Suzanna

Bugger

I called in on Monday the 1st and the place was deserted. Did I happen to pick the one day they weren't there?

The big question is - has the contract been signed yet? Without a contract, the Dees are exposed to rescission motions.

Of course there is insurance. What is more relevant to the MFC is that contracts should be signed ASAP (if they haven't been already), then the council can't change its position. If the MFC is serious about coming to Casey, they need take some responsibility for their destiny and ensure that it happens.

Well, that's one good thing to come out of this global meltdown. The AFL's plans of world domination have to be put on hold for a little while. Hopefully by the time things improve, someone with a bit of common sense looks at the whole proposition again. But I forget - common sense is not a prerequisite to being in business. An enormous ego is all you need.

They are terribly precious at the G. A few years ago I was helping to decorate the rooms for a function, and my daughter and her friend (both 'tweenies' at the time) jogged down the race, pretending to be footy players. They ran out on the ground with their imaginary ball, and kicked an imaginary goal, then jogged back in to the rooms. Shortly afterwards, security came rushing in as if someone had a bomb, and grilled them and me as to what they were doing and threatened to kick us out if anyone had the cheek to put a sneakered foot onto the grass again. So two little girls are dangerous to the hallowed turf, but a bunch of cricket players aren't. Ah, the logic of the MCC - you've got to love it!

It was my understanding that even though Kath & Kim live at 'Fountain Lakes' the shopping centre filming is actually done at Southland. Our famed shopping centre at Fountain Gate has however featured in 'Rotten Eggs' (or is it 'Bad Eggs"?)- a truly terrible movie if you ever have the misfortune to see it. I shop at FGT and have also noticed the same thing at the AFL store, KMart and BarWorld - Melbourne stuff seems to sell out reasonably quickly. It's a pain in the rear as not only do I often not get the knick knacks I am after, but when buying pressies for my footy buddy if you don't get in quick you often miss out. The club would have to know membership by postcode stats, but not all supporters are members. Hopefully this will change when 'the boys' are 'local'. You also see a few cars sporting MFC stickers on local roads, and I have even spotted cars sporting membership stickers at the car park near where I work, a few ks from FGT, so we are around. I think the supporter base is already here - hopefully the club won't be too slow to recognise & capitalise on this.

We can aim at getting big crowds at the G all we want, but the reality is that wanting it will not make it so. Particularly with the draws we have had for the last couple of years, we will not get crowds. Public transport is also a red herring - take a look at the car park at the G - a huge number of people will drive in (generally people from outer suburbs who have very poor access to public transport). Casey Fields is not a disadvantage to these people as it is relatively easy to access via the freeway. Also, there are a lot of people in the satellite towns and further out (ie Gippsland) who used to make the trip to Waverley but gave up when Waverley closed. These people might just come back to footy if it is more accessible. We have to get decent sized crowds to the dome and the G in order to not lose money (let alone make it) - clearly Casey Fields will be cheaper, and not making a loss is a good business decision at this point. The G might be our 'spiritual home' but I don't think they see it that way, and no matter what we think they have to co-operate, which they have not been doing to date (when do we ever get to train on the ground?) - at least Casey Council is being more co-operative, which is a plus as well.

Me, and I got the sunburn to prove it!!

What time on Thursday? I suppose I could force myself to put down the paintbrush and head on down to training....

I was just watching 20-1 and Robbo was on commentating on something or other. The description for him was "Russell Robertson - former AFL player". Have I been asleep and missed something?

The bubble dome won't be sufficient for summer because we are trying to build links with a community. Therefore it makes sense to be 'local' all year round. Particularly when the kiddies are on school holidays so get more time to get along to training. don't know about the other stuff - all good questions though.

While I agree that we had a bad year this year, in the last few years we have made finals a couple of times (even if we got knocked out in the first round!) and yet we always draw a bad fixture. We always seem to travel a heap more than the black & white princelings, and sometimes got back to back interstate trips. It's clearly all about money (who can draw the biggest crowd) and therefore nothing will change until we get bigger crowds. Unfortunately the high number of Sunday games is a deterrent to that - if you are on a budget and have commitments for Sundays (kids sport etc...) you aren't going to bother taking out a membership if you can get to less than half the games. The bad fixture is self perpetuating, until we get something more 'even' we will be struggling. Then the AFL will use the fact we are struggling as a justification to keep giving us bad fixtures. It's a win win deal for Demetriou and his cronies - they can keep stomping on us because the very act of stomping gives them excuses to continue.

