 Later he ran the NSWRL, and then the Australian Rugby League during the 1990s' Super League war, resigning in 1997 as part of the peace process for creating the unified National Rugby League.Born in the Sydney suburb of in Glebe, Ken Arthurson became a rugby league footballer through the Freshwater Surf Club, playing in their 1945 D-Grade premiership win alongside another future Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles legend, and the club's first home-grown Australian international, Roy Bull.Ken Arthurson made his first grade debut in the 1950 NSWRFL season for the three-year-old Manly-Warringah club under the coaching of former Kangaroo tourist and Australian test captain Wally O'Connell, who had moved to Manly from Eastern Suburbs.