Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate hits back at Chris Johns hick town blast
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate has angrily hit back after an NRL identity labelled the Glitter Strip a ‘hick town’ not capable of supporting a national rugby league team. .
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GOLD Coast Mayor Tom Tate has angrily hit back after former Melbourne Storm boss Chris Johns labelled the Glitter Strip a ‘hick town’.
Johns, an-ex Brisbane Broncos star who became the first Queenslander to play for the NSW Blues, has incensed Tate after claiming the Coast could not support an NRL team.
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Weighing into the NRL’s expansion debate this week, he said the struggling Titans should be renamed Greater Brisbane and play most of their games at Suncorp Stadium.
“The Gold Coast is a little hick town. Try and run a national team there has proven in the past to be difficult,” Johns said on Thursday.
A fired-up Mayor Tate said Johns should ‘keep his advice to himself’.
“If we’re such a hick town, why are so many Melbourne people abandoning their city and coming to the Gold Coast for winter holidays and to live and invest here?” he said.
“We’re growing our population by 16,000 people are year and a large percentage of them are Victorians.”
Cr Tate said if being a hick meant you were ‘hospitable, kind and welcoming ... well I guess we’re hicks’.
He admitted the Titans were battling but urged rugby league officials and fans to ‘give us time and we’ll win a premiership’.
“There have been NRL teams that have taken decades to win a premiership,” he said.
“The Titans are only a young club and while they’ve made some mistakes, I think they will get it right soon and turn the corner.
“Playing home games at Suncorp would be a big mistake. The heart and soul of the Titans is on the Gold Coast.”
Originally published as Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate hits back at Chris Johns hick town blast
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