If you are like me, you are still coming to terms to us being Premiers and being 8-0. Ten years ago we were the laughing stock of the comp and I honestly thought I would never see a flag in my lifetime (I was 32 then).

I was watching AFL360 tonight (stay with me) and they were talking about North and how to rebuild and not to blame Noble etc. Kingy brought up stats from the teams that had rebuilt successfully - namely Brisbane and us.  There were no jokes, no mention of the previous 10 years of failed rebuilds, Jack Watts did not even get a mention! They were seriously talking about us as having a fantastic rebuild and now being a great team.  The scars from the last few decades sit with us supporters but the media and pubic have moved on. 

We have respect. Actual respect. Not pity. Might  just be me but it finally hit me that the dark days are over. Not just for the next few years, but we are a quality organisation that we can proud of full stop.

Not sure where I am going with this, just wondering if people feel the same or am I just rambling? Us long suffering supporters (Im sure many longer suffering than I) have been through a lot.  And I for one, am ready to let all that [censored] go and say we are a [censored] good team!!

The troubling thing about veils is they store quite well. You just pack them away and then hand them out to your children or grandchildren when needed!

On a totally unrelated note, when positive matter meets negative matter, both annihilate one another.

Not so sure. 57 years of suffering and ultimately negativity will take more than one flag and one year to dispel.

But I will enjoy the dispelling..

We need serious and Sustained Success to erase all of the previous desolate decades

We must keep nailing Talent in the Draft and employ the Best Coaches available 

The Hawks didn’t collapse after 1 Flag. I have seen them win 12 and countless runners up

Young Kids come to our Club and learn how to win, as a team

52 minutes ago, Chook said:

The troubling thing about veils is they store quite well. You just pack them away and then hand them out to your children or grandchildren when needed!

On a totally unrelated note, when positive matter meets negative matter, both annihilate one another.

I don’t reckon the veil will ever be as dark or as impenetrable when it gets pulled out again!  so yes, it’s proof re the positive matter has  annihilated at least some of the negative. 

 

Premierships are hard to win at the best of times. When you bottom out, you are at the mercy of the football gods when it comes to draft talent at that time matching your list requirements.

Most teams would have also gone watts, Scully, Trengove and probably suffered a similar fate to ours - we were just unlucky.

We’d be best to enshrine ‘the veil of negativity’ in a special room at Casey where all new players, coaches and non footy staff spend a whole week in every year to pay homage to our horrific past and make sacrificial gestures to prevent it ever escaping said room again 😂

 

mfcss always lingers at the edges...

what i have thoroughly enjoyed about watching us over 2021/22 is that you can see how organised we are on-field, how well run we are off-field, and how much of a unified club we appear to be these days

it's a far cry from as little as a decade ago, which goes to show that things can change quickly...hence the mfcss lurking...

10 hours ago, DubDee said:

If you are like me, you are still coming to terms to us being Premiers and being 8-0. Ten years ago we were the laughing stock of the comp and I honestly thought I would never see a flag in my lifetime (I was 32 then).

I was watching AFL360 tonight (stay with me) and they were talking about North and how to rebuild and not to blame Noble etc. Kingy brought up stats from the teams that had rebuilt successfully - namely Brisbane and us.  There were no jokes, no mention of the previous 10 years of failed rebuilds, Jack Watts did not even get a mention! They were seriously talking about us as having a fantastic rebuild and now being a great team.  The scars from the last few decades sit with us supporters but the media and pubic have moved on. 

We have respect. Actual respect. Not pity. Might  just be me but it finally hit me that the dark days are over. Not just for the next few years, but we are a quality organisation that we can proud of full stop.

Not sure where I am going with this, just wondering if people feel the same or am I just rambling? Us long suffering supporters (Im sure many longer suffering than I) have been through a lot.  And I for one, am ready to let all that [censored] go and say we are a [censored] good team!!

Been going since 1955 so have been very fortunate to see some brilliant times BUT have stuck fat since then and it's like a second lease of life. I shall enjoy every day our club dishes this type of football out to us. With astute draft selections of new players long may this continue.

Edited May 11, 20223 yr by MT64
Reads better.

Our defensive shield is impregnable. We know it and our opponents know it. We have an aura of invincibility and a cast-iron belief in our systems and each other. It's an unbelievably strong position to be in. I'm seriously starting to think we may go unbeaten through the H&A season. No team appears to have an answer

All that said, I reckon the negative nelly's will emerge on DL after our first loss. Guaranteed

The players drive the attitude when players are confidant they can win in any situation the veil of negativity is lifted.

