The are a professional
Rugby League football club based in the city of
Melbourne ,
Australia . The Melbourne club are currently owned and operated by News Limited.
The club was founded in 1998, in the new competition National Rugby League. The club is the first first grade club based in Victoria. They play their home games at
Olympic Park but previously played their home games at
Telstra Dome .
In 1996, the
Australian Rugby League (ARL) decided to establish a Melbourne based team due to the high attendances at recent
State Of Origin matches. But in May 1997,
Super League boss
John Ribot pushed for a Melbourne based club in the Super League competition, which was the rival against the ARL competition.
1 Former
Brisbane Broncos centre
Chris Johns became the CEO of the club and Ribot stepped down from head of the
Super League to set up the club. In September 1997, Melbourne announced that
Chris Anderson would be their foundation coach, and then the Super League announced that their new team will be named the Melbourne Storm.
2
The Melbourne club then went forward with signing players from other clubs, including
Robbie Ross ,
Glenn Lazarus ,
Brett Kimmorley and
Scott Hill . With the Super League and ARL joining into one competition, the Melbourne team was now part of the
National Rugby League (NRL) for the 1998 season. In their first ever game, they defeated
Illawarra , with
Glenn Lazarus being their inaugural captain. Melbourne, in a complete shock to the rest of the competition, won their first four games, before losing to
Auckland .
3 They went on to make the finals, but were defeated by eventual premiers
Brisbane Broncos .
4
In 1999, Melbourne won their eight of their first eleven games, and went on to make the finals in third position on the premiership ladder. The team was beaten convincingly 34–10 in the quarter final by
St. George Illawarra , but came from behind in both the semi final and preliminary final to make the grand final. Melbourne faced St. George Illawarra in the 1999 grand final, St. George Illawarra were favourites due to comfortably defeating Melbourne just three weeks earlier. When St. George Illawarra were ahead 14–0 at half time and Melbourne seemed down and out, but two tries in to Melbourne put the score line at 18–14 in favour of St. George Illawarra with 15 minute remaining. With three minutes remaining Melbourne
Winger Craig Smith was knocked out by a high tackle which caused him to lose the ball over the
Try line. In a historic video refereeing decision, a penalty try was awarded and Melbourne's
Matt Geyer kicked the goal that won Melbourne the 1999 Grand final.
5
Between 2000 and 2002, the Melbourne club performed poorly. Cracks were starting to appear between Johns, Ribot and Anderson through out the period, and Anderson quit as coach of Melbourne mid season of 2001, and was replaced by
Mark Murray . The Melbourne club failed to make the finals in 2001. Johns left the club as CEO at the end of 2002 and coach Murray was released due to Melbourne's poor form.
Craig Bellamy was announced as the new coach of Melbourne for 2003.
67
Between 2003 and 2005, Melbourne made the finals under coach Bellamy, but lost games in the semi finals preventing them from making the grand final. In 2006, the Melbourne team won their first minor premiership for being on top of the NRL ladder. Melbourne only lost four games in the season making them outright leaders by four wins.
8 They went on to win their two finals matches and go on to the grand final. But in the grand final, against the
Brisbane Broncos , they lost 8–15 to make them runners up despite being favourites for the title.
9
Originally, the club favoured the name Melbourne Mavericks with a gunslinger logo holding a fistful of aces. The club officials were all set to go with this until News Limited's
Lachlan Murdoch told them to go with something else because the Mavericks sounded too American. So CEO
Chris Johns and
John Ribot decided to go with the themes lightning, power and storm. The club then became known as the Melbourne Storm.
The Storm was always going to go with the colours of their state,
Victoria . These were navy blue with a white 'V'. But club consultant Peter McWhirter, from JAG fashion house, suggested that they should also have purple and gold to make their merchandise more attractive.
Melbourne have played the vast majority of their home matches at the city's
Olympic Park Stadium . It was here that the club played their inaugural home match in the fourth round of the 1998 season on
3 April ,
1998 , having come off the back of three successive away victories. In front of what remains the club's record home attendance of 20,522, the team recorded a 26–16 victory over the
North Sydney Bears .
10 The team remained at the ground until the end of the 2000 season. Following steady attendance increases over the three years, it was decided to move home games to the much larger
Colonial Stadium for the following year. However, with the team ending up missing the finals, crowd numbers declined and it was decided to move the team back to Olympic Park, where they have remained ever since. Attendance bottomed out at 8,886 in 2004, but have risen back over 11,500 for the 2007 season.
In 2007 the
Victorian Government confirmed that it would be building a
New 31,500 Rectangular Stadium at
Olympic Park , adjacent to the club's current ground. The Government has stated that the ground will be used for rugby league, it remains to be seen whether the Melbourne Storm will go to the new ground when it is completed in 2009.
11
Melbourne's highest ever point scorer is
Matt Orford with 877 points. Current players
Matt Geyer (616) and
Cameron Smith (512) are the highest current players with the most points. Matt Geyer has the most tries in the club's history with 102 tries, followed by
Marcus Bai (70) and current player
Billy Slater (66).
12
Melbourne's highest ever victory was the 64–0 against
Wests Tigers on
July 5 2001 . The most points they have ever scored is 70, when they took on the
St. George Illawarra Dragons and thumped them 70–10 on
March 3 2000 . However, their biggest loss was by 46 points to both the
Bulldogs (50-4 on
August 10 2003 ) and to
St. George Illawarra (50-4 on
June 4 2000 ).
13
Over the 10 years that Melbourne have participated in the National Rugby League, they have the following Win-Loss record.
14
The current team for the Melbourne Storm.
15
As part of their 10 year celebrations in 2007, Melbourne Storm released a team of the decade. The 17 man team was selected by former assistant coach
Greg Brentnall , foundation CEO
John Ribot , Daily Telegraph journalist
Steve Mascord and board member
Frank Stanton .
16
