Steve Roach, who was also 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.”