There is one thing that the social media and rugby league world have in common: they never stop.
And if there is anyone that could agree with that statement more, it is Dane Clarke, or Clarkey.
Clarkey is a man who has a foot in both camps. He is an avid rugby league supporter, a passionate Gold Coast Titans fan, and he also has a major presence on social media, with accounts across various platforms.
This year, Clarkey is celebrating the tenth year of his main platform, Clarkey’s Rugby League Column, an account that started off as an NRL jokes and memes page, before evolving into a day-to-day hub for rugby league news, analysis, and coverage.
It’s no surprise to hear that creating daily content for over 200,000 people isn’t simple. But that only scratches the surface for Clarkey.
In addition to his social media commitments, he also has to focus on a full-time job and his family.
Juggling all those responsibilities over such a long period seems like a daunting task.
And it was a story I wanted to hear more of.
Luckily enough, Clarkey was willing to tell me his story. In sporting terms, a “play by play” of the last ten years.
Q: Obviously every story has to start somewhere, so could you give us the origin story of Clarkey’s Rugby League Column?
A: The page first started off as ‘NRL News and Memes’, and had that name for about a week until I realised that’s not a really good name at all. So I changed it to ‘NRL Rumours and Updates‘ and was just making posts in high school because I always liked creative writing.
I gradually started doing that but didn’t really get anywhere. But then I remember one night, I just spammed the Facebook comments section of the NRL, Fox Sports, and Nine saying “Hey, my name is Dane, I love footy. Check out NRL Rumours and Updates“.
And then I woke up the next morning and had over 2,000 likes.
So that built the base of my platform and continued for the next five years, until I actually got an email from the NRL saying “if you don’t change your name and logo, we’ll shut down your page because you don’t represent us”.
So I realised that I needed to not lose this page and I had to rebrand it.
And I always thought in the back of my head that it would be cool to have something in a newspaper where it’s called ‘Clarkey’s Column’ and it’d be my hot takes or reactions from the previous weekend.
And so I thought you know what? I’ve always thought that would be a cool dream.
Why don’t I change the name to Clarkey’s Rugby League column?
So yeah, not an overnight success story, but just ten years of persistency on social media to get where it’s at today.
Q: Rugby league and social media are two things constantly changing with the times. What are some of the challenges you faced combining the two?
A: I think a more modern day challenge that I’ve faced is just standing out. The NRL content game is so saturated.
It’s part of the reason why I don’t have my own podcast at the moment, because I’ve kind of realised that to stand out, I would need a very professional setup and to pile many hours into it. Which I don’t have.
I was kind of fortunate in the sense that I haven’t experienced that to the full extent because I started so early and had that strong original following. But there’s so many pages now that work hard and manage to get a couple thousand followers, but give up because of how saturated it is.
It’s so hard to be unique and to stand out.
Q: In addition to this, you’ve got a full-time job and you’re a family man. How do you balance it all? Especially when running a page that is so demanding of it’s deadlines?
A: I actually have had to make sacrifices in terms of my time with the children. A lot of times I will finish work and get home around 4:30 P.M., and then I’ll be straight into the other stuff.
And that can take me through sometimes to like 7:30 P.M., to the point where I’m literally just saying goodnight to the kids.
So you do have to make some sacrifices unfortunately.
And honestly, I’m kind of embarrassed to say, I don’t cook that often, I don’t clean that often, and I don’t do the kid pickup and drop off very often. My partner does every annoying chore you can think of in life and around the house.
Even if it’s just something like getting the kid’s milk ready before bed, it’s still a chore, right? It’s not an enjoyable thing to do, but we have to do it. She just ticks every one of those boxes and really allows me to get in and get the work done.
So I think she understands that I’m making sacrifices to grow my page and community, so that one day we can live off that. And then she’s making sacrifices in other areas to allow me to pursue that goal.
Q: Now that you’re in the midst of your tenth anniversary, could you give us a glimpse on what the future holds for Clarkey’s Rugby League Column?
A: I think the next stage is getting Clarkey’s Column into a stage where it’s performing financially and consistently enough so that I can afford a full-time studio.
I’ve always just been recording from the house in one of the spare bedrooms, and it comes with it’s own audio issues like sound echoing off the walls.
So having a proper studio that’s open enough or has the right equipment so that the audio is crisp, and getting to incorporate a video element as well is very attainable in the future.
I’ve taken small steps in that expansion, introducing accounts like my ‘On This Day in NRL’ page. But in the future, I think if I had this as my full-time job, I could run video and audio content every single day.
But it’s something I cannot achieve just yet, so for now I just focus on my imagery content.
Whatever happens, I know I’m very lucky to be in the position I’m in. Getting the opportunity to be so close to the game I love has been awesome.
And I’m very appreciative of the support I’ve gotten.