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I decided to do a best 22 and Melbourne had the best 22 so I went for them.

Moved to Melbourne from NZ in mid-1999. Hard core rugby fan, but realised pretty quickly I'd be an outcast in this town if I didn't follow the game and choose a team. Spent rest of the year learning what the sport was about and resisting recruitment attempts from Carlton, Collingwood & Essendon supporters. Entered a tipping competition in season 2000, still undecided. Settled on Melbourne a few weeks into the season cause I liked the colours, the themesong, the Demons name, loved Jeff Farmer, they were fun to watch and it annoyed the @#$% out of my friends who followed aforementioned teams. Won tipping competition. Got 3 tickets to each week of the finals, including Grand Final. (should have been 6 tickets, but I choked in the last round and half to split 1st prize with someone else 😭 ) Brought my Mum over from NZ and we saw the Dees play in 3 out of 4 weeks at the G. Solidified my/our hatred for Essendon. Signed my Mum up as a member, and she now comes over every year for a couple of games. For the most part I now find rugby boring as hell, except internationals involving the All Blacks. My Mum, who still lives in NZ is a full AFL convert and likes it more than rugby too. When telling her friends about the teams she follows and the teams she hates, she refers to Collingwood as "the filth".

Just spoke with one of the trading staff….Lorne

If you're reading this Salo, please pack the brick in the bottom of the backpack.

Was originally a Geelong supporter, as I was conned by my mother (whose whole family had been catters). However, my father played 2's footy for the Dees back in the late 40's - early 50's. He then went on to be a recruiter and became heavily involved with both the club proper (finished up on board as Treasurer) and the former players & officials association. He never hassled me to follow Melbourne, but if I was going to the footy with him - then I was going to Melbourne games. He was so heavily involved during my formative years of the 70's & 80's that he would be there for the Under 19's at 9am (then the reserves before the main attraction at 2pm) and would still be in some club function at 10pm. Subsequently I basically grew up at The G, exploring every inch of the place. I also had the (under-appreciated at the time) joy of having full access to the rooms pre & post game - and at half time. I still remember the day that I changed from Geelong to Melbourne. The 2 teams were playing each other (in all 3 games, as you did in those days) in 1976 and I'd wandered down to the end of the race from inside the rooms during the 2nds game to watch. I distinctly recall thinking " I claim to be a Geelong supporter, but I can name only 1 player out there. Every single player for Melbourne has been around to our place for a BBQ at some stage. Who am I kidding - I am Melbourne". Then the hard part came: telling mum that I had jumped off Geelong. It took about 3 weeks to pluck up the courage before I cornered her while she was busy making dinner. I summoned up the courage & explained that I had something very important to tell her; she looked concerned and stopped to listen. When I finally blurted out that I had defected, her response was quite calm. "Well that took considerably longer than I had anticipated". God love her - and here I am almost 50 years later still welded on to the club.

Both sides have seen a mutually beneficial opportunity, so now they study just what it entails. Dees will say we need an oval, an office building, change rooms, a pool, a gym etc. Caulfield say we’d love to have an oval in the infield if it doesn’t disrupt racing, we can sell or rent you land for your building for x amount of cost. Both sides then present a case to the local council (and any government that will have them) on funding for the oval in exchange for allowing public access and community sport. Perhaps the same for the gym and pool. If the numbers line up for everyone involved we’ve got a deal. The best case for Caulfield is they’ve already got or need a lot of things: - hospitality and catering, we don’t need to spend on a cafe or members function space, we can use theirs. - the oval - every local council needs more and they have a heap of space at Caulfield - pool and gym - if we are willing to share they’re about to have 5,000 new residents who’ll need somewhere to swim and work out - medical facilities can be shared with the community similar to the Saints at Moorabbin There’s a lot of potential for something to work here.

Neither of you are committed and still seeing other people.

