Central Coast Bears
 | |
| Club information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Central Coast Bears Limited |
| Colours |
Primary: Red Black Secondary: Grey |
| Founded | 2009 |
| Current details | |
| Ground(s) |
|
| CEO | Greg Florimo |
| Competition | National Rugby League |
The Central Coast Bears are a proposed rugby league club based on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia.
They are trying to be included in an expanded National Rugby League competition.[1]
The proposed team would play 11 games in Gosford and 1 game at North Sydney Oval against Manly in the annual Heritage Round. Prominent rugby league personalities who have publicly backed the club include Phil Gould, Andrew Johns and Peter Sterling while support has also come from as high up as former Member for North Sydney Joe Hockey.[2]
Catchment
The Central Coast Bears catchment spans a vast and populated area from Mosman on Sydney's Lower North Shore to Lake Munmorah at the northern peak of the Central Coast of New South Wales. Within this catchment area are close to 1,000,000 residents (in 2012, 609,533 were residents of the northern Sydney Local Government Areas of Hornsby, Hunters Hill, Ku-ring-gai, Lane Cove, Mosman, North Sydney, Ryde and Willoughby and 325,295 in the two Central Coast Local Government Areas of Gosford and Wyong).[3] This represents approximately 4.1% of Australia's total population.[3]
Junior participation
The Central Coast Bears have 23 junior clubs in their catchment area. Within these 23 clubs are over 7,000 players currently participating in rugby league at various levels. Many famous NRL players started out playing at the junior level within this catchment, including Matt Orford, Akuila Uate, Chris Heighington, Mitchell Pearce and Kieran Foran.[4]
Membership
The Central Coast Bears started a membership structure in 2009, setting themselves a target of 5,000 members by March 2011. This goal was reached three months early in December 2010, and as of November 2011 the Central Coast Bears have over 7,600 financial members.[5]
Notable supporters
References
- ↑ Daniel Lane (2 June 2014). "Sydney Roosters' deal with Central Coast gives weight to Bears' NRL bid". Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
- ↑ Hockey, Joe (25 May 2010). "ADJOURNMENT - Central Coast Bears". ParlInfo. Parliament of Australia.
- 1 2 "Data by Region". Austalian Bureau of Statistics.
- ↑ Stewart, David (11 Mar 2011). "Family first for Knights' Akuila Uate". Newcastle Herald. Fairfax Media.
- ↑ Auerbach, Taylor (27 November 2014). "NRL's 'talk to the hand' to Central Coast Bears bid team has left a rugby league heartland furious". The Daily Telegraph. Sydney: News Corp Australia.