Flying Cloud

There is a hole in the Adelaide's logic. They are presuming that Todd has ambitions of remaining an assistant coach at Adelaide for years to come. Jack can stay in Adelaide with his Dad while he finishes year 12 by doing nothing, and next year make a call on whether to put his name down for the father son rule. Every chance his dad may be looking at moving at some stage anyway and Jack has only been in Adelaide for 12 months. He must have other family and friends in Melbourne anyway. By choosing the GWS-Adelaide option he could end up in Adelaide in 2012 without his family, or even worse if the deal only hald happened he could end up in Sydney at GWS wihtout family or friends.

What arrogance of the Essendon Football Club. Holding their press conference while another match is still being payed. Apart from compulsory post match coach's press conferences this has to be a 1st. Essendon deserves to be in the situation they are, if they think that is acceptable behaviour.

For prosperity.... 88,115

And this ..... Stadium Capacity The total capacity of the MCG is approximately 100,000. This comprises 95,000 seats and 5000 standing room spaces, which are sold at the discretion of the event promoter. However, the realistic capacity for most events is usually between 98,000 and 99,000 as often not all standing room tickets are placed on sale.

From the MCG Web Site... 1,153,000 15-day aggregate for 1956 Games (an Olympic record) 350,534 Record Test match attendance (third Test 1936-37 over six days) 130,000 Billy Graham crusade, 1959 (Est.) 121,690 VFL Grand Final, Carlton v Collingwood, 1970 120,000 Final ceremony Eucharistic Congress, 1973 (Est.) 100,012 AFL Grand Final, Hawthorn v Geelong, 2008 99,256 VFL first round match 1958 (Melbourne v Collingwood) 90,800 Record daily cricket attendance Aust v West Indies 1961 90,119 Bledisloe Cup rugby union (Australia v New Zealand) 1997 89,155 Boxing Day Test, Australia v England, 2006 (Day 1) 87,182 World Cup Final, Pak vs Eng, 1992 (Then world record limited-overs attendance) 87,161 State-of-Origin rugby league (NSW v Queensland) 1994 85,513 World Cup Soccer Qualifier (Australia v Iran), 1997 84,041 Twenty20 International, Australia v India, 2008 80,518 Sound Relief Concert, 2009 43,125 Record Australian domestic cricket crowd, Twenty20, Vic v Tas, (2010)

1. A Melbourne win 2. A 2nd quarter win (will be our 1st) 3. 30,000 with 29,500 supoorting the mighty Dees

So I was talking to my 12 yo son about the articles and he reckons... "How can you compare Richmond and Melbourne when we have players like Davey and Green, and Wonaeamirri and a list that is clearly developing. Surely North would be a better team to group with Richmond." Now I know my son has still got a fair bit to learn, but I am guessing he is closer to the mark than the senile old fool who wrote this article.

Which in my mind isn't such a bad thing. Still recall an interview with Mark Thompson in, I think, 2006 when everyone was calling for his blood. He looked like a bloke who hadn't slept for a week. Remember him saying something like he would stick to his plan regardless and was working with the players, and to wait for the results.

Got mine a few weeks back. Thanks very much for putting this effort in. Note that mine had been inserted in a Australia Post envelope and a message apologising as my envelope with badge had been caught in their very expensive machines. I imagine this may affect some other as well.

Would be great to get these before the 1st game.

Great idea thanks - moneys in the post

Website says Major Melbourne Family Day Sunday March 14 Luna Park Members FREE Non Members – Gold coin donation on entry More information to follow... http://www.melbournefc.com.au/event%20detail/tabid/7547/default.aspx

Purchased mine a couple weeks ago - making sure I kept my seats. Looking forward to my Gold Card. Also signed up my son who will be 9 years consecutive next season (he is 11). Before the season starts I will get memberships for my wife and daughter. I couldn't last year due to finances. They don't go to the games but I like to help the club out, and I am sure in a couple of years when we are doing well they wil decide to come to a few games. Happy for someone to hold me to it.

I know that the AFL have said that if Ball does not sign up with the team that drafts him, then he will be ineligible to play for 23 months. But what happens to the Dees if we select him and he refuses to sign up? We could end up one short on our list, and below the minimum salary cap. Clearly we don't wan't to be short on our list, but if we could save $500K per year for the next 2 years with a let off from the AFL because it wasn't our fault due to draft tampering, that wouldn't be too bad.