You're in your 50's and have never been in a committed relationship but are desperate to meet someone and and build a life together. Every prospective partner in the past 20 years has turned you down after your high school sweetheart Amy Parks wanted a relationship but you were afraid to commit and she moved on with your nemesis. Your mum has now arranged for you to meet a girl through a family connection through lack of any other options but you have very little in common and have started to work out what you have to offer her and her family before you actually meet each other.

Exclusive from Mr Pert tonight that I told you all on on November 25. 😂

It is the quickest way to break down barriers and help integrate a new group into the team structure and also provide close daily contact for the youngsters with our core playing group via the use of positive team building exercises. Eating Together breakfast, lunch and dinner and spending time together after hours. Rekindling the love for each other after a horrendous fade out two years in a row. The coaches and players can benefit from this type of exercise, like we did in SA & WA in 2021.😁😁

Thank Christ the MCG pipedream has been put to bed. Sounds like as long as we keep the Melbourne Racing Club sweet this should get done. From a selfish point of view Caulfield is a great option. I'm just 3 stops away on the train or 10 mins drive away. Get it done Kate.

Which part of by 2028 in the news report did you ignore? Such a Hanrahan

Grandma migrated from Adelaide and had gone for Norwood over there. Dad has memories of attending the 64 GF and still tells me how the Neil Crompton the defender who wasn't suposed to be there kicked the winning goal. Growing up in the 80s, I a flirtation with Hawthorn (I now shudder at the thought). Went to a few MFC games in the 80s, but the one that really stands out was final Rd 1987 at the Western Oval. I liked Robbie Flower as a kid and the one royal blue second hand jumper I had as a kid had No.2 on the back. Dad had told me it was probably going to be Robbies last game, but if we won, there was a small chance we'd make the finals. Recall us standing up the back in the standing room behind the goals, right at the back, near a big corrugated iron fence. Even though I could hardly see the play through the crowd, it still goes down as one of my greatest footy experiences. Vividly remember us comming from behind to kit the front and take control, then dad listening to the other game and them hitting the front. The delirium when all the Melbourne supporters realised we'd be playing in our first finals series in 24 years is a feeling I'll never forget and I was sold on the mighty Demons ever since. Even in the 90s when we had relative sucess, it seemed difficult to come across Melbourne supporters my own age. Probably no coincidence that two of my best mates in high school were MFC supporters and that we are still close. Sat through us getting trashed at the G in 88 and 2000 GFs. Although 2021 was an amazing tonic at the time, it still stings that I couldn't get to the game and be there at the G when we won on the day. ...so the quest goes on in 2024!

I was a kid whose parents emigrated to Australia in 1964. In 1965 my father pulled into a Golden Fleece servo and brought back two stickers " I follow..." one was a StKilda sticker and one was a Melbourne sticker, he gave the StK one to me and the Melb to my mate. I looked at the stKilda one and said to my mate "wanna swap" been a Melb supporter ever since. Footnote: I do believe my mate has stayed loyal to the saints too.

Yeah the one thing I had really wrong was that we’re actually dealing with the Caulfield Rec Reserve Trust who oversee the site and the MRC are tenants. We’d obviously need a symbiotic relationship with the MRC too but really it’s dealing with a Trust who from what I can tell are short of cash and very keen to get development going. And a local council that’s serious short on sporting facilities. Here’s their Dec 2023 strategic management plan. https://www.crrt.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/CRRT-Strategic-Management-Plan-December-2023.pdf Go to page 14/15 to see the ‘recreation administration precinct’ that looks a lot like a code for Dees base!

Not to blow my own trumpet, but a few months before that, I said that Caulfield would happen, after a number of issues like length of lease/licence, community involvement and finance etc, were worked out. But more importantly than who is breaking the news is of course the news itself. Go Dees.

I don't barrack for the Dees either. I'm a professional moderator and this is the only job I could get. But I'm learning lots about Aussie Rules and it seems like a really great game!

