There are many different versions of what happened in the Boardroom of the Penrith Panthers in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
During what was a tumultuous period for the club, the fight to stand alone in a now united first grade rugby league competition following the Super League War was front and centre.
A group of Directors would emerge from that period with a permanent etch in Penrith’s history.
Dubbed ‘The Footy Five’, the group included Craig Terry, John Bateman, Dennis Coffey, Geoff James and Greg Evans, who founded The Western Weekender.
The dubbing of the group as ‘The Footy Five’ came after they refused to sign a non-binding letter of intent in 1999 that would have kept the possibility of a merger with arch rivals Parramatta on the table.
The group had the backing of the exceptionally influential Ron Mulock.
Then Chairman Roger Cowan had proposed the letter be signed to at least keep a merger on the table, given Penrith’s perilous position in the NRL’s famous criteria, which ultimately saw foundation club South Sydney dumped from the competition.
But The Footy Five believed signing that letter would result in a merger with the Eels, ending Penrith’s status as a stand-alone club.
“Mulock christened Bateman and Co the Footy Five, and those blokes made a great to-do about it, accused me of trying to do secret deals of with Parramatta,” Cowan would later tell the Panthers: Men In Black book.
“It got so nasty. Especially when Mulock went around saying that the Footy Five had saved Penrith.
“They have never stopped claiming to be the saviours of the club.”
Evans would later say: “It seemed like a ridiculous scenario that the two largest junior leagues would wed together. There were a lot more sensible mergers outside of Penrith and Parramatta”.
The dramatic Boardroom drama saw huge conflict within the club and many friendships severed. The relationship between the Panthers and The Western Weekender broke down significantly, taking years to ultimately repair.
A 2002 front page, with the headline ‘Board Wars’, spoke of a dysfunctional Board ahead of that year’s Board election.
And the Temby inquiry, which investigated allegations of corruption and mismanagement within Panthers, would emerge as part of the rubble from The Footy Five’s involvement on the Board – with splits between Directors continuing well past Penrith’s survival in the reduced 14-team NRL.
Cowan was later cleared by the Temby inquiry of any wrongdoing, though the inquiry report was highly critical of Panthers and elements of its operations.
There remains two versions of the story of that period.
That of The Footy Five, which claims it was their actions that saved the club from a merger, and that of Cowan, who believes he was operating in the best interests of the organisation in exploring all options.
The Footy Five would lose its majority and control of the Board in 2002, with the remaining members unsuccessful at the 2005 election – officially bringing their involvement with the club’s Board to a conclusion.
Cowan, who would step down in 2005, would later the call the 2005 election a “personal vindication”. He passed away in 2017.
Troy Dodds
Troy Dodds is the Weekender's Managing Editor and Breaking News Reporter. He has more than 20 years experience as a journalist, working with some of Australia's leading media organisations. In 2023, he was named Editor of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.