The Manly Sea Eagles are proud of the fact that they are the MANLY Sea Eagles, and everyone else can simply go fuck themselves.
That’s fine. Lets face it, that attitude has been very successful for them. I would suggest that the Sea Eagles need to start thinking ahead though. They need to start thinking about where they want to be in 10-20 years from now.
Right now the Sea Eagles play out of a terrible stadium.
Brookvale Oval is small and outdated. It lacks many of the facilities fans have come to expect these days, but that’s OK because it is so hard to get to that it really only effects people from Manly.
The Sea Eagles will be flat out getting upgrades to their stadium for two reasons.
First of all, politics. The club sits on one of the safest seats Liberal in the country. Governments love to slash a bit of money around when they think they might be able to swing an electorate their way, and when you consider that Labor knows they will never get Manly on their side, and the Liberals knows they will never lose it, there is simply no need to bribe the area with the promise of a new stadium.
The second issue is the location of Brookvale Oval. It is difficult to get to and there is simply no capacity to give the stadium the transport links and parking it needs to justify spending so much money on a new stadium.
This all makes me wonder, is there a better venue for a new stadium for the Sea Eagles? Also, can the Manly Sea Eagles position themselves as the only professional sports team north of the harbour?
Now I know there are two groups of people that are horrified right now.
You have the handful of old North Sydney Bear supporters right now who cling to the hope that one day they will see the Bears playing back at North Sydney Oval one day. You can tell a North Sydney Bears fan because they are over 65 and they claim they don’t even watch Rugby League any more….but they swear the Bear should be back and Manly will never be able to muscle in on the wider North Sydney area.
Then you have Manly fans who, as I said earlier, are thinking “Everywhere that isn’t Manly can go fuck itself”.
The first group is irrelevant. The second group should maybe consider what they want for the long term future of the Sea Eagles.
The days of Sydney clubs confining themselves to one suburb are over. These days to survive, a club needs to spread its wings as far as possible.
Even the Sea Eagles know this deep down. Take a look through their playing group and you find they draw players from all over the place, not just Manly. In the same way the Sea Eagles can not afford to focus on one very small area when it comes to player recruitment, so to do they need to look far and wide for sponsors and even supporters to keep the club successful over the long term.
With all the issues the Sea Eagles have at board level, there would be no scope at all for anyone at the club to openly be talking about the possibly of moving games from Brookvale Oval. It would see you an easy target and out of the club in a second.
I can’t help think that it would be smart for the club to look at possible locations for a new stadium. To look at the best place in terms of land available, transportation links and the ability of people from the wider northern Sydney area to get to the ground.
That way instead of going to the Government with the idea to upgrade an old stadium in a bad position, you are selling them the idea to build a new stadium that could service a wider area and that is easier for people to get to. That is a much easier sell for not only the club, but any politician willing to hand over the money to build a new stadium. After all, its a different prospect committing to build the only top class stadium in northern Sydney than it is to give Manly a new stadium just for the Sea Eagles.
Like all Sydney teams, the Sea Eagles will face pressure to justify their long term future in the city. Unlike like other clubs, the Sea Eagles have a large section of the city to themselves, untouched by any other sporting side. The Sea Eagles should look to use that to their advantage, get themselves a new stadium built, and become a Juggernaut that owns everything the north side of the Harbour Bridge.
