It IS one of the easiest things to do, blindly follow pre-existing stereotypes and preconceived ideas.

What is harder is finding out why they exist and challenging those notions.

Central Coast author and long-serving rugby league journalist Ray Chesterton took on one of the biggest challenges in Australian sport by trying to dispel the widely held view that the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles is the league’s most hated club.

In his new book, Manly Sea Eagles. The Team They Love to Beat, Chesterton looks at why the club got tarred with this brush when every club is and has been guilty of the thing Manly was accused of – buying players with the goal of winning premierships.

“It upset a lot of people but Manly acted professionally to strengthen their side,” he said. “That’s what clubs are supposed to do. Manly were also astute enough to recognise fresh young talent when they saw it, like Bobby Fulton from Wollongong and our own Graham Eadie from Woy Woy.”

In danger of becoming an honorary Sea Eagles fan for daring to challenge the belief that everyone has two teams (the one they support and the team playing Manly), Chesterton was, in fact, a longtime Balmain fan.

“I always thought they (Manly) got a rough deal,” he said. “They were seen as big spenders, but they spent wisely; Arko (Ken Arthurson) was a shrewd judge of talent.

media_camera Manly fullback Graham Eadie playing in his heyday.

“They have never come last and they have won premierships in every decade since the ‘70s and are the only club to have done either­. St George bought Englishman­ Dick Huddart and everyone said what a wonderful player he was and Manly bought Malcolm Reilly­ and everyone accused them of buying a competition­.

“Manly fought their way back from the North Sydney merger and nobody batted an eyelid, South Sydney get readmitted and people marched in the streets.

“I wanted to redress some of the imbalance.”

The Blue Bay author also said the Central Coast’s fatal flirtation with a merged Manly and North Sydney team was one of the greatest mistakes ever made in rugby league and should serve as a warning for the future.

He said he believed the Central Coast should only campaign for inclusion­ in the premiership as a new club with a new name and reject pressure to become an offshoot of the failed North Sydney Bears.

“Becoming the Central Coast Bears as people are suggesting would simply evolve into another Manly-Bears fiasco,” he said.

“Norths were a farce in the Sydney premiership and they won only two premierships (1921 and ‘22) in nearly 100 years before they went broke and were forced out.

“The Central Coast is a young, vigorous area with the potential to grow into a significant force in the premiership and it deserves its own team not the sad carcass­ of a dead club.”