Paul "Porky" Morgan (died 26 January 2001) was an Australian

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

footballer, administrator and businessman. He is remembered for being co-founder of the

Brisbane Broncos The Brisbane Broncos are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Red Hill, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos compete in the National Rugby League (NRL) and play their home games at ...

club and one of the architects of Super League/ The Paul Morgan Medal for the Brisbane Broncos' best and fairest player of the season is named after him.

Footballer

Morgan attended

Brisbane State High School Brisbane State High School (BSHS or commonly State High) is a partially selective, co-educational, state secondary school, located in South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is a member of the Great Public Schools Association of Queensland, ...

where he was a pupil of former Queensland Maroons captain, Cyril Connell, Jr. Morgan represented Queensland in rugby league in his first year out of school and went on to play for the

Bulimba Cup The Bulimba Cup was an Australian rugby league football competition contested by the Brisbane, Ipswich and Toowoomba representative rugby league sides during the mid 20th century. In 1931, a team from Lismore, New South Wales participated. It wa ...

-winning

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( ), nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar', is a city on the border of South East Queensland and Darling Downs regions of Queensland, Australia. It is located west of Queensland's capital, Brisbane. The urban population of Toowoom ...

team of 1970 alongside Wayne Bennett. He later played in Brisbane for Redcliffe and was their goal kicker.

Business

Morgan was a leading stockbroker in Brisbane, establishing his own firm. He helped raise funds for the films ''

Crocodile Dundee ''Crocodile Dundee'' is a 1986 action comedy film set in the Australian Outback and in New York City. It stars Paul Hogan as the weathered Mick Dundee and American actress Linda Kozlowski as reporter Sue Charlton. Inspired by the true-life ex ...

'' and ''

Les Patterson Saves the World ''Les Patterson Saves the World'' is a 1987 Australian comedy film starring Barry Humphries as his stage creations Sir Les Patterson and Dame Edna Everage. Plot The uncouth Sir Les Patterson teams up with Dame Edna Everage (both played by Bar ...

''.

Administrator

In 1986 Paul Morgan joined

Barry Maranta Barry Maranta (born 18 December 1934), is an Australian businessman and co-founder of the Brisbane Broncos rugby league team. As well as being a founder of the Broncos he is currently a Sky Shades president. His grandson Lachlan Maranta, became ...

, Gary Balkin and Steve Williams to form a

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

-based club for the

New South Wales Rugby League premiership The New South Wales Rugby League premiership was the first rugby league football club competition established in Australia and contributor to today's National Rugby League. Run by the New South Wales Rugby League (initially named the New Sout ...

, Australia's top rugby league club competition at the time. All men had played for Brisbane domestic teams. Four organisations made bids for the team which would be established in 1987. Ron McAuliffe, had the support of the NSWRL over the Maranta-Morgan group, other groups included 'International Syndicate' led by

John Sattler John William Sattler (28 July 1942 – 20 March 2023) was an Australian professional rugby league footballer played as a prop in the 1960s and 1970s. He captained South Sydney to four premiership victories from 1967 to 1971 and who played fou ...

and

Bob Hagan Robert F. Hagan (born March 31, 1949) is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who held a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives for the 58th District from 2007 to 2014. He represented the same seat from 1987 to 1997, an ...

, and one by Darryl van der Velde (who would later be CEO of the

South Queensland Crushers South Queensland Crushers was an Australian rugby league football club based in Brisbane, Queensland. In 1992 it was decided that the team would be admitted into the New South Wales Rugby League competition, along with three other teams, as par ...

). The NSWRL decided not to have a Brisbane club in 1987 but in a final bid for the 1988 season, both McAuliffe and Maranta-Morgan bid for the club. The NSWRL finally decided to have a Brisbane-based team and thus the

were born. The rights originally were going to go to the McAuliffe based group, but when it was realised they didn't have the funds to support the club, it was given to Maranta-Morgan. However the Maranta-Morgan group did not please everybody, especially

Australian Rugby League The Australian Rugby League Commission Limited (ARL), formerly the Australian Rugby Football League Limited known as the Australian Rugby League is an Australian rugby league football competition operator. It was founded in 1986 as the Australi ...

chairman

Ken Arthurson Kenneth Richard "Arko" Arthurson AM (born 1 October 1929) is an Australian rugby league football identity. Affectionately known as "The Godfather of Manly", he played, coached and was later an administrator at the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles c ...

, who decided to add other (now defunct) Queensland-based teams, Gold Coast in

1988 1988 was a crucial year in the early history of the Internet—it was the year of the first well-known computer virus, the Morris worm, 1988 Internet worm. The first permanent intercontinental Internet link was made between the United State ...

and South Queensland in

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

. Morgan was in charge of Pacific Sports Entertainment, the company that owns the Brisbane Broncos. Morgan suggested the concept of Super League at a Brisbane Broncos board meeting in 1993.

Death

Paul Morgan died of a heart attack while playing golf at the Royal Queensland Golf Club Course in Brisbane. He was 54. He left a widow, Suellen Morgan. The day after his death the Brisbane Broncos played against

St Helens R.F.C. St Helens R.F.C., commonly known as Saints, is a professional rugby league club in St Helens, Merseyside, England. Founded in 1873, the club is one of the oldest members of the Rugby Football League, and one of the most successful clubs in its ...

in England for the

2001 World Club Challenge The 2001 World Club Challenge was contested between Super League V champions, St. Helens and 2000 NRL season premiers, the Brisbane Broncos. The Broncos made the trip to England to play St Helens before the start of the 2001 NRL and Super Leagu ...

wearing black arm-bands in honour of Morgan, and the Broncos' player of the year award was named after him. Paul Morgan's son, Lachlan Morgan played for the

Toowoomba Clydesdales The Western Clydesdales (formerly Toowoomba Clydesdales) are a rugby league football club based in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. The Clydesdales originally played in the Queensland Cup from the competition's inception in 1996 until 2006, an ...

in the 2006

Queensland Cup The Queensland Cup, currently known as the Hostplus Cup for sponsorship reasons, is the highest-level regional rugby league, rugby league football competition in Queensland, Australia. It is run by the Queensland Rugby League, Queensland Rugby ...

grand final.

References

External links

Business World remembers 'Porky Morgan' – ABC News online article.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, Paul People educated at Brisbane State High School Australian rugby league players Redcliffe Dolphins players Australian rugby league administrators 2001 deaths Toowoomba Clydesdales players 1947 births Rugby league players from Brisbane 20th-century Australian sportsmen