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A half forward line of Jones/Baker/ANB has the stench of a premiership written all over it

I'd rather go and be disappointed, than not go at all and maybe miss the only opportunity to go to live game all year. This time last year I went to practise match v North at Arden, followed by All Stars game at Marvel. We all know what happened after that... ? So yeah, while I can go I will!

I don't think it's about the club itself, or that it exists. Some people might be upset about the membership thing there, but that doesn't seem to be the issue. I believe the issue is the MFC's official involvement in a function at a place with such rules. This is the club that initially championed the AFLW, a club that a week or so ago was patting itself on the back over its title change to president under the apparent guise of being more inclusive; and a club with some of the finest female football ambassadors in the land; who would not be able to attend this function unless they were given permission to do so by a man. The Australian Club can do whatever they want whether we agree or not, but the MFC aligning itself with a venue with the rules it has is a massive hypocrisy when looking at how its tried to position itself from a brand/values perspective in recent times. For mine, just another example at how much we've lacked proper direction since Bartlett has put himself front and centre.

I'm a female member and am not losing sleep. The choice of venue is up to the coterie. As long as it is a mixed event I don't have much of a problem with it. Sure the optics aren't great: male member only club, stuffy establishment types etc etc. but are the optics enough for our leaders to refuse to attend? Should they refuse to attend a fan function at a female member only club? Most would say they should go to be inclusive and help support the female fan cause. I simply do not feel comfortable for decisions based on 'optics' without considering the substance, especially if based on an article which doesn't give the full picture and to me implies exclusion of and a lack of respect for women.

Some of you dweebs must seriously struggle to get out of bed every morning with all of this oppression to deal with.

i'm not defending an essentially social club having a no women policy and i wouldn't become a member if my wife couldn't be a member. but, it doesn't worry me one iota if it exists. people have a choice to congregate with whoever they like. the coterie club are presumably just booking it because it best fits its purpose as a venue and its membership is inconsequential except for those who are always jumping at shadows and desperate to virtue signal get a life, people p.s. congratulations, you guessed correctly

Just wanted to share what I won in a raffle today. Perfect to keep the beers cold although I could never useday

Interview by Riley Beveridge.

I found myself curious about where exactly on the spread of this discussion one finds people blowing this thing out of proportion, seeing gender conspiracies everywhere, contriving outrage, fantasizing about slippery slope catastrophes and just generally being bizarrely passive-aggressive?

Bartlett 22/2: “We want to be inclusive with our members and although perhaps a small thing; it was really important to some people; symbolic that we would engage, listen and act on this.” A sample of some female supporter sentiment on social media 6/3-7/3: "Typical boy’s club mentality. It only took the MCC 212 years to allow women into the Long Room!" "I have no problems with Men’s/Women’s Clubs. I just think in this scenario, the venue is inappropriate, especially when you are trying to encourage more females to get involved, become members and feel welcomed and inclusive, as the oldest VFL/AFL Club; set an example." "The MFC is holding an event at a place that I am not welcome as a member. That is not appropriate. Nor would it be appropriate to hold it at a place where men were not welcome. There is a difference between being welcome and being tolerated. It is unfortunate that so many people seem to miss that point." "I’m appalled by this decision. It sends a completely wrong message about the club. I do not want to belong to a club where a supporters’ group excludes women. Sexism needs to be called out! Change the venue now." "The Australia Club is one of the last (maybe the last?) ‘gentlemen’s’ clubs where membership is ‘men-only’. Its image is one of elitism and male privilege and not a good look for an MF club event, even if women can attend as ‘visitors’." "This is very disappointing when the club has been such supporters of women’s football." "There are many venues that welcome males & females equally. I am not a member of the Coterie but if I was I would not be attending this event at a Male only membership club. No the club are not running it however by key personnel attendance they are supporting it." Be interesting to see how much Bartlett chooses to listens to our members when it doesn't involve him giving himself a more flashy title.

I’ll listen to the views of our female members (and happy to be corrected) but I doubt if many of them are losing too much sleep because they can’t join a musty old boys club. Trust me ladies, you're not missing anything. Like plenty of similar clubs their membership is aging and dwindling. Let nature take its course. I think there are more pressing problems to deal with such as building our home base and getting our team to win footy matches.

