Dr Don Duffy

Did someone mention me…? Bah humbug!!!

Thanks George. I did see the posts of a particular poster in this regard, and a quite disgraceful thread opened by the same individual attacking mods, who it should be said do terrific voluntary work keeping this site going that is dedicated to our great club. Demonland’s own Inspector Clouseau should be ashamed of themself. However, I will give some personal information on myself. I am a lifelong Demon and I channel the spirit of Dr Don Duffy, the president who took over just before our previous flag and sat in the driver’s seat for years. Under his watch we went from having an administration that was the envy of every other club to become a long term league laughing stock. Complacency and sustained mediocrity did us in. I know this because my Pa kept complaining about it down the decades as I grew up, with late career Robbie Flower the only redeeming feature in going to the footy for a young Demon kid like me. I don’t barrack for particular boards or CEOs. (Although I do have an enduring crush on Peter Jackson, for obvious reasons). I can’t believe the board cheer squads on here. To quote M. Blight, I don’t give a fat rat’s clacker about board members (past, current and prospective), and particularly those who just want to build their CV on the back of being on our board. What I do care about is the board getting on with one of its key jobs: ensure we have an outstanding CEO. Give someone of Tom Harley’s quality a godfather offer. Do something. That is where we have been so mediocre and it is so critical to success. That’s what I’m barracking for, as well as our teams on the field, of course.

Gee! That post, and your subsequent posts on the same point, are a little like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs: impressive feat of research, but of no particular use to anybody. @RickyD can speak for himself, and has done so quite eloquently in reply. Here’s a thought: what about considering the merits of whether or not we have a high-performing administration, rather than going down barren, conspiracy theory cul de sacs?

Flattery will get you…somewhere!

So they say that umpiring standards have gone downhill. Have a look at the video just after 36.45 - Melbourne player kicks the “winning” goal from continuous play, then umpire brings play back for a ball up! Wow! My Pa used to go on about this incident, and now I’ve finally got to see it. Thanks, @Wilson7. I also see that the umpire was Frank Schwab, father of Peter and uncle of our very own Cameron Schwab.

SD, as I said in a previous post I was able to access his phone number when he first ran for the board. Feel free to PM me for the details if you want to make contact with him.

SD, as I indicated in my previous post the only option for Lawrence was to institute the court proceedings that he did. The alternative was to do nothing and leave the bad practices in place. I understand that some senior people have sought to mediate between him and the board, but the board has not been open to such mitigation although Lawrence was happy to participate. Lawrence has been proven right by the outcomes in his decisions, but the board’s decision-making has been poor. They have essentially folded to most of his requests after the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of our dollars. My understanding is that Lawrence offered to pay the court costs for the Supreme Court case that he won in 2022 (another case that totally shouldn’t have been contested by the club, given the clear state of the law on the issue that was contested). However the club rejected that offer, and soon after that Pert told Lawrence that the club would not accept any more donations from him. Shameful behaviour, and nicely done on our behalf by them. More poor decision-making. For heaven’s sake, a good board would take control of the situation, manage it and use Lawrence’s energy and commitment rather than continually punching on with him.

Edit

DD, I think the thing to consider to give some perspective here is your point about “the way he has gone about it”. It seems pretty clear that the board has taken the bully approach in dealing with Mr Lawrence. They have denied any requests at conciliation to alter their poor governance practices until forced to under the pressure of litigation. They have effectively thought they would make him blink by staring him down. That he has had the resources to call their bluff and actually achieve nearly all of his suggested changes is a massive indictment of the board and a big tick for Lawrence in getting better outcomes for the club. I don’t like bullies, and I particularly don’t like bullies who use hundreds of thousands of dollars of my club’s funds on court cases that should not have got that far and that had little merit. To put it another way, @Demon Disciple, I actually applaud Lawrence for not just accepting the “Just nick off!” approach by the board. We need people who are prepared to stand up and see it through to getting good outcomes. That’s actually in the bailiwick of “good culture”. Heaven forbid that we should be wandering in to that territory! I actually find it quite disheartening to see the vilification of Mr Lawrence by some posters. I’ve taken the trouble to engage with him on these matters, being able to access his phone number when he first stood for the board. Do yourself a favour: PM me and I’ll give you his contact details, and engage with him personally to see the cut of his jib - it’s more than we get from most of the “cordon me off from the great unwashed” board members we’ve had over the journey. Don’t just pot him without engaging him.

Translation?

“Mirror mirror, on the wall….” Agree with the edited version, particularly the last sentence.

A later report from Jay Clark says that Pert is going to be overseeing the review, along with Shand and Green. After Pert’s running commentary on things expect a “nothing to see here” report. Either that or the boot-studders and water-bottle carriers are going to be in big trouble to carry the can.

Wouldn’t have been the metaphor that I would have reached for at first instance in the circumstances, but hey - to each their own!

I’ll tell you what I do know is that both Roffey and Pert have been sadly not up to scratch in their public utterances. If a fair dinkum review (not just run by them) were to be conducted and found that “behind the scenes” they were great, I would assess the quality of the outcome of the report accordingly. To paraphrase John Maynard Keynes, if circumstances change I may need to change my view. What do you do?

