Retro Balmain Tigers

The 1980s would become known as the retro decade, with its bold style as one of its most definitive characteristics, and during those memorable ten years, New South Wales Rugby League club the Balmain Tigers would become well liked for their charisma and as home to some of the biggest hairstyles in the sport. Wayne Pearce was a Balmain local, and he would start his first-grade career in 1980. He played each season of the eighties, and he would also captain the club for most of the decade. Balmain’s journey during the eighties began as an evolving club, but it wouldn’t take long for them to be a team brimming with talent, pushing their way higher up the competition ladder. Author Nicholas Henning explores each of Balmain’s seasons of the 1980s, with insights from several players, and he also captures some of the time and place with music and events from the decade as remembered by Wayne Pearce. It was ten years of incredible resilience, playing other clubs that had created dynasties. Yet the Balmain players showed that loyalty was the heart of the team, and that certainly contributed to their success. Balmain won a generation of fans with their wholehearted effort during the decade, and they were proof that not all great stories of the 1980s needed a perfect ending.