BALANCING THE BOOKS

The Taipans ownership model has developed and changed over the years. How have you seen the progression?

AFor the first five years, we operated as a private company and did not make any money. We got close to breaking even in year five. But, by then, a lot of the directors had enough of writing out cheques and losing cash. Cairns businessmen John O’Brien and Lui Garozzo (right) took it over and they operated it for five years in the second five years of the club. They did not make any money as it went into receivership. Everyone was expecting a white knight to turn up and save everyone, but that was not going to happen. So we dreamt up the scheme to put it into public ownership, like the Green Bay Packers in the NFL. I sent out 23 emails looking for $5000 from that person, I got 22 back say- ing yes. The one that did not say yes was going through troubles and did not have the cash. The NBL wanted a $1 million guarantee and we were seeking that from a third party, not from the organisation. I just about had it over the line with the state government, but they pulled out and Cairns Regional Council came in with the guarantee. The state government became the major sponsor. We knew year one was going to be tough because we did not have a lot of money. The organisation had lost the trust of the public. Year two we went to the grand final and interest was very high from the public. In those first two years of public ownership, I did not pay much attention to my job and put it all into basketball so I thought that was a good time to go back to work as I stepped down as president at the time and focused on the business.