A COURAGEOUS CLUB

These wonderful words originally penned and posted on 14 April 2010 were reprinted on the decorative placemats provided at the Melbourne Football Club's Debt Demolition Dinner on 4 August 2010 a - the day that the club's supporters helped it become debt free for the first time in decades ...

A COURAGEOUS CLUB by dandeeman

I have supported this club for 38 years. As a supporter I love to see displays of courage. Success takes a combination of many things such as skill, fitness, teamwork but success doesn’t occur without courage.

Courage is not something that begins and ends on a football field. In fact successful teams make courageous decisions long before a winning list takes the field.

It takes courage for a club to go to its members, sponsors and supporters and ask for more support and money after a period of sustained failure.

It takes courage to sign a completely unproven coach against a lifetime coach who has had sustained success. It takes more to justify his appointment and offer him another year after 2 years of failure on the score-board.

It takes courage to remove proven performers from your playing list, again weakening your short term on-field strength.

It takes courage to sell a plan that strips the playing list bare and guarantees a lack of immediate success and just hope the membership can share the vision and project forward.

It takes courage to stare down the media and football world in the face or ridicule and profess to have a plan with no evidence of same or results to speak of.

It takes courage to develop a playing list at the correct pace capable of playing at the highest level not bowing to the impatience of the football world.

It takes courage to pay your playing list well when they have achieved so little.

It takes courage to sign player for 3 years who is yet to take the field at AFL level.

These risks have been undertaken in an effort to achieve the ultimate success and have been geared to the long term of the club as a whole. But it was undertaken when the club was most vulnerable both on and on the field.

For the plan to succeed the club as a whole, from the admin to the footy dept to the sponsors, members and supporters need to reciprocate trust.

Will this club win a flag with our current list… who knows? History says it’s difficult for a club to come from as far back as we have. The odds are against us. But what this club has done is truly unique…. and history is created on a daily basis.

When I see our battling president attending games, speaking to my kids at family days and urging the club and members on from his hospital bed after brain surgery, I can sense that this club is rebuilding itself on a courageous new model.

Like an young Irish boy from humble beginnings coming to a new country to play an unknown game, this club has risked its immediate future to make a play for glory.

Its time to support your club people. I for one can feel the beating heart of this club grow stronger day by day.