I reckon Ball is a bit cleverer than we give him credit for. He knows that if he comes to the Dees he will pick up the oppositions key tagger week after week and he knows he isn’t good enough to break that shackle. After 12 to 18 months of that he will left behind by a group of sensational younger players coming though and he will be delisted at 27 before he even gets to a Grand Final. I figure he is just lazy, wants to join a team where he can coast for 4 or 5 years, play in a couple of finals and then enjoy his retirement. Good luck to him.

Agree we need to do better, in fact I would love for us to be number 2 or 3 in Melbourne for attendances. I don't really want to challenge Collingwood becuase that would inevitably change the type of supporter we would have... However as I commented in a thread some time back we aren't as bad as the press make out and we should do what we can to change perceptions. We are equal 5th for attendances since 2000 of the Victorian clubs and equal 6th overall. See Correcting Misconceptions for details.

From memory even the members area looked empty. Most of the 12K people taht were there were under cover. I bought myself one of the plastic disposable rain coats so I could sit out in the open, coz I think it is important to make it look as full as possible (futile attempt on that day). However by half way through the 1st quarter the sun was out and by half way through the second it was actually quite warm. Was listening to the radio and Bartlett laid his boots into the crowd, which is fair enough, but he could have mentioned the lousy weather in the morning.

My concern is that part of the agreement is to include more block-buster games at the G. Will they balance this by pushing some of our home games to Etihad Stadium.

I was watching the replay of Sunday’s game between the Dees and the Saints and the commentator said “Not much of a crowd here today”. I just about chucked a shoe through the TV. I am so sick of these supposedly expert commentators, and others including AFL HQ, spreading misconceptions about the Dees. So for the record, and please everybody spread the truth.... The crowd on Sunday was 36,748 which is 536 MORE than the average crowd for the year for all home and away games (36,212). So why was the comment made "not much of a crowd... Melbourne did have a bad year with home game attendances but we were not the worst, Port were. And we had that game in Canberra with virtually no one there. For home and away games for 2009 we were 12th for attendances. Since 2000 we have never had the worst home attendance and in three years (2000, 2001 and 2005) we were 5th on the list. Over the last 10 years Melbourne ranks 9th out of the 16 teams for home game attendances. But based on the stats there is nothing between 7th, 8th and 9th with average home game attendances for the Dees, Saints and Hawks all around the 32.5K mark Average home game attendances since 2000 for Victorian Clubs Collingwood 50K Essendon 47K Richmond 40K Carlton 36.5K St Kilda, Hawthorn, Melbourne 32.5K Bulldogs 29K Geelong 27K North Melbourne 26K Of the interstate Clubs only the Eagles have a better record Eagles 37.5K Fremantle 31.5 Sydney 31K Brisbane 30.5K Port Adelaide 28.5K Bottom line is Melbourne supporters do support their team. Like all supporters they prefer to go and see them when they are winning, but we are a LONG LONG way from the worst supported team. Please spread the word and stop the radio and TV commentators from using generalisations. Note all stats taken from www.footywire.com

While I haven't seen anything official, Bert Newton's show 20 to 1 on tonight has Robo described as "Former AFL Star".

Hi all, have loaded some photos from last 2 fabulous home games.

I'd prefer an option to do without 'coz I have enough of things at home already. If they could get 5,000 members to nominate to do without then they could have some extra dollars in the coffers. Even if they only cost $2 to make and deliver that's $10K off the debt. Option 2 if I had to vote

The 50 metre penalty given to Ablett in the 1st quarter was exactly what umpires were paying at the start of the year. Ablett marked and his oponent grabbed him and held him up for 2 seconds max. Problem is that they are not paying that any more. Can't remember the details but in our game on Saturday one of our players marked and his oponent tackled him and then sat on him. No 50 metres.

I don't know how it works in Europe but while they have free agency in the US they have one major draw back, players are contracted but can be sacked any time. At any time during the contract the club can end the contract and the player has nothing. I am sure the AFLPA wouldn't want this.

Fo those interested more can be found here http://www.flickr.com/groups/700219@N21/