Um too much information. The mind boggles

As a four year old to immigrant parents in 1964 my mother gave me a Hawthorn jumper and a Melbourne jumper to my older brother. Logic being neither jumper had white in it, easy to keep clean. The Dees won the flag and I deserted Hawthorn like the plague and made the switch to the mighty Dees. 12 Hawthorn premierships later I luckily (and legally) managed to be in Perth in 2021 to see the mighty Dees snag the big one. It was worth the wait. Go Dees!!

I was introduced by my uncle who was dees fan and used to take me to games in the 90s. Unfortunately he recently died a miserable death cutting himself off from the world and not talking to anyone for 20 odd years. But I smile knowing he saw 2021. I became a fanatic in the 2000s when I first met one of my best mates who also happened to be a dees fan and we'd go every week. I've got a lot of friends who don't really "get" sport and can't understand why I'm such a rabid supporter, but I've spent so much time watching Melbourne with people I love.

My Mum took me to the football Round 1 1965. She was a passionate Dees fan and I had no option but to be a Dees fan. Instantly fell in love growing up with, at various times, 29, 26, 24 and 19 on my back. In 69 when Greg Wells came along it was 11. My son as well had no option other than to be a Dees fan. He has been a member since birth. Over the journey there were times when he asked me why have you done this to me. He was up against it being the only Dees fan as a Grammar school in the North/Western suburbs. But he simply loved them and remained loyal. As another poster pointed out 25/9/2021 has wiped away all the misery. It certainly has. We sit together in the tridents and travel interstate together for games which is great fun. The MFC is a real part of the bond we have. We even went and got premiership tattoos. (My only tattoo). I say to people the 21 premiership changed my life forever. Most cannot understand my sentiment.

A Saint and a Demon in one family. I think I read about this in the Bible somewhere.

@Neil Crompton.. well you’ve been keeping this bloody quiet.

I just came across this board one day and started posting.

Yep this is about right but I’d say the feasibility study is more about creating an independent business case for government funding. Caulfield want $$ (lots, apparently) so they’ve both agreed that a feasibility study to ‘determine the benefits to the community’ is a great way to lobby the government for said $$. Smart.

This press release is the equivalent of asking for an extension for your homework. Disappointing that we wasted 5 years on the MCG precinct.

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1477323/melbourne-commences-caulfield-feasibility-study?fbclid=IwAR0WRmWRW5Qg2VShRk9F1SCjpA0YdfcAtAoFx5TDiWOl9QscV_7NF01J60Y_aem_AdEj9PBNrMi2IfQqKbOngHQbnR5zqK1yVbsOyG-b3zVv6tLsSS3zBsH8thmwlbOppHw

latest on it: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/demons-secure-backing-from-caulfield-racecourse-trust-to-press-on-with-new-hq-talks/news-story/3b9d73d7e71ac4f77de8c4f22821aea4

Ask them who their supercoach locks are

Grew up out east and Hawks had a following. There’s colour photo of me wearing Hawthorn jumper early 60s. March 1965 and we’re in town, MSD (Melbourne Sports Depot) Elizabeth Street. Mum had canny eye for bargain, nodded towards a promotional basket of guernseys at 10/6d, saying, “Radar needs new footy jumper”. Guess which one fit. The rest is history. At least I came on board at dawn of our darkest era. Younger brother remains a Hawk. He can’t quite remember all the Premierships he’s seen. The only happy fact out of all this is I was one size too small for the StKilda jumper.

more like "george in the know"

For reasons unknown to me, I was told by my strong Essendon supporting parents, that Melbourne had defeated Essendon to win the Flag in 1948 (which happens to be the year I was born). As the story goes, I was leaning towards the Dees for this reason alone, but the ‘55 Flag sealed the deal, and I’ve been ‘rusted on’ ever since. I was fortunate enough to live through our ‘Glory Years’ as a kid, and I still hold out hope for another era like it in my latter ‘twilight’ years. Unlike me, my three kids and five grand children, were given no choice in the matter. After 2021, I’m sure they have no regrets.