The match against Geelong at Geelong in 2021 was a lifting point that being 44 points down is not impossible to win and then in the grand final that belief when 19 points down rose and guess what they won.

We're on the correct track, that's it. 

The VoN will come back with interest if we don't win the flag.

It is so, so wonderfully predictable watching opposition teams try to rebound out of our forward line. They get to our half forward and then go sideways or back. You know for a fact they are now stuffed as we have had time to get organised behind the ball. They foof around but it is just a matter of time before:

A). They kick it down the line where one of our talls marks it or it gets hit out of bounds or less likely

B). They are ‘daring’ and go to the corridor where the ball gets intercepted or ends in a ball up. 
Either way they lose possession. I keep promising myself not to take all this for granted

I'm worried about this eagles game.

10 hours ago, CYB said:

Premierships are hard to win at the best of times. When you bottom out, you are at the mercy of the football gods when it comes to draft talent at that time matching your list requirements.

Most teams would have also gone watts, Scully, Trengove and probably suffered a similar fate to ours - we were just unlucky.

We’d be best to enshrine ‘the veil of negativity’ in a special room at Casey where all new players, coaches and non footy staff spend a whole week in every year to pay homage to our horrific past and make sacrificial gestures to prevent it ever escaping said room again 😂

 

I don't think we were unlucky, I think Watts, Scully and Trengove were. They were forced, via the draft, to join a dysfunctional club which didn't provide an environment for them to thrive within. Compare that with players drafted today who join aware that the club knows what it's doing. 

MFCSS never really goes away. It's just goes into remission. North supporters of the 90s are suffering badly now.

2 hours ago, MT64 said:

Been going since 1955 so have been very fortunate to see some brilliant times ...

How does this current team compare to the years 55-60? Both in playing personnel/style and in supporter expectations?

My ‘love to hate’ syndrome is influenced by actual players in opposition sides (eg No1 hate team several years ago and still high on the list, GWS. Why? Toby Greene, Shaw and Mummy, need I say anymore! ). Over the years teams I hate on this basis go up and down my ‘hate ladder’.

Every club seems to have a somewhat unique ‘supporter culture’ This is a more stable ‘love to hate’ influencer, for me at least. That is why the classic sides are always up there (eg Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Port etc for very obvious reasons ) even though at times I have no issue with their actual team and game style.

To be honest I at times can get a little bit jealous of what I see, hear and feel when I experience the passion of those opposition supporter bases when I’m at the footy . Why? Because deep down I know how other teams supporters perceive us to be like and at times it is almost embarrassing and hard to argue against.

Examples- a) The whinging whining syndrome-  I have and will always hate hearing someone call out ‘come on Melbourne’ in a slow moaning groan tone at the ground.  
b) fair weather syndrome- when the team gets going we like I guess most supporters of other teams will tend to start coming out in droves, but I reckon (no evidence whatsoever) we would hold off doing this longer than others, waiting perhaps until we are a absolute certainty to make the finals   
c) similar to the above - the priority syndrome- ‘we are off to the snow’, see you in September   d) This is the one that ‘kills me’, the negative Nellie syndrome where you have a fair swag of supporters that you feel almost are happy or wanting the Dees to trip up to prove that they were right (this was overtly apparent last season and still lingers on now this year after now winning 15 straight!).

I say all this through my lenses.  I came on board the year after Melbourne won the flag in 1964, I was 5 years old. I have suffered like everyone else over the years.  The only difference from my suffering to younger supporters is that I had over half a century of it.  The commonality with the younger brigade being that we experienced failure for all of our lives, until now. It was real tough.

On the upside, I was in a most fortunate position to have the privilege of attending all of Melbourne’s finals they played last year. Sheer luck. What was most noticeable in the last two finals (Geelong and Footscray) was the electric, noisy passion of the people that attended the games. It very much had a strong West Coast feel to it, including all the booing! Gets worse, I loved being part of it. There was noise, positivity, passion). WA hoped on board with the Dees and you could tell and feel this. 

To try and provide some contrast.  I was hoping that at the 1st round GF rematch at the G that having genuine supporters attend that the noise/ passion would go to a new level.  It didn’t. (Yeah I know, it was a Wednesday night and all that, but still).  I have had to accept somewhat reluctantly that the way that other teams supporters perceive us to be is pretty much on the mark. 