I love it. I doubt you will ever see the money, but I hope you do! Perhaps you should put up the price - especially for porn!

Casey Fields would sure be heaps cheaper than the G or the Dome. Even if a few people didn't bother to make the trek out to Casey (people from the other side of the city perhaps) surely we would still make money instead of losing it as we do when we get a poor crowd at the major stadiums. Not to mention that parking is free! A bonus for those of us who usually drive to the city to watch matches.

When Judd was looking for a Melbourne based club, his major reason for rejecting us was because of our training facilities. They weren't up to his lofty standards. Carlton's are apparently better. Had we been in possession of better facilities at that time, we might have got Judd. Our loss.

Well as the club isn't in a financial position to come up with the millions required to buy real estate in an area as large as Casey Fields in the beachside suburbs in order to make their players happy, and to tear down all the houses and build an equivalent facility, I think they will have to do what the rest of us do, and grin and bear it. Plenty of people have to travel for work. Considering most of our players probably live somewhere convenient to Sandringham, Cranbourne is not such a big hike. Time wise, it probably is not much further than travelling from Brighton to the G. I live in another area of Casey, and can generally get to the G in half an hour non-peak - going INBOUND remember - (a little bit longer now that you can no longer do 100kph on the freeway), so I don't consider travel time such a big issue. Do they want to win games or not? You also have to consider that they are travelling anyway, and to travel OUT of the city in peak is a lot easier than going across town, say from Sandringham to Scotch College or wherever the club has decided to train that day. The points you raise also have nothing to do with the post that moron put up - he was targetting Cranbourne specifically, with a lot of nonsense to justify his position. I don't live in Cranbourne, however it's a suburb just like any other with good points and bad points. The location of Casey Fields had nothing whatsoever to do with the Dees experiences during trade week, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. Anyway, gotta go - the painting isn't doing itself. Perhaps if I breathe in a couple of roomfuls of paint fumes I can lower my IQ to the point where I can understand the motivation behind such ridiculous posts.

I spoke at great length to a recently retired player who had the opportunity to walk on the ground and test out the playing surface for himself. He explained to me exactly what was so desirable about the ground as opposed to Junction Oval and Sandringham (and all the other grounds that our gypsies have been experiencing in the effort to get some training done). He also spoke about the benefits of moving the to an expanded facility as opposed to the cramped conditions (small weights room, tiny physio area) that they are dealing with at the moment. So there is evidence aplenty to affirm that Cranbourne is a good facility for our team, instead of the crummy conditions they have been trying to cope with over the last few years. Perhaps you might want to do a little research yourself before running off at the mouth in future with a post that is full of inaccuracies and no facts whatsover. By the way - Casey Fields is several kilometres from the tip and well out of the 'hot zone'. If you had been following the news recently, you might also have learned that the repatriation works the council has been undertaking appear to have been working - the number of affected houses has about halved from the peak, with no dangerous methane levels detected recently. For those people reading this post who have some common sense and decency, I am sure they will be happy for the people affected. For yourself, that is probably of no interest.

Hmmm. Do you think the politics and double talk might be coming from more than the council? I can't say too much without revealing my source (and yes I know everyone says that and it sounds really condescending, but that's the way it is and I can't help it) but the way I hear it is the club was nitpicking over tiny irrelevant issues which had nothing to do with the deal itself, and that was holding up the signing of the final contract. The council is keen to lock in an AFL club - remember Melbourne is the third club that has been approached - and is not the party that is dragging their heels in final talks. The council wants to sign the contract ASAP - remember it takes time to build a building, so they want to get started now rather than later. The problem for MFC is that council elections are less than two months away. If they don't get the deal signed soon, there's a danger that the incoming council might not want the deal. What if some of the councillors who supported the deal lose their seats, and the new councillors don't think it's such a good idea? If MFC are serious about this deal, they will sign the contract NOW.

Well that deal wasn't done. So there you go. He's still ours. And not the worst we have to offer in the back line, so those who don't like him will have to grin and bear it. If the club seriously had enough on him to get rid of him they would have done so already, and wouldn't have relied on the draft to solve their problems (if it didn't work last year, why would it work this year?). It seems to be all talk and no action - maybe there's not as much in it as the rumour mill suggests. I hope not, because if they ditch Carroll, there really isn't much to offer in his place is there? I don't think any of the alternatives are any better on the field.

