Melbourne Storm’s staunchest supporters on how they fell in love with the club and how they stay involved
In a Melbourne community hall, a group of the Storm’s staunchest supporters gather every Thursday to make the club’s run-through banner. It’s a tradition that underpins everything that’s good about professional sport, writes SHANNON GILL.
There’s a warning when you step into the suburban community hall where a group of the Melbourne Storm’s staunchest supporters are gathered before the NRL Grand Final.
“They’re a little bit crazy some of them, I can’t get them to shut up,” laughs leader of the Melbourne Storm Banner Crew, Lance Maguire.
On Thursdays this group comes together to make a run-through banner for the Storm players to enter the field.
The heart and soul of the operation are Sue Levy and sisters Wendy Gillam and Linda Hutchins. As well as being the life of the party, they have been here since the morning working on the banner.
“I’m getting too old to get on my knees and stick the letters down, so I just cut them now,” Sue says.
Wendy and Sue are grandmothers. Linda is a great-grandmother.
All have Melbourne Storm tattoos.
If the Storm win on Sunday they’ll all get another one.
“I’m having a lighting bolt with ‘2024’ here on my arm if we win,” says Linda.
“We’ve had children, tattoos don’t hurt!” chimes in Wendy, resplendent with a shade of Storm purple in her hair.
Over a seven hour operation more than 20 volunteers, including three of Maguire’s grandchildren, complete the banner.
Maguire and his family all wear ‘Free Nelson’ T-shirts – a nod to the controversial suspension of prop Nelson Asofa-Solomona. Though Maguire thinks his replacement Lazarus Vaalepu will do the job, “he’s as hard as nails”.
The banner will contain a tribute to Storm star and this week’s Dally M winner Jahrome Hughes, the man Maguire calls “a maestro.”
This is not just banner-making though. It is a community ritual.
Usually it’s hamburgers or pizza for dinner, but for the grand final Maguire’s wife has cooked a roast.
There’s chat about the game, chat about the trek to Sydney and laughs. Plenty of laughs.
It’s the most refreshing reminder that grassroots passion underpins everything in big league professional sport.
“They all give up their time to do this, their hearts are in the right place,” Maguire says.
The cost of travel and tickets will be beyond some of the crew this time, so those going will just scream a little louder to make up for it.
Paula Jackson will be entrusted with carrying the crepe-paper creation up the Hume Highway with husband Chris, she’ll have purple hair and he’ll have a purple beard.
“We fold the banner up as small as we can, put it in the car and leave Saturday morning,” she says.
“We always get strange looks when we drive up for a game because we decorate the car and decorate ourselves, but we’ve never had any problems. We wouldn’t take any rubbish from them anyway!”
This all started when Maguire signed up as a foundation member of the Storm in 1998. He was a South Melbourne VFL supporter who never quite connected with their move to Sydney.
“After we got banished to Sydney it was very hard to maintain an interest in footy,” Maguire says.
“And I had a couple of mates who were Fitzroy supporters and they felt even worse than me when they got shunted to Brisbane.”
So they tried the new team in town.
“In the first season after the games, the players would wander around signing autographs, shaking hands, kissing babies … it was real family, common-touch sort of footy,” Maguire says.
For many it was the personal touch in those early days that turned a one-night stand into a lifelong love affair with the club.
Maguire remembers bus trips across the border where club founder and Executive Director John Ribot would join the group and shout the entire bus a pub lunch.
“I think it was the way ‘Reebs’ promoted it and that he put together a crew that were prepared to talk to people that won us over.”
The concept of a banner then became a homage to the Victorian roots of the supporter group.
Ahead of Glenn Lazarus’ final home and away game in 1999 it was decided to farewell him with the type of banner you see each week in the AFL – one that would pay tribute to Lazarus like no one had ever seen in the NRL before.
It was such a hit that a few weeks later with the Storm playing in the Grand Final, another banner was produced and convoyed to Sydney.
“It was a fantastic banner, Lazarus and (coach) Chris Anderson driving away with the trophy on the highway to Melbourne,” Maguire remembers.
History says the Storm would take that premiership in just their second NRL season, and so a tradition was born. Every home game and final sees the Storm run through a banner, the only NRL club that does it.
This Sunday will be the 25th anniversary of that banner beginning so there will be a beautiful nod to that heritage.
With some unable to get to Sydney to hold up the banner, 1999 premiership player Matt Rua has stepped up to provide some muscle to the banner crew and welcome the new generation onto the field. He’s enlisted an assortment of past players based in Sydney to assist too.
Back in Melbourne that news makes them more excited about what’s to come.
“Penrith are a bloody hard side, but this year I think we’ve had the best depth we’ve ever had,” Maguire says.
They complete the finishing touches in their socks so as not to tear the handiwork, and Wendy has a related omen.
“I have to wear the same socks to the game that I walked on the banner in,” she says.
And she has one final warning shot before the trek to Sydney, albeit tongue firmly in cheek.
“The only reason it’s only Melbourne Storm that has a banner is because Melbourne people can read, Sydney people can’t!”
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