pitmaster

Not at all - I've sat through many bad years and will keep doing so until we come good. I rode out the 70s, and the 80s, luxuriated at Western Oval on the last day of '87 (shivered at the rifle crack sound of Garry Lyon's leg snapping), loved most of the 90s, kept the 1997 (wooden spoon) membership transfer on my motorbike helmet as a badge of honor until I retired the helmet, am a "gold MCC-MFC member" and I am there at every home game and every away game I can physically get to - including Kardinia Park - but we are getting shafted on fixturing by the AFL and the twilights are the latest method

Coglin has gone out of his way to protest something that, if he had kept his cool, would not have gone beyond those present at the lunch. Instead he rings the Hun to big-note himself and to "defend the previous board's record on women's issues". Except that if he had not done that, no-one would have queried their record. What a goose

I'm an MCC member as well as MFC so I get in free, sure. I just don't want to foster this "experiment".

Hawks and Saints games will tell us plenty. I was struck in the first half how we were able to match the dogs run, and outplay them at their own game. We lost partly because of luck with some lousy umpiring, but also because they were more effective with centre clearances and scored easily several times. Still we did not see the Dogs at their blistering best that blew Adelaide away. As for the Cats, they did not hit their straps against us either. Did they just do enough to win, or are we learning to stop these top teams run? Over the next fortnight we'll complete our run against last season's top four. If we can counter them as we challenged the Dogs, we'll know we are really going places.

I am surprised to be doing this but I for one will not be attending next week. Another Sunday twilight job. And it's live on Foxtel. At least this is not our home game - if it were I would go - so my attending can only help Horforn Twilight Sunday is the worst scheduling option especially at the G in winter. Lame effort by our supporters against the Dogs, however, and maybe the live Foxtel coverage hurt there as well. The MCC was expecting 30,000. I thought, given how the Dogs are going, and our blokes improving that we would see 35,000.

"We are just a phone call away from scandal" is in fact a commonly-used phrase among AFL administrators who know that players can get into strife in countless ways, and the club cannot control everything they do. Stynes' use of it says precisely nothing about our playing group. Coglin looks hyper-sensitive by my reading of the Hun. Stynes' comments look to be a pretty general commentary on AFL culture. If he says he wants to shift the emphasis more to women and the young that does not necessarily imply an attack on the previous administration. We really do have to knuckle down together at Melbourne. During the pre-season I was talking to a couple of friends who have close to zero interest in football (originally from NSW). The one insight they had to offer of Melbourne was that it was highly factionalised. Interesting, isn't it, that people who know nothing about our game, and care even less have that impression of our club. Coglin and all of us need to knuckle down and harden up.

Brian Taylor and the Bermuda Triangle routine = tedious in the extremis. But

We must remember that what passes for knowledge among many sports reporters is what someone else has said before. So we are stuck with these recycled variations of old Coodabeens routines. Yeah only 14 and a half thousand turned up to the G on a wet and gloomy Sunday evening, but no-one makes anything of the fact that a day before only 15 and a half turned up at Geelong. Why doncha email the bludger - tell him to think for himself for once. Or just think.

Sweet lass. Do you apply this standard to other areas of your relationships?

Deanox: "just clear your cookies and vote again, if you want to influence the result. no need to use seperate pc's." Thanks Deanox, you're an education. Voted twice more just to prove you right.

Good ground. I enjoyed my last few visits enormously. Waite's first game and early goal ending in a Dees win. And the Blues last game there, ending in a flogging by the Dees. Big wins and nail biters sum up our last few visits. It's a good ground to watch a game but it's a beast to get to, unless you ride a motorbike...then parking is a piece of p---.

Gotcha. I have only the faintest memories of him playing - he was a player of reckless courage certainly and earned the moniker Tiger. For me, one of the interesting notions in the book was that if your namesake had lived longer the internal divisions against the Fox may have been averted. Dr Duffy may not then have been the evil influence that he became.

Lousy newspaper. Fraudulent poll - which is why I voted twice (on separate pcs). See what I mean?

Short answer: Quite possibly. And even Eddie seems to think so.

This comment intrigued me when I first read it. Now that I have finished 'The Red Fox' (bought from the MFC shop where all of us should be shopping) I'd like ivor to tell me just what in Red Fox he is getting at. Ridley does not come out of the book as any greater than numerous others, and, if I want to be picky about it, a bit slow witted not to take proper notes at the committee meeting which voted to sack Norm Smith. So what is it Ivor?

Wona's injury is an opportunity for Maric to consolidate a place as a small forward. Hopefully, he can do that. Meesen's injury appears to have no silver lining however.

What I mean is what are they doing dredging up that bonehead Jackson anyway? Whoever gives a rat's what he thinks? Dumb as dogshite and just as useful. He did not rate when he had the top job so why is AW bothering to give him air now?