He can't possibly be a [censored] (assuming he is male) - I doubt he could find it. Imagine tapping into people's misery to explain why players pick particular clubs. It's all about money. Check out how much they will be getting at their new clubs. We can't match that. End of story.

The CEO of Casey has sent an email (quoted by the Leader) stating that MFC are rethinking their position. Chris Connolly denies it. However I think it is very telling that the contract has not yet been signed. Why not? It's been weeks - a couple of months even - and yet it hasn't been signed. It's not like we had a finals campaign to concentrate on is it? First the inexplicable delays in signing the contract, now this - did MFC ever intend to come to Casey? All the reasons for MFC wanting to come out to Casey in the first place still exist - if they stay isolated in Melbourne, they will never expand their supporter base because who lives there? Most of the people living in all those new high rises are either young trendies or retirees. Our club needs to get into the hearts & minds of children. They won't do that without going to the 'source'. A major soccer club will be relocating to Casey Fields - yet an AFL club seems to be having a problem committing. Demetriou wants to spend squillions of our dollars trying to force AFL into rugby states, yet is happy to lose ground in Victoria. All those littlies who could have been converted to Melbourne will now be exposed to soccer - let's face it, if Mum has her way she will push junior into a 'non-contact' sport instead of football. We need an AFL team here to ensure that footy does not lose ground to soccer. I want it to be Melbourne because I am Melbourne, but at this point, any club will do. Don't think if Melbourne pulls out that we won't chase another club. Eventually we will find one with the foresight to see the value in having a base in an area with so many young children, and a ground that you won't find anywhere else in the suburbs (better playing surface than Telstra Dome, even if we don't have enough spectator seats). The issues around training are still valid - our boys deserve to train for football on a FOOTBALL field, not a cricket pitch. How do you practice kicking for goals if there are none? The arrangements that the club has had to date clearly haven't been working - we need to put down some roots somewhere, not be gypsies. I just think it's time for the Club to take a deep breath, and look at what they stand to lose by pulling out now. In addition to what I have already mentioned, if they pull out now they stand to lose a lot of respect. A lot of people have been talking them up, both in the foreground and the background of negotiations, and to pull out now after so many people have put in so much effort just makes people think they are a bunch of time wasters. Maybe they never really intended to come out to Casey after all, maybe it was all just a negotiating tool to get a better deal in Melbourne. That's the sort of thing people are starting to wonder. I don't want MY club being remembered as being like that - it's time they stood up and earned some respect in the community by doing what they said they were going to do. When a player does something improper - the clubs & AFL come out yakking about 'showing leadership' and 'doing the right thing'. It's about time this club followed through and did what they tell others to do.

Hey, I had to respond to the assumption that it must be Casey that is stalling the deal! My little bird told me that Casey has been keen to get this deal on paper, but it has been MFC dragging its heels, now MFC are having second thoughts. Dean Bailey can say anything he wants about training out here, but he is not in charge of the club and will not get much of a say in a business decision like this. As far as Casey is concerned, it will happen - there have been several votes on this issue, and the decision has gone in MFC's favour, so the Council is bound to follow the decision that has been made. Council cannot back out unless there is another vote, and there wasn't one last night, so if the deal is shaky then it clearly has nothing to do with Casey. Put it in the context of state/federal government, if the legislature passes a law, the public service has to act within that law. Same thing for councils. Our Council has decided to do a deal with MFC, so it will be done unless MFC don't want to do it. I would be happy to be wrong (or if my little bird was wrong) but unless MFC does another 180, it looks like it "aint happening folks". And there is no Santa, or Tooth Fairy, or Easter Bunny, or anyone else nice out there today. On top of a crap day, someone pinched the last of my milk from the work fridge, so I couldn't have my afternoon coffee. So I am VERY CRANKY!

I guess if there's any 'suing' to be done, it would be Casey taking on MFC. From what I hear, MFC is wanting to jump ship because now it has decided it will be 'too hard' to deliver all the community programs they promised to deliver in return for the ratepayers of Casey spending all that money on improving the facilities for them. I don't understand why they couldn't have worked this out sooner, unless it's just an excuse for something else. Stuck between a rock and a hard place here. I want MFC to come, but if they aren't going to live up to their side of the bargain, I don't want my rates dollars being wasted on them. A little bit like a kid finding out there is no Santa Claus really. Very sad today.

Picky picky picky. Freo was a good loud day (at least the second half of the game) and I won't hear otherwise. (Sticks fingers in ears and says "lalalalala")