I’m outraged and not just on behalf of women who are excluded from this particular venue, but what about the other 55 genders? Enough is enough!

I’m not usually an annoying pedantic person but the article can not infer anything, it can only imply. The inference is made by the individual reading it. sorry, had to get that off my chest carry on

Best to see how Jones, Neal-Bullen and Vandenburg measure up earlier rather than later. We're resting players and trying players. Sensible course of action and giving a couple of key players a rest is fine with me. The result of this match is immaterial in the long-term.

All four of Bowey. Petty, Laurie and Bedford were very exciting last week in the 2nds... deserved their call up.

Way to go! Never show your complete hand in practice matches!!!

FB: Neville Jetta, Steven May, Adam Tomlinson HB: Trent Rivers, Jake Lever, Jayden Hunt C: Ed Langdon, James Harmes, Tom McDonald HF: Nathan Jones, Oskar Baker, Alex Neal-Bullen FF: Charlie Spargo, Luke Jackson, Bayley Fritsch RR: Max Gawn, James Jordon, Christian Petracca INT: Aaron vandenBerg, Tom Sparrow, Jay Lockhart, Kade Chandler, Toby Bedford, Jake Bowey, Bailey Laurie, Harrison Petty Emergencies: Kysaiah Pickett, Fraser Rosman, Angus Brayshaw, Austin Bradtke AAMI Community Series | Dees name 26-man squad

Oliver out with general soreness (sounds like just resting) Salem out with hamstring tightness, which is no good. He’s had issues with hamstrings before. Hopefully nothing a rest can’t fix.

I think this has more to do with where he lives, rather than where we train. Plenty of people have turned down jobs due to travel, but you can bet if we had been the only club in the race, he’d be doing it happily

The timing of this is shocking and probably most of the reason it has become headline news, rather than an overlooked footnote in the AFL clubland social callendar. That doesn't change the fact that it's dumb and poor/weak leadership for club officials to accept the invite in the first place. That the likes of Pert and Bartlett didn't know of the venue organization's exclusive male only policy beggars belief. Smart and strong leaders would have politely refused the invite unless an alternate venue was offered on the grounds that it went against the clubs values. Forget the public perception issue, this kind of double standard is corrosive to club culture.

with oliver, jones, brayshaw, harmes, plus trac wanting midfield time, there was clearly no place for him anymore has had a rotten run with injury at north, hopefully he's back to his best for them...except against us

I think that it’s a great venue and one of the best spaces in Melbourne. I am sure that the Club also considered the alternatives of the (women-only) Alexandria Club or the (women-only) Lyceum Club before deciding that the Aussie was the size best suited for the event!

Which reminds me of the irony of trump jnr 'writing' a book called triggered about triggering the snowflake left. Ironic because he and his dad and most of his acolytes gets so beserkley triggered at the drop of a hate (eg donnies response to karl rove and the wall Street journal). And the irony of the Republicans, the party of freedom of the individual, bleating about the evils of cancel culture when anyone who doesn't toe the trump line or has the temerity to vote on conscience get torn to shreds and in some cases censured by their party.

"Overall, Melbourne’s issue has been that they are a team that is less than the sum of their parts, less than the accumulated output of individuals." Beautifully put Jake.

Just drinking straight out of the bottle. That's what this club reduces us to.....

The same forward line that just kicked 14 goals against Richmond?

So don’t live in Greenvale.

I bin hanging out all day on this sleepy Sunday. You'd think I had nothing else in my life.Where's The Team????

The club has continued to be positive about getting a training base at Gosch's established. If it didn't work out and we were at Casey more consistently then instead of worrying about it as a negative we should look to turn it to a positive. Casey is half an hour from Mt Eliza and Mornington and not too much further from a lot of the rest of the Mornington Peninsula. The Dandy Stingrays talent to come out of the Peninsula - Jones, Hibberd, Tom Lynch, Hunter Clark, Whitfield, Weitering, Hammill, Sam Sturt, Hayden Young etc rivals that of the Geelong area. AFL players like to party for a few years then like to settle down somewhere cruisy, surf and chill out. That's what gives Geelong such a recruiting advantage. Gawny has pioneered the way to live down on the Peninsula. The best option is Gosch's, but if it came to it Casey could be a selling point for the club if we did it correctly.