Not sure how do answer that, wayne. A former president did preside over our slide into mediocrity (actually, I craved rising to mediocrity during the decades that followed 1965!). “Slash and burn” isn’t on my wishlist, and while the Peter Jackson did lead us out of the wilderness, he was not allowed to savour the fruits of his work and continue his good work. I think you have put a false paradigm there.

What I can say, Hdm, is that I will continue to support our club, as I have since I can remember as a 5yo. Boards and senior management come and go, and we have to hold them to account as we do the FD and the players who represent our beloved team. Your opening proposition is a little difficult to answer as a hypothetical as I would be surprised if a proper review didn’t recommend personnel change.

You’ll be surprised to know that my polestar in matters-MFC is Dr Don Duffy. Dr Don presided over our decline from the most dominant team in the history of the code (10 flags in 25 years) to the wilderness wanderers we became for decades. When others became innovative and proactive we became complacent and irrelevant. I don’t want that to happen again. I want a proper review of our operations. If you’re not getting better, you’re going backwards. We could certainly get better, on recent evidence.

So Pert was a good footballer. Big deal. Brian Cook was a modest player, playing a few games for us in the 70s, but has been a great CEO at 3 clubs. I want someone of Cook’s calibre as our CEO so we can let Pert have more time in his pool room to polish his trophies and decorations. Ability to kick the pigskin around is irrelevant as to quality of leadership at senior executive level. We’re talking about a bloke whose conduct during the AGM was very poor, and who famously came out and told us our culture was the best he’d seen in a footy club in 40 years. And where’s our Strategic Plan that was promised to be delivered back in February? These are the publicly visible shortfalls in performance. I’d be thinking about icebergs and wondering about the level of performance on things we don’t have visibility on. As to CEO of two flag teams, the first one would be under Maguire as effective executive president, and the second would be where he Steven Bradbury’d in to be CEO of the House that PJ Built. As a CEO he’s probably a good footballer. By all means maintain your cheerleader allegiance to him, but I’ll be barracking for our club to have the best leadership we can get.

You pride yourself on talking to players/FD staff/officials. In a number of posts your tone about Peter Lawrence has been quite, well nasty really. I assume you haven’t taken the time to talk to or contact Peter Lawrence? I have found him to be an affable person and happy to engage with fellow Demon tragics. It’s not hard to make contact with him, and you might learn something.

Yes, and it’s significant that those three “highly successful” recent eras were overseen by outstanding CEOs and quality boards. It does matter.

Absolutely! After all, the board and senior management of the club is totally not responsible for the actual business of the organisation, they are just there to, well…whatever! When you have the “best football culture I’ve seen in 40 years in football” sprouted by our Best in Show CEO we should all be sleeping soundly!

You have been a reasonable and fair correspondent on these matters, FFD, and I can see why you would say that. Two points I would make here are that he has been active on these matters of better governance for a number of years now (and his efforts have been responsible for meaningful change in that regard, for which we should be grateful), so it’s not as though he’s coming out of the blue; and secondly (and related to that), the board came out with a very poor email within an hour of the handing down of the Federal Court decision, and I can see why he would see the need to provide some correction to that material. Not suggesting that this is your motive FFD, but politicians and those wishing to avoid scrutiny trot out the phrase “Now is not the time to…(insert name of action that’s needed)”, generally when there is a bit of crisis around, which is often exactly the time where a clear-headed and external review is needed.

Paraphrasing US election VP candidate Tim Walz: “Weird post!”

Good to see the board cheer squad out in full force. Disingenuous email from Roffey. Let’s have a look at the balance sheet since the Peter Jackson-built team roared to premiership glory in 2021. Looking first at the Peter Lawrence score, he sought to bring the constitution within cooee of 21st century governance principles. He did at least cause term limits for directors and electronic voting to come into being. In the current matter, he did ask the board to amend the provisions of the election rules that were poor governance. When they refused he commenced proceedings in the Federal Court. Should never had come to this, but they then proceeded to jettison 4 out of 5 of the offending provisions as the case proceeded. So why did they spend hundreds of thousands maintaining a defence against the indefensible? Our money, Ralph. That was after blowing another small fortune in the Supreme Court on a previous matter that had a poor prognosis of success. Again, we got to the same outcome that could have been achieved without the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of our dollars. Turning to the board’s record, apart from the above, we were told that our home base in the MCG precinct is a “non-negotiable”; any questions about progress on this were met with “Can’t talk, commercial in confidence”. After kicking that can down the road at various AGMs we pop up with the “Let’s go to Caulfield” idea. And at the AGM we were told that our next Strategic Plan would be out in February. Crickets on that front as we move to September. This is a board and senior management that only reacts when it gets a metaphorical cattle prod to its body, and then claims proactivity in getting to the result that they are forced into. After spending lots of our money. Yes, All Hail Roffey and Pert. Personally I cheer for the footy love of my life, the Dees, not board members who over the journey have been “here today, gone tomorrow”.