The beginnings of the endless feud between South Sydney and the Sydney Roosters
THE oldest, fiercest and most bitter rivalry in rugby league all began with Ron Coote and the house his father bought for 25 quid.
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RON Coote’s grandfather bought his Kingsford property for 25 quid.
The year, 1907.
Rugby league not even underway in Sydney.
And still, here was the moment its greatest rivalry was born.
Not that anyone knew.
How could they?
Yet to understand the true heartbeat of South Sydney versus the Roosters — a feud never more alive than at ANZ Stadium this Saturday — you have to go back almost a century to the purchase of 37 Meeks Street.
“Cost my grandfather 25 quid,” Coote recalls.
“He then subdivided the acre into lots, and sold them to get his money back. He thought buying a home for free was pretty smart.”
Which it was.
And also the start of a rugby league blood feud.
An increasingly hostile rivalry that, over 100 years, isn’t simply Gladiator versus Godfather, or Burrow versus Chook Pen, but an unending brawl over land, juniors, supporters, players, even the wording in that infamous Book of Feuds.
And it’s because in those earliest years of competition, the NSWRL zoned 37 Meeks Street as Roosters territory — meaning anyone who lived on said block had to play for Easts.
Which is exactly what Ron’s father Jack did, winning a premiership.
But then, sometime in the 1930s, those same boundary lines were shifted.
It’s a long story. But all you really need know is that as part of said rezoning, the NSWRL stretched the Rabbitohs’ border by three blocks — which now included Meeks Street.
And so, just like Bryan Fletcher circa 2003, what once belonged to the Roosters was now stamped with a Bunnies logo.
Which at the time, meant nothing and everything cause where do you reckon a young bloke named Ronnie Coote was growing up?
“And I’m not sure how it all ended up,” he shrugs. “But when my father grew up in that house he was deemed a Roosters player. But when I was coming through it was as a Souths junior.”
Which matters.
“Because the day Ron Coote left us,” says Brad Ryder, Souths historian for the past 20 years, “that was really the catalyst for what exists today”.
And what exists today is the greatest rivalry in rugby league.
A feud boasting not only the signatures of Coote, Craig Wing and Michael Cleary, but Dave Fa’alogo hitting Braith Anasta, Riley Brown thwacking Wingy with a prowler and Souths owner Russell Crowe giving that unforgettable ‘thumbs down’ from the Allianz Stadium bleachers.
Even this week, as the two clubs prepare for Saturday night’s preliminary final, the Souths Facetime scandal has been whispered in some quarters, incredibly, as Roosters subterfuge.
But what would you expect?
For make no mistake, the Hatfields and McCoys have nothing on this rivalry stretching back to the inaugural grand final in 1908 -- a game Souths won, 14-12.
But if you want to know from where the hatred really stems, Ryder insists nothing before, or since, has impacted on these two clubs “like the day Ronnie left”.
Born and raised on Meeks Street, and schooled only a block away at Rainbow Street primary, Coote was the Souths junior who eventually starred through eight years and four premierships with the Rabbitohs.
A favoured son until that day he walked, citing a pay dispute.
At which point, and with Twitter still a way off, enraged Bunnies fans screamed obscenities, invoked gypsy curses and, in one case, even ate their pet rabbit.
But Roosters supporters?
Well, they reckon Coote was simply coming home.
Back to the club of his old man Jack.
Indeed, more than simply igniting league’s greatest rivalry, the couple of hundred metres that is Meeks Street — today a mix of red brick flats, newish townhouses, even a couple of ageing, white concrete homes — also defines it.
Understanding that Roosters versus Rabbitohs is essentially two sets of fans looking at the same situation with completely opposed views.
Take the phenomenon that is Random Souths Guy.
For Bunnies fans, his ongoing appearances at global sporting events is a show of passion, belonging and Glory, Glory to South Sydney.
But inside the Chook Pen ... well, they just see a Souffs wanker with no mates.
It’s a similar story with Crowe’s famed Book of Feuds.
Around Redfern, the tome is likened to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yet should, say, Waverley Library ever get a copy, you just know it’ll be housed under ‘fiction’ ... in the children’s section..
Indeed, when it comes to the Roosters, the Book Of Feuds reads: “Although they are indeed a foundation club, somewhere along the way the Roosters lost their soul.
“They simply don’t have the tradition, the stories or the romance that is South Sydney.”
To which Roosters types reply: Huh?
Questioning how much soul exists in a club where Andrew Denton fought with George Piggins, who fought with Russell Crowe, who blued with Peter Holmes a Court, and Adam MacDougall, who wonderfully put to ransom his $2000 silver bunny keychain.
Same deal 2015, when Luke Keary exited Crowe’s Nana Glen property, found a cab, and eventually wound up, bags in hand, on the Roosters doorstep.
Just as backrower Angus Crichton will do in 2019.
Which again, is either the greatest/dumbest decision of his life.
All depends on who you support.
Or who you support right now, anyway.
For just like Meeks Street, the allegiances in this feud occasionally get a little, err, blurry.
Take Souths co-owner James Packer, who was once a Roosters director. Or Jason Taylor, the former Bunnies coach now on the Roosters staff.
And good luck trying to count the number of players who, like Elwyn Walters, Robert Laurie, even Braith Anasta, have been fought over by these clubs
But this is what they do — they fight.
Over territory, supporters, players ... hell, they even fought over Chris Walker.
Back in 2003, the winger dubbed Texas quitting a $350,000 Souths contract after five games to join the club’s rival.
At which point, the death threats started arriving.
The worst of which warned Walker would be shot.
Just as Anasta received hate mail when he knocked back his junior club. And Coote, he copped a gypsy curse.
Even today, Souths fans brandishing banners and T-shirts proclaiming: Forever In Our Shadow.
And all of it thanks to 37 Meeks Street.
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