The Newtown Jets are rugby league’s ultimate underdogs – an embodiment of resilience, history and community spirit in Australian football and the nation’s sport in general.
The Newtown Jets, Australia’s oldest rugby league club, was founded on the 8th of January 1908 at a public meeting at the Newtown Town Hall. The meeting was convened by James J. Giltinan (a prominent Sydney sportsman), after whom the NSW Rugby League Premiership Shield is named. The local MP Harry Hoyle and Harry Hamill (who came to be Newtown’s first captain) also attended the meeting.
The Newtown District Rugby League Football Club was the first club to be founded in Australia, and the club still holds the minutes of the original meeting that was held in the Newtown Town Hall (with the date of the meeting clearly shown in those documents).
The club held a well-attended celebration of its Centenary on the 8th January 2008, in the very same assembly room where the foundation 1908 meeting had been held.
Humble Beginnings in the Inner West
After its foundation meeting and during its first playing season in 1908, the club came to be popularly known as the Bluebags, with the nickname being drawn from the small blue bags of laundry enzymes used by many thousands of Sydney housewives to brighten their white laundry items.
The Newtown Rugby League Football Club (Newtown RLFC) was one of the nine foundation clubs in the New South Wales Rugby Football League (NSWRFL) when rugby league commenced in Australia in 1908. The rugby league game had originally been formed in England on the 29th August 1895. Newtown’s first premiership was achieved just two years later in 1910 when they defeated South Sydney.
Newtown’s early years were a testament to the knockabout nature of the new rugby league code. In 1910, during the Final against South Sydney, Newtown was awarded a “first past the post” premiership title.
The Bluebags had finished equal at the top of the ladder and in the thrilling 1910 Final, they drew 4-all. Newtown was awarded the premiership on a total points for and against basis, in what remains one of the sport’s more unusual moments.
The 1911-12 Australian Kangaroos touring team to England had seven representatives from the Newtown club in the national rugby league team.
The Golden Years
The 1930s and 1940s were successful years for the Newtown club. In 1933, under the coaching of Charles “Boxer” Russell and the captaincy of Keith Ellis, Newtown won their second NSWRFL first grade premiership.
In 1943, the Bluebags claimed their third first grade premiership title when they defeated North Sydney. Newtown was coached by Arthur Folwell and captained by the inimitable Frank “Bumper” Farrell and the team contained several of the great player identities of that era. “Bumper” Farrell was a larger-than-life figure both on and off the field and one of his team-mates, Herb Narvo, had been the Australian heavyweight boxing champion.
Despite their successes on the field in the 1930s and 1940s, Newtown was always a club battling financial difficulties. By the 1950s and 1960s, with the introduction of poker machines in NSW, Newtown faced fierce competition from bigger clubs that managed wealthy licenced venues and had larger population bases to draw on. That meant they had more money to spend in the marketplace for quality rugby league players.Newtown made successive first grade Grand Finals in 1954 and 1955, losing to the powerful South Sydney club on each occasion. By the late 1960s, it was apparent that the Newtown Bluebags were facing an increasingly more difficult task to survive as a top level rugby league club.
The (Brief) Resurgence of the Newtown RLFC
In 1973, under what was the one-year coachinging reign of Jack Gibson, the club underwent a significant transformation in rebranding from the Bluebags to the Jets. This was an obvious reference to the club’s location under the nearby Sydney Airport flight path and the need for a modern club identity.
Under Jack Gibson’s coaching, the club made the finals in all three grades and remarkably won the 1973 NSW Rugby League Club Championship (an award based on the cumulative performances of all three grades) for the first time in the club’s history. This was an extraordinary achievement for a club with such limited financial resources and a small population base to draw on.
The club went into a critical decline from 1974 to 1978, finishing with the infamous “wooden spoon” in first grade from 1976 to 1978 inclusive. The arrival of the flamboyant advertising entrepreneur John Singleton as a club sponsor and strategist saw an improvement in the club’s playing fortunes, along with the appointment of Warren Ryan as the first grade coach in 1979. The signing of numerous top class players including the pugnacious Tom Raudonikis saw the club’s playing fortunes improve, resulting in an exhilarating run into the first grade Grand Final in 1981, but ending in a narrow loss to Parramatta.
This early 1980s playing revival wasn’t quite enough to solve Newtown’s financial problems. In a national economy that was in severe recession in 1982 and 1983, Newtown’s overall financial position worsened.
With the NSWRL looking to rationalise the number of first grade clubs in Sydney, and with a failed attempt to relocate the Newtown Jets to Campbelltown, the Newtown RLFC was expelled from the NSWRL competition in late 1983.
From Near Extinction to Folk Hero Status
Newtown did not field any rugby league teams between 1984 and 1990. While most clubs might have faded away into total oblivion, the Newtown Jets became a symbol of rebirth. They entered the third-tier NSWRL Metropolitan Cup in 1991, winning first grade premierships in this competition in 1992 and from 1995 to 1997 inclusive.
In 2000 the club was accepted into what was the former NSWRL reserve grade competition, and which is now known as the NSW Cup. The club has won premierships in this grade in 2012 and 2019, as well as playing in Grand Finals in 2006, 2008 and 2018.
The re-born Newtown Jets have survived as a semi-professional rugby league club, forming a passionate fan base that appreciates the club’s history and its return to a very high standard rugby league competition.
A New Era of Community Engagement
Today, the Newtown Jets play in the NSW Cup as a feeder club to the NRL’s Cronulla Sharks. They have had partnerships in the past with other NRL clubs such as the New Zealand Warriors and the Sydney Roosters. Their matches at their revered home ground, Henson Park, have become community events.
On fine days at Henson Park, the Jets attract big crowds of die-hard fans, many of whom enjoy the family-friendly atmosphere at the ground. These home-game occasions provide some of the most unique experiences in Australian rugby league. Their annual Beer, Footy and Food Festival has become an iconic celebration of inner-western Sydney community culture.The Newtown Jets are more than just a rugby league team. They have come to represent survival, tenacity, and the new and vital spirit of their greatly-changed inner-western Sydney community. Their 116 years-long story has been one of ups and downs, but their place in rugby league history – and in the hearts and minds of their supporters – is unquestionable.
While they are not competing in the top-level NRL, they remain one of Sydney’s truly unique and most beloved sporting institutions – a reminder that success in sport isn’t always measured by premierships and financial resources alone. Sometimes, it’s about the fight and determination to keep going.
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