Having said that, the MFC have actually changed (ie the Board, the coaching staff, support staff and players). They have managed to change their ‘culture’.  I feel for want of better words our supporter base has in a sense not as yet hopped on board as much as I would have liked them  to. Perhaps we won’t, culture change is very difficult to achieve.

But I still live in hope.  I am an old bugger and I get it that we have had some [censored] decades and any change, particularly real culture change is hard to achieve.  It takes effort. My only hope now is that a lot of newbie’s that don’t carry the scars of the past hop on board the Dee train and lock in on the new culture that our team have created. We have a window of opportunity right now. I want us to become the most respected and at the same time hated team in the competition.

Apologies to anyone that I may have inadvertently offended. My only excuse is that I am an old bugger that did not realise how much passion and belief I have for MFC.  What I dreamed about when I was a kid is now happening.  Time for all our supporter base to hop on board, the team has changed, so can we. Time to burn the VoN. GO DEES 

Edited May 12, 20223 yr by Wodjathefirst

1 hour ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I don't think we were unlucky, I think Watts, Scully and Trengove were. They were forced, via the draft, to join a dysfunctional club which didn't provide an environment for them to thrive within. Compare that with players drafted today who join aware that the club knows what it's doing. 

Very true. 
for example I reckon the late Col Sylvia would be an A grader if he came to us now  

RIP Col

I know it’s only small fry, but we really need to go out and belt West Coast and North. We’ve had a history of losing to teams who’ve had the blow torch on them all week. 
 

In terms of longer term prospects, I’d like to see where we sit at the end of 2025. If we have multiple premierships, finals appearances every year and a real sense of confidence going to a game as a supporter knowing you’ll get a really good effort, it will go a long way to removing this veil.

Edited May 12, 20223 yr by At the break of Gawn

2 hours ago, Mazer Rackham said:

How does this current team compare to the years 55-60? Both in playing personnel/style and in supporter expectations?

The teams of the 1955-1960 expected to win when they played, much like 2021-2022 at this stage but they have a long way to go to get success like the 1955-1960's.

The MFC in those years had an advantage playing on the MCG in the finals with no co-tenants, the players today are professional and the senior coach has a group of assistant coaches and professional medical and fitness staff.

In 1955-1960 the coach had a doctor who was a volunteer and had no background in sports science, a seconds coach and a group of players upto 50+ to coach with no fitness staff.

So comparing the 1955-1960 is very difficult but supporters turned up expecting the team to win no matter who was the opposition.

Edited May 12, 20223 yr by durango

Essentially yes as we didnt fluke the win, we built a strong list, club and strategy over a period of time.  So we know the method.

I am much more relaxed about footy and the win has lessened my enjoyment of the game because most of the other teams appear to be sub standard.

And the games we play are not exciting in that we get comfortably ahead and strangle the opposition.

3 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I don't think we were unlucky, I think Watts, Scully and Trengove were. They were forced, via the draft, to join a dysfunctional club which didn't provide an environment for them to thrive within. Compare that with players drafted today who join aware that the club knows what it's doing. 

Well yes, they were also unlucky from their own perspectives. However, do you think the career of those footy players would have unfolded any differently had they gone to a more successful club or one that had a better culture? 

Scully was an athlete more than he was a footballer. Just lacked footy IQ. I personally dont think he would have become much more than he was. But that is a matter of perspective. 

Trengroves' career was cut short by an injury that was probably more structural/genetic than it was due to mismanagement or being at MFC. 

The only player that may have had a different journey was Wattsy, but we saw him at Port (prior to his injury) and his hunger was never to the point where he could maximize his potential.

But my point is that 2x #1 and 1x #2 that were not draft selection mistakes per se, but never came to fruition had a massive impact on our ability to rebuild earlier in the 2000's. Compare that with the Rebuild Pt 2( 2013 - 2016) where we got a hold of Salem, Trac, Oliver & Brayshaw. I wouldnt say we were 100% lucky with Pt 2, but it doesnt mean that we were not fortunate that the players turned out to be exactly what we needed. 

 

One thing I hate more than anything, is over positive people. My view is... until we beat someone ahead of us on the ladder, I won't get too carried away!😉

If I get to sit down at the G and watch melbourne win a flag infront of my own nose with a beer in hand.

THEN, its gone forever for me.