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As the Newcastle Knights prepare for a grand final, the city reflects on its shift from blue-collar steel town to white-collar centre, with the football team the constant that brings people together.
When the sun rises over Nobbys Beach on grand final day, it will shine on a city that has changed almost beyond recognition since the Newcastle Knights last celebrated a premiership exactly a quarter of a century ago.
Back in 2001, the closure of the mighty BHP steelworks was still fresh, unemployment was above 10 per cent, uncertainty reigned and the mining boom that would underpin Newcastle's astonishing two decades of prosperity was unimagined. Now the blue-collar city is completing its transition into a white-collar one, unemployment is down around 4 per cent and median house prices in central Newcastle reached a decidedly Sydneyesque $1.62 million this year. The Knights have been the constant through it all.
Knights as Social Glue
Professor Narelle Eather, a health and physical education academic at the University of Newcastle who researches the social role of sport, says the passion for the team has only grown. Eather says the Knights are a key part of the city's social glue, bringing people together and acting as an icebreaker across generations and social lines. She says people are bussed in from rural areas all over the Hunter, from the valley, from Port Macquarie.
Parents and grandparents who remember the 1997 and 2001 wins talk to their kids about it, and they all have a sense of belonging. Eighteen-year-old Jye Kelly was catching waves with his brother Kade at Newcastle Beach on Thursday in a team jersey, soaking in the sense of anticipation building ahead of the game. Kelly says it is not every day you surf with a Knights jersey on, and it would be rude not to.
He has watched the team lose for the last 10 years, and says Newcastle faces so much adversity and is a hard-working town. Kelly wrote the name of Knights prop Mat Croker on his surfboard, and the player reached out through the Newcastle grapevine. They messaged back and forth on Instagram and arranged to go for a surf. Kelly says the player took an interest in his life and asked him questions, and was not just there to show up.
It shows how much the team gives back to the community and how much joy it gives fans to know they are all nice people. Round the corner at Nobbys Beach, Janet Farquharson was taking a dip with the Granny Grommets on Friday in their team kits. She says sometimes they have a theme, and this week it is football.
Farquharson recalls last weekend driving somewhere and seeing three old ladies standing on the side of the road in their Knights kit waving at all the cars. She says Newcastle is that sort of town, and it does not matter if the Knights win or lose. Knights player Harrison Graham, who is set to replace the suspended Phoenix Crossland, says the mood is unreal.
He says you go down to coffee shops and everyone is wishing you all the best and feeling so happy. Graham says people are wearing their jerseys and hats around town. Even when the team left for the preliminary final and returned the other night, people stood out on the highway clapping them out and back in, even in pouring rain.
Legends Cite Team Unity
He says the fans are loving it and helped the team so much on the weekend, and they will be a big help again this weekend. League legend Paul Harragon, who captained the Knights to their 1997 premiership, says he is seeing the Newcastle effect in today's team.
Harragon says the inner giants are coming out in these young players and they are playing beyond what anyone thinks they are probably capable of, because they are playing for something bigger than themselves. He says you do not do special things when you are playing for yourself; you do that for a bigger cause. They are tapping into playing for the club and playing for Newcastle.
League Immortal Andrew Johns, who won Knights premierships in 1997 and 2001, says it makes him emotional to see how the players are all so dialled in. Johns says it reminds him of the good old days, when the footy team is the number-one thing that everyone has got in Newcastle. It gives everyone in town hope.
While the myth of the gritty Steel City underdogs taking on the cashed-up silvertails of Sydney is fuel for players and fans, the demographics tell a different story. Laura Eadie, executive director of the Hunter-based Institute for Regional Futures, says it has been a huge shift. Last year for the first time knowledge jobs overtook manufacturing jobs in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie areas. Eadie says it has changed a lot in 25 years.
City Evolution and Gentrification
It is an old city with a young population, especially compared to other regional areas. She says you meet a lot of people who grew up here, left thinking they were never coming back, and then return because it is a place where you can actually live the life you want to. Newcastle has more cafes per person, approximately one for every 1237 residents, than Sydney or Melbourne.
It also has more art spaces than almost anywhere, and a huge climate activist movement. Associate Professor Keri Glastonbury, a poet and creative writing lecturer at the University of Newcastle, says since 2001 the wave of gentrification has really swept through the central part of the city, with a lot of urban renewal and people being priced out.
Glastonbury says the cliches about mullets and blue-collar grit are something people are happy to lean into, but their meaning has changed along with the city. No-one can have an unreconstructed mullet these days. Australia's first large-scale single wind turbine was built on the Newcastle docks in 1997, a hopeful promise that signalled a transition to fossil-free power.
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brisbanetimes:This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
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