Ditto. I am against a merger on principle. When we win our next flag I want it to be ours. Merging with any other club dilutes your integrity. And this mob, while they have a miserable four premierships, two of those in the 1970s were virtually purchased with a foreign legion and a bit of monkeying about with the transfer rules which the Roos seemed to know about in advance. But as well as opposing this on principle I see little practical value in it. Arden Street is a joke and their list is not much better. The Roos are in need of a serious rebuild. Their best players are for the most part on the verge of retiring. They have a smaller supporter base than us (although still probably a bigger one than Jackson's Port Adelaide). And we are more advanced than them in terms of off-field restructuring and on-field recruiting. The only benefit in this for us is the same for any of the other Melbourne clubs: one less competitior for sponsorship. That's it. It's not much to gain for losing part of your identity. When Brayshaw made a stand against Gold Coast it was always going to be tough. They have my sympathy, but that's all. As for AW, you really have to doubt them and what they are up to. Man, I hate that station.

And who amongst us needs some announcer to come on at quarter and half time to tell us the score? I mean really, are we football fans or what? The music is too loud and the ads too intrusive. As for the theme song, well that should be blared, but as an MCC member I was recently surveyed by the cricket ground administration and lodged a complaint about the public address volume. Maybe it's my fault, but I did not ask them to turn down the volume on our song - just the rest of the audio garbage.

Foolish remark

I don't think there's a better example of how posters on this website over-hype young players unseen at senior level than Maric yesterday. I'm not bagging the kid - that double play where he took the ball from half back, passed, ran by for the second possession looked good - until his over-hit handpass missed Colin Sylvia by a couple of metres. And he looked terrific running through half forward and sighting up the goals - until his eyes widened too much and he mis-kicked in his excitement. Give him another go, sure. But let's wind back the BS about how Jack Watts is already in our best 22, and how an 18 year old kid, free of high school next year is going to instantaneously fix our forward line. It is naiive to think he can do it for more than a handful of relatively low pressure games - which I hope he will do at times next year but when the heat is really on we can't expect first and second year kids to carry us. So simmer down folks. And hope Bate can find some form because he is good overhead and he is a more reliable kick than Robbo. Bate found space several times yesterday but his leads went unheeded by his team mates who were intent on handball practice. And hope Newton can learn to kick in front of crowds of more than 30 people and a couple of kelpies because he routinely takes several contested grabs and he will straighten us up. And while I am on the subject; yes Robbo straightened us yesterday and beat Scarlett but he was still wasteful and showed a couple of trademark bits of selfishness. Over the long journey Robbo has been a terrific entertainer and second forward. He is not a long term number one forward prospect. We have tolerated lousy kicking and worse from Robbo, and he still racked up 400 big ones. Congrats to him and more perserverence to Newton.

Key to it though was Blake getting the first tap. He dropped it perfectly into Ablett's path. Blake killed us in the first half ruck contests. Anyone who thinks ruckmen don't matter just don't get it.

I attended also but can't testify to the numbers locked out since I was up the front giving the evil eye to Bill Guest because of his buying up of memberships for his employees - none of whom supported Melbourne but who voted for the merger to support their boss (their words as reported in the print media). Hannabal is right it passed because of proxies linked to the board - rank and filers like us were overwhelmingly opposed. The vote should have included ALL who attended - that's where it was shonky. And thanks H for reminding me of Mark Jenkins and his brother Tony who got the alternative started - true club heroes. One last thing - the past players were coping it because Ridley was teliing them it was a takeover not a merger. I know this because at one point I rank Ray Biffen since I knew where he was working. He had misgivings, but said Tiger had convinced him and the others because it was Melbourne taking over that other mob. I read Ridley's book and unlike some on this thread I was not entirely convinced he did not have a merger on his agenda for a lot longer than he lets on - even the selection of Balme as coach - a man who had had success with a merged club in SA causes me to have doubts about the long term agenda that was at work.

I suggested nothing of the sort. I stated only the fact that hundreds, if not thousands were disenfranchised. What on earth made you read such a sinister interpretation into my words?

Boy have you got it wrong! Joe was on the scene weeks before the vote, promising to contribute to save the club. There was even a rally at the MCG at which the MCC allowed Demons fans in to the committee room to view the trophies and pennants won by the Dees, and Joe was there signing autographs. And he wasn't the only bloke there wearing a red and blue yamulkah either. As for the vote: it was crooked. Hundreds if not thousands of members were locked out of the Dallas Brooks Centre and could not get in to cast their vote. The vote "passed" only narrowly but may not have survived a Supreme Court challenge in any case because of the way so many members were disenfranchised (prevented from voting) because of the way it was carried out. The legal challenge became moot as they say in legal circles (in other words did not matter a rat's ----) after Hawthorn voted against it. FYI Joe was introduced to the club via a grass roots group called the Demon Alternative which had premiership player Brian Dixon as its figure head and ordinary supporters as their meat and bones. Joe ultimately contributed $2.7 million of the $3 million he promised - it was not a loan. At the time the Hawks were in more trouble than Melbourne. Melb wanted a summer training base and the Hawks had one at Glenferrie. We also wanted a social club and they had one of them. What they also had that we did not was a residual mass support. Their post-1960 era almost - but not quite - matched Melbourne's post 1938 era (10 premierships ins 25 years) and that's why they have found such a strong supporter base since rebuilding. Our golden era is just too distant.