Rodney (Balls) Grinter

I'd much prefer both given that Gaff would have been a free hit through FA and it wasn't one or the other.

I can't say I'd ever watched a full game of reserves footy, but always appreciated getting there from around half time of the ressies onwards for the reasons raised above. It was much easier to casually watch and observe the individual performance of players, in a relaxed way, without getting too worked up about the scores/result. Good to see the young kids developing, how players comming back from injury/poor form were looking for the next week, or to hang it on an out of form nemesis from the opposition who'd been dropped.

Agree with the above and whilst I think local residents views both for and against are important, I've been thinking that one thing that certainly shouldn't be discounted are the view of us MFC supporters as well. As MFC supporters, we are still part of the comunity and pretty important stakeholders regardless of living in the city council/local area or not. Even though I now live interstate, I still feel a real affiliation for the MFC and Yarra Park area and really don't like 'Plan B' options anywhere near as much, because let's face it, they are further from our home the mighty G, further from the range of public transport options and generally inferior. ...and their are over 40,000 MFC members + more non member supporters. This precinct doesn't just belong to the local residents, there is a degree to which it belongs to all of us. I don't want to go as far as saying that the MFC has some kind of 'native title' to this area, because there is nothing like that level of cultural/spiritual equivalence. However, I do also think that the MFC has a significant historical association with this location and that shouldn't count for nothing either when it comes to planning approval considerations.

Surely with all the coin that the AFL have been prepared to throw at the expansion clubs a bit of funding from them would be a reasonable thing. As for some of the others, like Melbourne City Council, the Victorian and National Governments and even the MCC to an extent and surely they need to reconise the cultural and heritage importance and significance of the MFC and that the club really needs a proper permanent facility around the location of it's historical birthplace and namesake to survive and prosper into the future. Some important negioation, politicing and promotion of the MFC cause to be done by Pert, Bartlett and Co to be done over the next few years I think. Melbourne members and supporters can and should be part of that push.

The opposition to the potential MFC training facility at Yarra Park by some of the local residents assioation has been well highlighted in this thread and is certainly something that the club will need to work on/with. However, it was also interesting listening to the Glen Bartlett interview that one of the things he said is that there was actually a shortage of playing feilds in the area. What I'm reading into that is that is that the MFC needs to build support and alliances with some of the local sporting clubs in the area to them behind the proposal. That kind of local community support would help ballance out the disgruntled resident types by demonstrating real mutual comunity benifit. I recon it's a case of watch this space.

I agree with others views such as @binman and @Lucifer's Hero that a meeting place for members/fans/supporters is important. If we segway to the other thread about rebuilding the MFC as a great club again, then great club's are based around people and I think that bringing together all our people and building a sense of belonging is vital to that. I hear the sentiments of those like @Sir Why You Little that not all MCC members are the wealthy toff types and that stereotyping and segregating MFC supporters is not the way to go. Thus a truely universal social facility that brings together MFC & MFC/MCC members under the one roof would be a good outcome. I 've never been an MCC member myself, but for most of my life I've been a MFC member - presently an interstate one. When in my youth a real highlight of our home games going to the footy was attending the 'Demons Club' (I think that's what it use to be called) in one of the function rooms in bouls of the old Northern stand. I recall it having a bit of a mix of MFC and MCC supporters, they put on a good spread of nibbles and it was a great family atmosphere. In my view that's the kind of thing we need to rebuild as a cultural institution of the MFC and it would be good if that could encompass all of the Redleg Club (which I recall as being more of a MCC crowd, but could well be wrong), Demon Army, standard rank and file MFC members together in one spot. Perhaps that's actually the kind of thing which could provide the value to some of the MCC members to join as combined MFC members.

Maaan 100 days. That is sooo long.

Yeah, ok, kinda makes sense. I was thinking that every club got some allocation of GF tickets regardless of their team playing and that he was after one of those. Personally I'd have little interest in going to a GF and buying another clubs membership just to watch a random GF.

My point is that they are absolute puss at the moment and we are on the up and up. They seemed to really struggle to put bums on seats this season and I would have thought that would also have translated to their membership, but clearly it seems they have a fairly substantial base of welded on members/suporters. I really think it should be possible for us to climb above them, at least temporarily over the next few years, particularly if they stay mired in mediocrity or worse and from there you never know. We really need to get in early as a club, build momentum and translate that finals type attendance/support into memberships early.

It would look to be a fairly real possibility at the moment, but I actually hope GC do survive and go on to bigger and better things. I think there lack of membership numbers at the moment would be related to their poor onfeild performance, but also possibly another hang over from last season, when the didn't play many games at Carrara due to the Comm Games. I do think it would be good for the growth Aussie Rules footy in general in Qld for the Suns to be successful, because living in Brisbane, I know there is a genuinely strong presence of grass roots footy on the Gold Coast, although I also understand that top level teams from different codes have also successively failed and folded there. One differentiator though I think is that the other codes (soccer and rugby league) haven't had either the finacial resources or long term commitment to keep unfinancial teams going there more than a few years. If the AFL can hang in there long enough for the Suns to have some on feild sucess, it could be key to growth and more established presence of Aussie Rules in this part of Queensland, by being the dominant locally present professional team.

Interesting strategy, though I'd rather buy a GC membership myself for several reasons.

