Another great article from Martin Flanagan on our own cult hero:-

AFL 2016: Max Gawn and the Melbourne revival

How lucky are we that Gawn plays for us. This is, what his seventh year and five of them were spent in a pizza fed, injury prone limbo. The gods smiled on us when Gawn finally passed the entrance to Valhalla.

Now, most of all, let's hope this adulation is not another way of putting the mos on him.

Great article on Max, and his influence on those around him at the Club.

 

 

Max is more than a cult hero - he's the real thing.

During the week he came down to my grandson's footy training and was sensational taking drills for the boys. The coaches weren't aware that during his injury years and beyond, Max gave his time back at his junior club Ormond, coaching junior teams and they were gobsmacked at the way he handled the training work. Later, he was mobbed by the older boys and he was happy to take snaps - back in the old days it was autographs but these days selfies are the order of the day (although my grandson was happy to get Max's signature on his MFC training jumper).

Thanks Max!!!

Max, I believe, has mastered the art of when to switch on and off beautifully. 

I think Roosy has been important in that sense. I remember reading in the Hun once that he was told by PR that he needed to stop mucking 'around all the time'. I also remember PJ being quite specific when praising his speech at the 2014 B&F for getting the Casey Best and Fairest. He had to reiterate to Max that his praise was not facetious or blokey joking and that he genuinely felt his speech was excellent.

Now Max knows when to be a lad and when to be a competitor, we have the kind of bloke every footy club needs (Bernie Vince also fills this role). The one who can lighten the mood and get the boys relaxed when they need to be. A leadership group of Jack Viney types exclusively (while having that demanding, driving element is also bloody important and shouldn't be discounted) would have us bouncing off the walls. 
 

The McClardy reference is cringeworthy for a couple of reasons. And is he going to get some other sources other than failed past administrators? 

I don't know. If I was editing that piece it'd be a whole lot shorter, to the point that there's barely any.

Glad there's more positive press for the club, but what was the fresh angle with this piece?

i especially liked the touching little anecdote at the start reminiscing about uncle bitters' childhood "games" with an alpaca 

2 minutes ago, AdamFphlebeb said:

The McClardy reference is cringeworthy for a couple of reasons. And is he going to get some other sources other than failed past administrators? 

I don't know. If I was editing that piece it'd be a whole lot shorter, to the point that there's barely any.

Glad there's more positive press for the club, but what was the fresh angle with this piece?

Not as cringeworthy as your misspelling of McLardy's name or your misplaced poor sentiments.

Flanagan has been consistently sympathetic in his writings about us but I find this quote an interesting admission. Something  also many supporters suspected for quite a few seasons in the dark days. 

"What Melbourne have now is a core of ambitious footballers who actually want to play for the club and jointly pursue their sporting passion."

Martin Flanagan is a friend of a friend. i sat with him at the first Saints match this year. He's a ripping bloke and a great writer.

He really likes the Demons. 

1 hour ago, Mister Ed said:

Another great article from Martin Flanagan on our own cult hero:-

AFL 2016: Max Gawn and the Melbourne revival

Fluff piece. Nothing to see here. 

5 minutes ago, bingers said:

Martin Flanagan is a friend of a friend. i sat with him at the first Saints match this year. He's a ripping bloke and a great writer.

He really likes the Demons. 

Would love to sit down and have a couple of pots with this guy. Seems like a great bloke to have a yarn with.

1 hour ago, Baghdad Bob said:

Fluff piece. Nothing to see here. 

Probably, but it's good to have positive articles in the media, more directed at non supporters that supporters.

Isn't it nice to have some of the journos praising us instead of running us down, I'd take this any day of the week over most of the trash we've copped during the last 10 years?

38 minutes ago, The Great Pretender said:

Not as cringeworthy as your misspelling of McLardy's name or your misplaced poor sentiments.

Yep exactly. Complete unnecessary pot shot at a bloke who is one of the most passionate Dees men I know, a reluctant president who only stepped up when one of his best friends died. And despite presiding over a period of on-field failure he dedicated an unfathomable amount of hours in trying to turn the club around, often at the expense of his own business, purely for the love of it.

 

As TGP said, completely misplaced sentiments.

Hate it when passionate club men step up and get ridiculed or worse. Well done Don McLardy.

52 minutes ago, The Great Pretender said:

Not as cringeworthy as your misspelling of McLardy's name or your misplaced poor sentiments.

No, it's a lot worse than my misspelling of a failed past administrator. Is that you Don?

I sometimes think we're a precious lot. It wasn't all that long ago that the only publicity we received was bad but most of the time we were rarely covered in the media. The consequences were that we were considered irrelevant - we stood for nothing and meant nothing and of course, we lagged behind in membership, sponsorship and just about every aspect of the sport. 

