13 minutes ago, Clint Bizkit said:

It's easy to say we wouldn't have a team but we have the fourth highest attendances this year so far, that's a lot of people who would have been lost to the game if we folded.

Yes. I think a lot of Demon supporters are coming back to the Footy (Going Live) after such a long time of not going. 

I had to stop a few years back, it was depressing to watch. 

Now we seem to have a club that wants to win, not just survive and make hollow promises. 

I saw Peter Jackson before the Sydney game and went over and shook his hand and thanked him for the great job he has done of turning around the mfc.  He appreciated it and thanked me for doing it. When we win our 13th premiership I will be thanking Glenn Barlett, Peter Jackson,  Paul Roos,  and Simon Goodwin for there great work. It is great to have a team that is competitive every week.

The cynic in may suggests that the extra help we get is one of the reasons we tend to kowtow to the AFL when an issue arises.

We are now poised for success.

When we become a power club again we can be a little more prickly when things don't go our way.

3 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

I will be fascinatedd to see what crowd numbers turn up to The MCG in September if we make finals this year. 

I believe the numbers will shock even the AFL. 

MFC Supporters have had enough of being kicked around by any and everyone. 

When we can walk away from Northern Territory Contracts and bring those 2 games home to crowds of 40,000+ then we can be totally confident we have turned the elusive corner and built a solid base. 

At present we are looking a lot more healthy, but we are still vulnerable. 

Remember the G 1987 elimination final against the Roos. Success and finals starved fans savouring the moment. Went there hoping for the boys to have a crack and boy did we exceed my youthful dreams that day 

4 hours ago, Pennant St Dee said:

Remember the G 1987 elimination final against the Roos. Success and finals starved fans savouring the moment. Went there hoping for the boys to have a crack and boy did we exceed my youthful dreams that day 

Remember it like yesterday mate

Can still feel the Energy Surge when Todd kicked the first goal...

6 hours ago, Vogon Poetry said:

And I doubt it ever will.  But in this instance the AFL did us a huge favour and left you and me with a team to support.

I'd sweat the big stuff if I was you but I think that suggestion will fall on barren ground.

We've agreed that the AFL possibly  did us a big favor, unintentionally perhaps.  But as for my inability to "sweat the big stuff", funnily enough I think the "big stuff" is things like ignoring drug cheating and re-habilitating Hird.   So you are right, your suggestion falls on very barren ground - every week the AFL gives me new reasons to think the worst of them.

35 minutes ago, sue said:

We've agreed that the AFL possibly  did us a big favor, unintentionally perhaps.  But as for my inability to "sweat the big stuff", funnily enough I think the "big stuff" is things like ignoring drug cheating and re-habilitating Hird.   So you are right, your suggestion falls on very barren ground - every week the AFL gives me new reasons to think the worst of them.

And just when I stick up for the AFL they invite Hard back!

What a pack of absolute dopes. You get no argument from me about that narcissist. 

I think you win hands down today Sue. 

15 minutes ago, sue said:

We've agreed that the AFL possibly  did us a big favor, unintentionally perhaps.  But as for my inability to "sweat the big stuff", funnily enough I think the "big stuff" is things like ignoring drug cheating and re-habilitating Hird.   So you are right, your suggestion falls on very barren ground - every week the AFL gives me new reasons to think the worst of them.

The AFL kick the [censored] out of us for years and deprive us of any possibility of making a profit by scheduling home games at the G that no one wants or home games at Princes Park when no one knows where it is. 

They give us more interstate games than every other Victorian club, they give us home games at Etihad and away games at the G against Essendon, who's home ground is Etihad. They make it near impossible for us to grow our supporter base because we are forced to sell home games interstate so we can limit our annual loss. 

Then, when we are at our absolute worst, they send in the cavalry and throw a couple of $m our way to stop us from going under and VP thinks we should be grateful. 

They are probably embarrassed about our success because they would prefer the status quo with the top 4 dominating the local market and us just rolling along making less of a  nusence of ourselves. 

Our scheduling this year is a joke, 4 games in 18 days an 8 day break then another game 6 days later.

We get the QB game which we've had forever and the new BB game against Richmond on ANZAC eve which attracted nearly as many as the ANZAC day game, which is supposed to be the mid year Grand Final, with the ANZAC medal second to the Brownlow, joke of course. Maybe the AFL will start to promote the Eve game the way they promote the Day game, hah that will never happen  

We have shown that we can attract big crowds when given a chance, it's about time its happened.

I'm not stupid, I understand that the AFL has to make money, but ALL partners should receive equal treatment and not have to grovel when they get, some long over due help. 

Go you good Dante!

You cannot have an AFL Competition without a MELBOURNE (as called) Team in it . It would just be not logically plausible.....

Having the 4th highest average attendance is huge, IMO. It doesn't matter whether it's home or away that is driving that (our away games are obviously helping given we're 7th for average home attendance) - we get the 4th most people at the ground watching us play and that is exposure that is relevant to sponsorship and to the AFL when determining which clubs draw crowds.

The fact we're 7th for home crowds despite having had the Alice Springs game is also pleading, I think. We still get more people to our home games than the Perth clubs, the Dogs, Geelong, Sydney, Hawthorn and St Kilda (as well as the Sydney clubs, the Queensland clubs and North, but those are less surprising). 

Edit: by way of interesting comparison (and a sign of the growth since PJ took over) - in 2013 the club played in front of 24,974 on average. This year we average playing in front of 42,070. That's a 68% increase.

Edit 2: even last year we were only playing in front of 30,977 on average.

I roll my eyes when I read the anti-AFL nonsense on here from time to time but that isn't a black and white picture; the AFL make shortsighted decisions, head shaking compromises, and can be like treacle with issues that are larger than the game but affect it because people end up playing, attending, and watching the game and they want their values reflected in the game they love.

So I would argue that the AFL has definitely done their job and helped this club out of a precarious position. But don't tell me they didn't come to a ridiculous 'disrepute' position on our alleged 'tanking' crime. It was a compromise between letting us off for actually not doing anything other than 'list management' and punishing a club for the perceived evils of building through the draft in an era when expansion clubs were about to take all the talent.

That decision, predicated on an off the cuff joke remembered by a former and most likely disgruntled staff member, was utterly ridiculous and no amount of sane, thoughtful, and extensive help from the AFL in other areas will change my mind.

Plenty of draft and development debacles also explained the situation we found ourselves in. 

Imagine: Nick dal santo - Luke Molan

Sam Mitchell - Steven Armstrong 

Leigh Montagna- Aaron Rogers

Dane Swan - Brad Miller

If we had one or two imagine how different it could have all been. 

So so I want to acknowledge list management, recruiting and development departments that actually have an identity and goal. Not aimlessly running around with any semblance of cohesion. Thank god the days of recruiting atheletes instead of footballers is over.

Todd Viney Jason Taylor and Brendan McCartney thank you. When these guys started having an impact our relevance also started. 

What does success look like?................Not last night