Last Day of School

Alive in The Five: The Steelers’ 1992 Premiership Charge
February 2024
$25 including postage (within Australia)

Australian readers can buy a paperback copy from me – signed by yours truly – via the Paypal link here.

In 1982 the Illawarra Steelers played their first season in the NSW Rugby League competition. It wasn’t a great start for the club – they finished second-last on the ladder. The rest of the 1980s didn’t bring much joy – the club picked up the wooden spoon three times, including a double in 1985 and ’86.
But then the new decade brought with it the bright, shining season of 1992, where the Steelers – led by a crop of youngsters – finished in third place and found themselves in the finals for the first time. The side in scarlet and white went all the way to the final, where they were edged out by a 4-0 scoreline. While it didn’t end the way many Steelers fans had hoped, that 1992 season is still remembered fondly. A time when the Steelers were alive in the five.
The book also looks at the history of footy in the Illawarra and the early years of the Steelers.

Read an excerpt from Alive In The Five

In 1953 Illawarra Leagues Club secretary Dudley Locke hatched an audacious scheme to poach at least eight top-flight players from the Sydney competition and send one to each local team. The plan was bankrolled by the large funds from the leagues club, which had officially opened in 1951. Two years later, in part because of the large amounts of beer being sold at the club (it went from 74 gallons a week when the club opened to 720 gallons in 1953), Locke had enough ready cash to spend £12,500 on buying players. He refuted the suggestion that the club was “angling” to get an Illawarra team into the Sydney competition. “That’s ridiculous,” Locke said. “We will make our competition so strong down here that Sydney clubs will want to play in it.”
On June 10, 1953, a touring US team played a country side at Wollongong Showground. The match saw an influx of Australian players, where the leagues club started secret negotiations with some of them. Once word got out that the club was waving around lucrative contracts there was interest from a lot of players, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
By this stage, the media had linked one very big player to the Illawarra Leagues Club bid – Kangaroo captain and South Sydney player Clive Churchill. The gossip was that he had already signed a five-year deal to play in Wollongong from 1954. Both Locke and Churchill tried to scotch the rumours. “There has been talk of my transferring there,” Churchill told the Sydney press, “but my home is here and I would not do anything before seeing South Sydney.”
A few days later, Locke let the cat out of the bag while announcing he had signed Country winger Jack Lumsden and Kangaroo centre Harry Wells. “The Illawarra club is trying to engage a number of topline players,” he said. “We are trying to form a strong competition here. We have made overtures to other players, including Clive Churchill, but as yet only two have been signed.”
That was enough to put the wind up South Sydney, who went to a meeting of the NSW League and tabled a motion specifically designed to halt Locke’s plan. The club wanted to see all players in the Kangaroo team soon to tour New Zealand bound to their present club for the next season. Which would obviously mean Souths would get to keep Churchill. It was narrowly defeated 18-14.