Some might be just interstate, 3 game members etc and not every member will want to go to every game (except during finals) but you certainly have a point. The problem of popularity and sucess I guess. The club's might need to look at preallocating particular games between its members, although games against interstate clubs wouldn’t be so bad. Still I'd like us to be in that position, because as some have pointed out, I see it panning out as a bit of an arms race in this respect at the moment, which could result in one of the lesser Vic sides be squeezed out of the,competition and/or being forced to relocate. At the end of the day, being an interstate member, the purpose of my membership these days is more or less altruistic, I just want to see the club do well ...oh and I want to be there when we win a flag, which is why I purchased one of the grand final garentee memberships at the start of this season. I do think that the strategy PJ started of trying to attract the new arrivals to Melbourne to the club is a good idea and an area where the MFC should have a small natural advantage through the name Melbourne. It would be interesting to know how much fruit this campaign might have brought us, but I think it's something that would require quite alot of nurturing of those being brought along to games, because you are not only trying to sell them the club, but also introduce them to the game it's self.

We at least need to get above Carlton. Must say, I'm a little suprised to see GWS now have more members than Brisbane as for a long time GWS had figures more like the Suns. Could easily change if the on-feild fortunes of these sides respectively change. https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/sport/afl/afl-membership-ladder-tigers-set-to-reach-100-000-once-again-as-suns-bottom-out-20181207-p50ktp.html MEMBERSHIP LADDER Adelaide (77,504)* Richmond (74,110) Hawthorn (60,007) West Coast (59,800) Essendon (51,011) Fremantle (44,293) Port Adelaide (42,723) Geelong (41,034) Carlton (38,965) Melbourne (30,096) Sydney (29,046) North Melbourne (26,921) Western Bulldogs (26,855) St Kilda (25,500) Greater Western Sydney (13,814) Brisbane (12,974) Gold Coast (5894) * Includes non-financial "We Fly as One" members. ** Collingwood refused to divulge their figures

Talking personally, it's not that I have any professional concerns with him in that capacity and I agree entirely with your remarks on him leaving etc, doesn't really bother me and I thought the way he addressed that question in his interview with Wheatly was very convincing (as he was on most topics). It's more that because he was with Collingwood for so long and along with Eddy often had a very public and parochial pro Collingwood, stuff the rest of the competition stance on things it takes a bit to get that out of your head. It will be a bit different at Melbourne, because obviously we don't quite have the same power base as he had at Collingwood, but thinking about what I just stated, I'm somewhat looking forward to now having him on our side and for GP going in to bat hard for the MFC.

I like how he pretty emphatically stated that the moment he got the job he became a 100% Melbourne supporter and didn't really give much attention to any other clubs. I think the stench of the filth of his Collingwood days has been hanging around Pert for many Melbourne supporters (I count myself in this boat to some small extent). Something that I try to think of whenever the thought of Pert as a filthy ex Collingwood person enters my mind is that Pert is Roosy's mate from Fitzroy and helps the black and white [censored] go away. Anyway, Gary Pert is our man now, his heart beating true for the Red and Blue and we need to get behind him and by extension the club as Demons supporters.

To me I heard it more as the later, that we shouldn't be aiming to mimic any of the other clubs. There wasn't any Collingwood this and Hawthorn that, this is what those clubs do well and we want to become like that... History is obviously part of the uniqueness of a club, but I agree it can be overemphasized at times. On reflection, I actually think PJ started the ball rolling in the right direction on this topic, but Pert has made the right impression on me as well.

“I don’t want Melbourne to be more like any other club. I want Melbourne to be more like Melbourne – it’s a great club with a great history, but we need to re-engage the people.” I love it. I know in some respects these are just cheap words, a bit of a throw away line and that the real test is can it be turned into actions that make a lasting positive difference, but I do really like the sentiment and substance behind the statement as well. Time to rebuild some pride and respect back for the MFC and stop living in the shadow of the 'power clubs' of the AFL.

It wasn't that long ago that we would be limping over the line to crack the 30K mark in July or August or whenever the cut-off date is. Great work MFC and Demons supporters keep them coming. Always good to welcome new and returning members on board the D- train.

Agree and plus this - https://www.sen.com.au/news/2018/12/03/are-hinkley-and-pyke-the-coaches-under-the-most-pressure-in-2019/ Now, I don't think Goodwin has show any signs of wanting out/go home, but if we don't get this extension right, then the hungry crow eaters could well come a knocking on his door.

Max Gawn to get back to his best and produce the most dominant season for a ruckman in the modern era, but miss out on a Brownlow medal to some seagul midfielder. ... oh wait, that was this year!

So if all of the MFC, Geelong and Hawthorn miss finals who do you have making finals in their place, given many have also put Sydney as a team on the slide and at rusk of missing?

Oooooh, that would be sweet.

Wow. From clearly missing the top 8 with the aid of the leagues easiest draw to now making top 4. What's he smoking in his pipe?

Lol. Love the analogy Colin. Inspector Gadget - now that takes me back! I must say I'm being a bit of fence sitter on this one. But I also sense where you and others are comming from. It's almost like the club needs to do something with Pert to break the ice, because there almost seems to be a bit of an awkward silence. ...but at the same time, the more that is made of this situation, the bigger it becomes when I really don't think there is much to see, except for some past clumsiness in announcing that he had the job as CEO. I'm quite happy to wait it out and see how it all pans out in good time. So long as we keep winning and the club makes a profit , I suspect Melbourne supporters will warm to Pert in due course. Will probably love the bloke if he can pull off the right deal and get the job done, delivering our new headquarters. Similarly if we win a flag with him as CEO, I think we will all look back and think what was the fuss about his appointment at the start.

Did Santa Claus bring you all the toys you asked for as a kid Werridee? ?