BY DAN

Five years ago to the day, we set out a journey to change the world of amateur sports writing and failed.

We started this blog as a formalisation of rants that had already been happening in the group chat. We didn’t think too hard about what we’d be trying to do, or what the name would be (can you tell? 😂). We just thought we’ve got these damn takes and the world needs to hear them. A curious mix of naivety and arrogance, we thought we were going to change the world. We failed, but in the best way possible.

All four of us that started the blog had all been insane Raiders fans since forever, and so while we’ve written about a million things over time – lots of cricket, some basketball and NFL and the occasional moment of marvelling at Anna Meares – it was no surprise that we would always came back to the green.

Like many of you we were frustrated with the coverage the Raiders got in the press. The Canberra Times did an admirable job, but the rest of the word ignored what is obviously the most important team in sporting history. So often we wanted to know whether the Raiders success/failure was sustainable/terminal, and the mainstream coverage was too often so superficial that it infuriated. Their assessment was plainly limited by what they saw in highlights packages and often completely divorced form the reality we watched week in week out.

We wanted more coverage. More detail. More attempts to explain the why and not just the what. The Raiders community was smarter than the media was giving them credit for.

I’d love to say we saw a gap we could fill. We do try to offer something more intelligent than you’ll get from 400 words on nrl.com or from Phil Gould, but that’s a pretty low bar. But as much as write something smart, we just wanted to write about the Raiders and just hoped someone would damn well read.

Luckily you wonderful people did.

Sidebar: you can read it here https://sportress.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/run-that-ball-campo-the-final-evaluation-of-terry-campeses-legacy/.

Still love you Campo.

As the years went on the personnel have changed. We’ve had writers come and go, when life and other opportunities intervened. We’ve gone from being one of the only people writing about the Raiders to being just one voice among many.

Thank you for following us this far. We see all of you. The ones that have liked our Facebook group or followed us on twitter. The ones that read our pieces, reach out to us to chat about them (we will literally talk to anyone, even if you just want to tell us we’re dumb). People who have promoted our work when they’ve had nothing to gain – there’s too many to name but know we see every retweet, every share and every comment and we are grateful for every single one. The Raiders community has been good to us. Thank you – everyone one of you.

And most of all thank you to Rob. Not only does Rob provide the always brilliant Rumble preview, but he makes sure the work I do is comprehensible. Rob doesn’t get enough thanks for this. If you knew Rob you’d know it’s just the kind of guy he is. He’s a carer. He can’t help it.

And so we’ve made it five years. Who knows how many more we can keep this up for. But right now we are enjoying the ride.

So stick with us for a while longer. We love what we’re doing, and we love you for reading it.