One day on here my grandson will tell the story of how he became a Dees supporter. It was the result of a battle of the grandfathers. One a Don, the better one a Demon. There was a great (friendly) rivalry. The grandson was born only one week after our ‘21 premiership. I couldn’t have any grandson of mine associated with that Essendon mob, so I immediately signed him up as a baby member of the club. He’s a demon for life whether he likes it or not. The other grandfather was pi…d.

Melbourne was in my zone and playing for Edithvale-Aspendale growing up. Greg Healy came to training when he commenced his playing career at Melbourne. Sean Wight did a couple of Football Clinics at my Primary School. There was a Melbourne presence in my suburb in Aspendale growing up. But now Aspendale is very much a suburb of St Kilda supporters now.

If only everyone in Melbourne had such a thought process, our membership would be through the roof! New membership strategy based on this thread: Put a membership delegate at the Irish embassy. Find a way to reach out to influential older siblings in families likely to produce several children (and then occasionally check in to make sure none are secretly harbouring disloyalty!) Have a "give your neighbours a scarf" membership option. (After googling what the "Tarax Show" was) get a Dees player on an episode of Bluey ASAP. Seek out regional/international sporting teams with the same colours and convert on that basis. Reach out to players with short or non-playing careers and cement the friendship for generations to come, so no one can question the validity of their claims. Give junior members money for playground bribery. Start enforcing the "no choice" clause when it comes to house-kicking-out. Pets with red and blue strings attached.

Love the thread 👏 Ferndale park circa 1992. First day of (what was then) VicKick. I had chosen to follow Mum and support the Eagles (vomit) but the old man cunningly chose to put me in his old Dees jumper. When it came to my turn in saying who I barracked for I didn't want to look like an [censored] so said Melbourne. Paid off 30 years later

I should have been a Geelong fan. No one in my family was into football at all, with one exception - my grandfather who was my hero. My dad nominally supported the tigers, but was never a really a fan and wasn't even really a football fan (i went with him to two games - the 1978 Grand Final. I sat right behind Mike Willisee. And the tigers game, I think against the Hawks where Roach took that pack mark screamer). Mum couldn't stand football, or sport for that matter, as much of her youth involved waiting for her dad to finish cricket or football training. My grandfather was a gun footballer. Right before WWII he trained with the Bombers. The war skuppered his VFL career in the short term, but he played representative football in the Army and by all accounts that was a super strong team. After the war there was some VFL interest but he ended up signing for Camberwell in the VFA as they offered him more money than he would have got in the VFL. I'm not sure why he picked the Cats as his team but he wasn't a huge fan of them or the VFL in general. He lived on the Peninsula and never went to the footy, in large part because he played footy well into his 40s so there was no time. We were close, but he never tried to get me on the Cats train. But that might have been because he missed his chance as i became a demon on my 5th birthday. Family friends of ours were huge dees fans. They were the only people we knew who were football crazy like i am now. We went over there for dinner one day sometime around my 5th birthday. For my birthday they gave me a puppy (Patch, coz it had a patch on its eye). But there was strings attached. They also gave me a dees jumper. And the unspoken agreement was that i had to support the dees. I've been a dees tragic ever since. Fair to say the timing wasn't great seeing i got Patch in 1972.

When I was 4 we left Australia and moved to Greece 7 years later my parents decided to move back here. As time approached for a return to Australia Mum started telling me about this great game of Football she grew up with. Her team Melbourne had the best colours in the league she said. She couldn’t wait to take me to a game when we got back here she kept saying and was always talking about this great player in Robbie Flower. No chance you’d find a footy in Athens during the 80s so mum showed me how to handball using a plush dog, apparently it was the closest thing resembling a footy. We returned in 1988, first game mum and her mad Melbourne brother took me to was against the Eagles that year at the G. Hooked ever since.

