Norths in the 90s: Why glory eluded rugby league’s most tortured club

The 1990s was a decade of hope for the North Sydney Bears and while it ultimately ended in tears they almost claimed rugby league’s ultimate glory along the way. A host of Norths’ finest players open up on the club’s rollercoaster final years.

The North Sydney Bears nearly won it all in the 1990s.

They called the Bears the lovable losers, but losers are only lovable because they never threaten to rise up and take what other people want.

After nearly 70 years in the wild, the Bears did reach up, and they nearly did take it all. The 1990s were as close to a golden era in living memory the club would ever have, a rollicking ride to the very edge of rugby league glory as Norths buried the scars of years past.

“All this talk about the Bears being losers, I didn’t give a shit about it,” says club legend Billy Moore.

“I hated it, I despised the fact that we even mentioned it, because that was the legacy of the past, that wasn’t something we’d carry into the future.”

Billy Moore and the Bears had a rollercoaster ride through the 1990s.

Four times in the 1990s the Bears came within a game of the grand final, and four times they fell short.

And as soon as North Sydney rose up, they fell down again, to the depths of an insane merger and then death itself.

The club lives on in the lower grades, but it’s been a long 20 years for those who bleed red and black.

“I have four boys and they can never go watch an NRL game and say ‘my Dad was a part of this club’, that’s what makes me sour,” says former stalwart Mark Soden.

“I just thought it was so unfortunate, for a club that had been around for such a long time.

“A lot of people like the sparkly new car rather than the old rusty one, but the old rusty one can be worth a lot once it’s done up.”

The Bears might have rusted up in the end, but there was plenty of shining along the way.

In a special four-part series, The Daily Telegraph’s Nick Campton goes in-depth about the rollercoaster ride that was Norths in the 90s.

Read the full story, and watch a video detailing the highlights of the decade.