Lynne Anderson is the new chair of NRL club Canterbury after Ray Dib was voted out and the reform ticket took control in a dramatic board election.
Anderson, daughter of club “godfather” Peter Moore, joins six new faces on the board including husband and ex-coach Chris Anderson.
The pair are joined by John Ballesty, Steve Price, Paul Dunn and John Khoury while Bulldogs legend Steve Mortimer is the only incumbent member to survive.
In an election considered the most heated in club history, an emotional Anderson was left stunned by the result voted on by about 700 members at Canterbury Leagues Club on Sunday.
Anderson polled the most votes with 471, followed by Ballesty (448), Price (415), Chris Anderson (397), Dunn (395) and Khoury (382).
Dib’s 346 votes put him 12th out of the 18 candidates.
“I’m still numb, I’m emotional. I just walked past a photo of my dad, it didn’t help,” Anderson said.
“We spoke to all the stakeholders in the Bulldogs family. By that I mean members, fans, we spoke to former players, former staff, junior league, referees.
“We spoke to all of them and said, ‘What are you looking for, what do you need’. We want our club to be totally united and I’m really committed to that.”
Asked how she felt her father, who was chief executive of the club from 1965 to 1995, would have felt, she said: “He’d be really proud, I have no doubt.”
Anderson insisted there would be no issue with Canterbury Leagues club chairman George Peponis or members of the playing group who supported the Dib-led board.
Bulldogs star David Klemmer last week spoke out about taking offence to perceived criticism from Dunn over the prop’s form for the club.
“It was a battle. It’s like when you go into any competition on the field – you’re doing your darndest to compete. What happened there is gone, we all come together now,” Anderson said.
“It was an emotional time. A lot of passions were running high. From our point of view, we’re looking not just at current players, we’re looking beyond. The club is bigger than that.”
Anderson also said the board was open to working with Mortimer despite his loyalty to Dib.
“I’ve shared with people that when we decided to run, Chris and I actually caught up personally with Turvey (Mortimer) to tell him that we were running and explained why, and our reasons,” she said.
“We had a bit of a chuckle that day saying we all want the same thing. Turvey’s just like (coach) Dean Pay. He’s Bulldogs. He knows it. He gets it.”