I arrived in Australia back in 2015. I am originally from Mexico. I am a sports junkie so of course I started to check the local "eccenttric" sports (eccentric to me at least 😬). Found AFL and started following in 2016. Then 2017 comes and I decided I had to choose a team, and the natural choice for me was the Demons since my hometown's soccer team nickname is Red Devils. Besides I love the colours 💙♥️.

Came over from Ireland about 15 years ago.After learning about Jim Stynes and all he had done on and off the field it was a pretty easy choice to follow the Dees

In my little hometown of Whyalla, South Aus i played for South Whyalla Demons and the SANFL i followed the Norwood Redlegs. So i always had a leniency to the red and the blue, but never followed the AFL super closely. But then a good friend of mine (Issac Weetra) was drafted to the Dees which sealed my loyalty and on going membership.

I was seven years old and it was at the matinee session of our local cinema where they used to play Cinesound Movietone newsreels (boring) and cartoons (yay) before the feature film. On this occasion, they showed colour footage of a Melbourne v Collingwood game and I was simply entranced by the red and blue of our guernsey. I was hooked and became a Demon supporter, despite urgings from my old man (Collingwood), brothers (Footscray and North Melbourne) and neighbours (Essendon and South Melbourne). It was late 1964. Had I known it would be a 57 year wait for a flag, I may have reconsidered.

I was born in 1976, and my dad was a demon supporter. His dad was a demon supporter too. So was his dad. I don’t know about his dad. Needless to say, my 2 kids (teenagers) are Melbourne supporters too.

No blueblood Demon dynasty in my family affiliations l’m afraid. Reason l’m a Dees supporter is probably due to Dr Don Cordner, giving a group of young neophyte nurses tickets to attend the footy at the ‘G. My mother was training to be a nurse at the Royal Women’s Hospital Melbourne at the time and was a recipient of of Don Cordner’s largesse. Fast forward to the Ronald Dale’s appearances on the Tarax Show live at the Channel 9 Studio in Richmond. Although the only time l saw him play was at Princess Park, my Dad was a Blues supporter. Of my three daughters only the youngest is a true red and blue Demon. But we both enjoyed the pleasurable catharsis from MFCSS by attending the 2021 Grand Final together.

Like other family ties. Grandad played two games for the Dees in 1927. Went on to captain the Zebras and had some success there.

My maternal grandma arrived in Perth from England and decided on the Dees because they were winning. 7 or so years later, she moved to Melbourne and became one of the first women members of the MFC! Growing up, my siblings and I learnt it was best to avoid mum after a bad loss because she'd be so grumpy. As I've gotten older (and we've become more successful), I've adopted that grumpiness as my own. We're the most superstitious about games in the family (and accidentally missed the Bamg Bang Bang of 2021 because we skipped the final 3 mins of that quarter to go pack the dishwasher / toilet the dogs... reinforcement that us watching was the issue). Dad's a Dee supporter too - but I don't know how that came about given everyone else in his family follows Carlton. As a kid, I used to think the "keep your eyes on the red and the blues" in our song referred to Carlton being our second team because of this haha

All this thread had told me is that I'm probably the youngest person on here.

Was a Hawks supporter until Grade 3. Made a bet with my Grade 3 teacher - who was a fanatical Melbourne supporter - that I'd follow the team that won the H&A game between Hawthorn and Melbourne. Round 7, 1988 changed my life. For good or bad, ill leave that up to you all.

Similar storey asked when 5 who I barracked for. Two snotty nosed little brothers with missing teeth said you only follow them cos they’re on top. Always assumed they were Collingwood. and the big boy in the flat next door would have hit me if I said anything other than Melbourne. Like other’s history. never thought about changing.

I followed my dad, he loved Checker Hughes, Norm Smith and the whole Romance of RDB Junior he had a lot of passion for the MFC. My older brother went for the Bombers but I have stayed with the Dees through thick and thin, whereas my dad followed RDB to the Blues and znorth. Unreal Lol.!!