We’re in: 6th melb 16 / 125.7 7th dogs 16 / 107.3

Anyone heading to Whitten oval for the early game? Might just make the trip to see Gus and a few others run around.

His marriage was breaking up...tough times for all concerned.

Exactly, so if he never played for Essendon he probably wouldn’t live out there. If I lived in Bayside or the eastern suburbs I’d much rather drive to Casey than Tullamarine.

It is a Coterie Function, not MFC If they wish to meet there, fine. Just don’t put the heat on the Club, which is exactly what has happened

I disagree. Bartlett and Pert are the story, particularly during the AFLW season. the facts have been reported, whether you or i agree. it is just a stupid thing to do

I will sleep just fine when this event goes ahead. You will be the one laying in bed grinding your teeth. Deal with that hey.

ok let's tar and feather bartlett or better still cancel the elite, privileged, sexist [censored] let's pass a law that all decisions be ratified by the chattering class on social media there, that sounds like a good solution

Labor day. Public holiday.

You are right with that, don't know how they manage to function at all.

and i suppose there would be quite a few australians grossly offended by the cultural appropriation of "A" in AFL lol.....first world problems think i'll cheer myself by going out and burning all my dr seuss books......no wait a moment that would be climatically irresponsible releasing all that carbon. looks like i'll have to dig a deep hole to sequester all that poison.

I’m less bullish on Geelong after last night. Will still get enough freebies at pork barrel park to make finals , but I think the new rules might catch out their slow ball movement game style. They looked slow last night.

Errrrr nothing. Tony Tea originally said the article was insinuating it was the club, I pointed out the first line of the article made it clear it wasn't. Not sure the grasping failure is anywhere but in your own mind mate.

Yes rjay, I loved his enthusiasm with people, very social, loved the music scene, though understood little about actual music (I have stories about that too if you're interested). Yes I loved his sense of loyalty too. One day we were chatting in his office after numerous years apart overseas. He said, "We've fallen straight into talking together how we did when we spoke every day!" His memory was fantastic. We both remembered the same details from back in the day.

gross? love the hyperbole.... you will run out of adjectives when you have a real problem.....sheesh

The all-important AAMI Community Series Ladder (you probably won’t see it anywhere else) Hawthorn 1 - - 120 81 148.1 4 St Kilda 1 - - 125 99 126.3 4 Geelong 1 - - 79 72 109.7 4 Richmond 1 - - 80 74 108.1 4 Collingwood - 1 - 74 80 92.5 0 Essendon - 1 - 72 79 91.1 0 Carlton - 1 - 99 125 79.2 0 North Melbourne- 1 - 81 120 67.5 0

Preach, binman. And back to the original thread, inclusive practices / actions really aren’t that hard. Just a *tiny* bit of thought in planning. Other than the venue fail, why didn’t they invite a couple of higher profile female players to guest speak? If you start from a place of including others, it’s no drama at all. And most of the time ends up being a better gig anyway!

Your profile name and photo is offensive. Luke Jackson is not and was not a member of the Jackson family and to suggest otherwise is cultural appropriation. I hope you put your hands up and realise it wasn't the best choice and change it.

The ABC is a pitiful 'news' service. Your tax dollars at work, folks. Hope the lads enjoy the event.

We are no different to the racists at Collingwood or the exposed culture of entrenched sexism and misogyny on Capital Hill. Much of society, and by extension, the MFC, is completely blind, and contributing to, the normalisation of the abuse of women. This subtle but pervasive structurally embedded sexism is the personification of male power and control, which of course, is the root cause of gender inequality that manifests as domestic violence, rape, sexual exploitation, unequal pay and a plethora of other abuses. We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated and patriarchal symbols such as the Australian Club are used to raise funds for our beloved club.

Bit of a non story. Coterie hires a venue, someone does not like it.