These days, we're getting plenty of media, the overwhelming majority of it positive. We have players featuring almost weekly on The Footy Show and other programmes and there are plenty of stories about our boys in the news - all of which improves our public perception, especially among kids which ultimately helps promoting the club.

Flanagan puts together a well written and interesting article which might not be news to us but would be a revelation to the football world and the wider public at large and people are complaining it's a puff piece.

Sheesh!!!

21 minutes ago, Members' Wing said:

Yep exactly. Complete unnecessary pot shot at a bloke who is one of the most passionate Dees men I know, a reluctant president who only stepped up when one of his best friends died. And despite presiding over a period of on-field failure he dedicated an unfathomable amount of hours in trying to turn the club around, often at the expense of his own business, purely for the love of it.

 

As TGP said, completely misplaced sentiments.

He didn't know how to run the football club that I love and almost killed it, along with his incompotent board.

We're all passionate Melbourne people, but doesn't mean we all have to stand for the board. He chose to, so you can't then use 'reluctance' as an excuse to hide behind if you monumentally fail.

I'm glad PJ is at the helm and we finally have a stable, competent board that doesn't get all cosy with the players and invites them over for BBQs. They maintain a professional distance.

Edited August 13, 20169 yr by AdamFphlebeb

4 minutes ago, AdamFphlebeb said:

He didn't know how to run a football club that I love and almost killed it, along with his incompotent board. We're all passionate Melbourne people, but doesn't mean we all have to stand for the board. He chose to, so you can't then hide behind a 'reluctance' if you monumentally failed.

I'm glad PJ is at the helm and we finally have a stable, competent board that doesn't get all cosy with the players and invite them over for BBQs. They maintain a professional distance.

PJ and his board have received a lot more help from the AFL than the club did when McLardy and the previous boards did and even so it's taken PJ three years and we still haven't made finals. 

Fact of the matter is that the McLardy quote in the article is relevant and valid because he was there at the time - unless you want to revise the club's history some more.

Let's just concentrate on the phenomenon that is Max Gawn which is what the article's all about.

14 minutes ago, AdamFphlebeb said:

He didn't know how to run a football club that I love and almost killed it, along with his incompotent board. We're all passionate Melbourne people, but doesn't mean we all have to stand for the board. He chose to, so you can't then hide behind a 'reluctance' if you monumentally failed.

I'm glad PJ is at the helm and we finally have a stable, competent board that doesn't get all cosy with the players and invite them over for BBQs. They maintain a professional distance.

Mate I'm purely talking off-field, not on. It was the Paul Gardner board that nearly killed the club. In a lot of ways it was the Stynes/McLardy board that saved it, and put the building blocks in place for our current success.

They had an absolute mountain of debt to clear which they did, negotiated some excellent sponsorship deals, moved the club from Junction Oval to AAMI Park and generally steadied the ship off-field. The board was made up of quality Melbourne people who were all leaders of their industries. The likes of Russell Howcroft, Guy Jalland and Peter Spargo are unbelievably clever and capable people. Calling that board incompetent just shows you're tarring the board with the same brush as the failed footy department.

Come back Hazy!

For starters Garner was responsible for AAMI.

McLardy left a greater debt than they inherited but took 5 million from very generous supporters in the process. They appointed Schwab and Neeld. They were responsible for our situation despite the best of intentions. 

 

I've only posted this so your position is balanced by a few facts. Enough. 

11 minutes ago, Members' Wing said:

Mate I'm purely talking off-field, not on. It was the Paul Gardner board that nearly killed the club. In a lot of ways it was the Stynes/McLardy board that saved it, and put the building blocks in place for our current success.

They had an absolute mountain of debt to clear which they did, negotiated some excellent sponsorship deals, moved the club from Junction Oval to AAMI Park and generally steadied the ship off-field. The board was made up of quality Melbourne people who were all leaders of their industries. The likes of Russell Howcroft, Guy Jalland and Peter Spargo are unbelievably clever and capable people. Calling that board incompetent just shows you're tarring the board with the same brush as the failed footy department.

This board was incompetent, they made some key mistakes in appointing and re appointing Schwab, and allowing Lyon to come in as a consultant to help his mate Jimmy. Nice sentiment but it would never have happened in their respective businesses. They needed to stand up and be counted and they didn't.

...lets not go there again.

I think we've covered all of this stuff in the past and there are pros and cons on both sides.

Any danger that we could stay on topic?

4 minutes ago, Whispering_Jack said:

I think we've covered all of this stuff in the past and there are pros and cons on both sides.

Any danger that we could stay on topic?

It's players like Max Gawn that help me forget about the past.

It's threads like this that remind me...

Why bask in the glory of all things currently going well for the club, when you can have a discussion about who did a better job of doing a bad job, however long ago.

 

1 hour ago, daisycutter said:

i especially liked the touching little anecdote at the start reminiscing about uncle bitters' childhood "games" with an alpaca 

Nice pickup DC.