Alotta

Read your thundering moralising in the Code of Conduct thread I've just bumped. You remember, the zero tolerance stuff and so on. It may be that you consider a unique set of standards apply to you. For many of us to see you try and weasel your way out of the consequences of your abuse of another poster is just hypocrisy. if you think yourself justified because you have provided proof of his hypocrisy, where's your proof that he is a "vile...piece of work"?

From Demonland Code of Conduct: With regard to posts on the Demonland Forums, the Demonland Administrators and Moderators reserve the right to edit and/or remove posts that are considered to be: Acts of personal abuse Ban yourself.

No interested candidate contacted the Club and did not pursue their interest based on any consideration of remuneration. This isn't about Club resources. It's about WJ's assertion that "We were a poor club and chose our new coach, partly on the basis of cost". It suggests that Dean was a bargain basement purchase - K-Mart not DJs - the Scotch we'd rather pay for not the Scotch we'd rather drink. It demeans Bails. He was the best money could buy and we were very lucky to get him.

When you say that available resources played a role in the selection of Dean Bailey you are wrong. Plain and simple. Fact not opinion. When you say you have "no conclusive proof" for your claim I put it to you that you have no proof whatsoever. Days of AFL funded overpaid $1.5 million coaches were years in the future. As is usual with these appointments discussions about salary were undertaken only after the preferred candidate was identified. The amount Dean could command as a rookie coach was modest by industry standards in 2007 and entirely affordable for MFC. After all, we had made a profit in each of the previous 3 years and were to make a profit in 2007, the year of Dean's appointment. There was no potential coach we did not approach because of considerations of affordability. There was no available coach who did not pursue an interest in the opportunity out of consideration of the available salary. As for not being a destination club, Hardwick clearly disagreed.

What is the evidence upon which you base this claim? Dean Bailey was appointed because he was considered (by a clear margin) to be the best candidate for the job. History was to show that an unsuccessful candidate together with mates Stynes, McLardy, Schwab and Lyon were to heap on Dean the most shameful indignity I have ever witnessed in a blighted lifetime of following our once great Club.

"By last year the club's debt – famously eliminated by the Jim Stynes-Don McLardy-driven foundation heroes campaign – had swelled back to more than $5 million" (C Wilson). Isn't it time once and for all that we lay to rest the myth that the Stynes/McLardy Board eliminated debt and in so doing "saved the Club"? This myth originated with the Club itself, was readily embraced by supporters and continues to be perpetuated uncritically by the likes of Wilson. For the record: The debt at the point of Stynes’ ascendancy to the Chair was $4.78 million comprising net asset deficiency of $3.179 million as at 31.10.07 plus forecast operating loss for fy08 of $1.6 million. In the 5 years 2008-2012 according to the audited financial accounts, the Club booked $6.335 million in revenue attributable to the Debt Demolition campaign and its offshoot the “Foundation Heroes” campaign. Almosthalf this amount was p****d up against the wall when the Club recorded a trading loss of $3.1 million in 2013. In 2011, without fanfare, the Club brought onto the balance sheet the Bentleigh Club asset at a conservative valuation of $6.691 million. The Bentleigh project had its origins in the late 1990s under then CEO Hassa Mann and incoming Chairman Joseph Gutnick. The Bentleigh project was carefully nursed along by successive administrations and Boards (including Stynes') supported by MFC-friendly Bentleigh Club boards on which sat some MFC Club legends. This courtship of 15 years' duration culminated with a formal merger and the incorporation of the Bentleigh assets onto the MFC books. This - not Debt Demolition much of which was shamefully squandered - "eliminated debt". The Bentleigh asset is today worth in the vicinity 0f $12-15 million as a property development play. It is the family silver. It represents a once in a lifetime opportunity to "football proof" MFC finances if prudently invested in income bearing investments. The Members must remain vigilant wathching for any sign of future Boards or administrations selling off the family silver in pursuit of the discredited strategy of buying a premiership.

Less than one in one thousand boys born in Australia each year will ever play a single game of AFL football. Jordie is one. Of those who ever play a game, 80% will have shorter careers than Jordie. Better career stats than Crowley. Jordie (pick 1 2009 rookie draft) 79 MFC games v Scully (pick 1 2009 national draft) MFC 31 games. Massive respect. The generosity of spirit shown by the contributors to this thread stands in stark contrast to the meanspiritness of the knockers and the naysayers who have ridden on this honest kid's back over the last 7 seasons.

Bit subtle for you it seems.

In 2012 Mark Murphy was fined $900 by the tribunal for giving the Collingwood cheer squad the bird. Goodes' premeditated display of aggressive and menacing theatrics towards a section of the crowd was far more reprehensible and I expect to see him up before the tribunal this week.... ....unless different standards are applied to footballers according to their colour. And that would be racism, wouldn't it?

Interesting and wide ranging contributions. Personally I find Draft retrospectives pointless and unsatisfying. You know - the duds we took and the 17 year old future champions we along with most others failed to recognise. My intention in starting this was less ambitious. To be more precise I was wondering - of those who had played at least one senior game in the modern era in the red and blue - who do we regret seeing off most? This is not a woe is us topic. I suspect we have done better from our imports than the recipients have done from our exports. Did we really regret seeing off Sylvia and McLean?

"The story of how Stynes saved the Melbourne Football Club is much more than a sporting saga. Demolishing more than $4 million worth of debt was something the AFL initially believed beyond even him, but it was uniting the disenfranchised Demons that remains his most remarkable legacy" Caroline Wilson Age 7 May 2011. The history of the Club under the leadership of the much-loved Jim Stynes and his successor Don McLardy is a difficult matter for all of us. We all have a sense of sustained calamity. On the other hand, Jim and his colleagues stepped forward at a time of need, were motivated by the best of intentions and stuck to the task in the face of great and, in Jim's case, persobnal difficulty. None of this should prevent the writing of the history of the Club accurately and faithfully over this period. I think Todd's interview last night is a valuable contribution to this history. Most media commentators have to this day followed the Wilson myth that Jim "united the Club". This is a myth on 2 counts. Once the scars of the 2001 Board election had healed, there was no disunity at the Club. All this changed with Jim's election and the commencement of the period Todd referred to and lived through culminating in the events of 186. This period equated to the most sustained and destructive period of disunity at any Club in the modern era.

We've let Brownlow medallists (Bill Morris, Brian Gleeson) and Coleman medallists if they had it then (Doug Wade) slip through our fingers but at least these blokes never played a senior game in the red and blue. In the modern era ie post 2000 who has been the one we let go that you most regret? I nominate S. Thompson.

In the period 2008-2013 Dr Thurin was a member of a Board which presided over and was accountable for the greatest clusterflick in the 156 year history of our Club. That alone makes his position untenable if we are toput this behind us. Good bloke, competent etc etc - irrelevant.

And we could take Lucas Jagger in the 2017 draft. His old man's a Rolling Stone.

No need to call Sunshine. Listen up and learn. Best of all, it's free!