NOTHING CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME - A POSTSCRIPT

by Whispering Jack

"There are changes

Lyin' ahead in every road

And there are new thoughts

Ready and waiting to explode

When tomorrow is today

The bells may toll for some

But nothing can change the shape of things to come"

by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil - "Shape of Things to Come" most famously performed by Max Frost and the Troopers for the 1968 movie "Wild in the Streets".

The theme for the revival of the Melbourne Football Club may well have been written forty years ago when the cult movie Wild in the Streets was conceived. The "anti-hero" of the film is Christopher Jones starring as the revolutionary Max Frost who gets elected as President of the United States and enacts a law that makes thirty the mandatory retirement age.

"If you’re thirty, your through!"

Before you jump to the wrong conclusion that I'm suggesting Melbourne should cull anyone on its list who has celebrated or is about to celebrate his thirtieth birthday, let me explain the basic premise of the movie. This was a film that looked at the contemporary issues of the time - Vietnam, civil rights, political assassinations, the population explosion, the emergence of the baby boomer generation and rioting and unrest in urban America - by using the device of "reductio ad absurdum", i.e. to reduce something to absurdity by taking it to extremes.

It would fanciful and far too extreme to suggest that any given footballer is finished as soon as he reaches the magical age of thirty. One only has to look at the best players on the ground in last night's game at the Dome. James Hird is 34 years of age, Scott Lucas turns 30 before year's end while James McDonald will be 31 in October. Demon skipper David Neitz, who went into the game below full fitness, still managed to inspire the team with two goals in the second term and he could have won the game off his own boot had he kicked with some accuracy in the final quarter.

So I'm not suggesting that all of the thirty somethings at the club should go at once. However, there are far too many at the club who have seen their best days and who will never perform the sort of magic we saw last night from James Hird. To retain upwards of nine of them - the most in the competition - would be unsustainable if the Demons were to progress in the future.

The inevitable result of the coaching upheaval at the club must be translated into a new policy of bringing in the youngsters. The final nine weeks of the season will be a time of innovation and experimentation as we wait for the decision as to who will hold the coaching reins in his hands in 2008 and beyond. The trading period and the drafts in November and December will also bring regeneration and youth to the club.

Nothing can change the shape of things to come.