WE SHALL OVERCOME

WE SHALL OVERCOME by The Demonland Crew

One hundred and fifty years ago today, the Melbourne Football Club was the only football club in the land. There were no others.

Today, our football code is the strongest in the land but, among the elite clubs (and that includes Gold Coast which hasn’t really seen the light of day yet), our club is being treated with utter contempt by those who sit in charge of the Australian Football League.

The problem is that in 1858, our fledgling game was a sport, based on principles of fairness and sportsmanship. Today, it is a business, based on no principles but rather, a lack of principles and more on the greed that has seen economies around the world reeling in the wake of what looms as the biggest financial crisis since the 1930's. And we have become its poorest franchise.

The issue by the AFL of what it laughingly calls its fixture is a case in point. It highlights what can only be described as a premeditated plan to murder the Melbourne Football Club.

And our own club leadership and officials have been bound and gagged, unable to utter a word in self-defence lest Big Brother at the AFL cuts off one of its vital financial lifelines in the form of the compensation to which its is entitled as a result of the inequities in the AFL's programme (even then, on the basis of the programme set out by the AFL, we believe will get only a third of the compensation to which we should be entitled).

If you think that's a paranoid view, don’t take our word for it – listen to what these respected journalists have to say: -

CAROLINE WILSON – SUNDAY AGE

STEPHEN REILLY – AUSTRALIAN

MARK ROBINSON - HERALD SUN

These are senior writers with three out of the three major newspapers that deal extensively with the sport - all of them unanimous in the view that the AFL has shafted the Melbourne Football Club. Wilson sums up the Kremlin's duplicity well:

But in pretty much every other way, the Demons have been duped. Several weeks ago, the club saw a draft proposal of its draw for next year, and it had 11 Sunday games. Two days ago, it learned that number had suddenly swelled to 13.

We also don't accept the official line that fairness is being achieved because Melbourne was handed out a good football draw. That's utter rubbish. A good football draw is what Collingwood was given this year – what it is given every year: the least number of interstate trips, no travel to Skilled Stadium and drawn to play only three teams from last year's top eight twice including single games against the two dominant sides in the competition. Melbourne, on the other hand, finished last but meets four of last year's top eight teams twice.

And for removal of doubt, look at the AFL's stated attitude with respect to giving the Brisbane Lions any perceived home turf advantage next year for games at Carrara. From the mouth of AFL apparatchik Gillon McLachlan in the Gold Coast Bulletin.

With Brisbane having a home state advantage, we felt we wanted visiting teams to feel like they were playing in neutral territory rather than in Brisbane's back yard.

That principle apparently was thrown out with the trash when it came to giving Sydney a home state advantage in its back yard for Melbourne’s "home" game at Manuka in Canberra.

So what to do about it?

We grit our teeth and fight back. We fight back by sticking fat and confirming our identity not only as supporters of the club but by becoming members – now!

We fight back in the spirit of the Demons as we did in the past – both on and off the field. We fight back by getting behind our club which is rebuilding our links with the MCC, working hard on establishing a community base and training facilities and continuing the process of rebuilding our side. In other words, by accepting the challenge as Hawthorn did when it was down just a few years ago.

Last year, the AFL's knives were aimed squarely at the back of the North Melbourne Football Club. The media and the football public pronounced the Kangaroos as being near to death. That club gained the respect and admiration of the football world as it fought back both on and off the field. Its football team produced some magnificent performances during 2008 – including one in which they beat the competition’s ultimate premier. They called it the "shinboner spirit" and while it’s debatable whether an intangible item called “spirit” is ever enough to bring about ultimate success, there is no doubt that we can only survive as a club by taking the fight to the rest of the competition with an attitude that demands victory and not with defeatism.

We have a talented group of young players coming through the ranks and, in a month's time, will have another infusion of top talent. We have several of our better players coming back from injury and their return will strengthen our team and make it far more competitive. It will take time but we will fight back.

We shall overcome!