Little Goffy

Hawks would still be in debt, and even this year barely turning a profit, except for a couple of million in poker machine revenues and about the same through the sponsorship+game subsisdy from Tassie. On field, yeah, there are lessons to be learnt from Hawthorn. Off field, well. In short - that's not the club I want Melbourne to be. Three quarters of poker machine revenue comes from 'problem gamblers'. I'd actually be pressing for us to cut back our small poker machine holdings - the revenue for us is minimal and I think there would be more value in having a clean reputation in that area. We may even find community groups willing to support our efforts to offset the lost revenue.

It's true. I was at the Canberra game, sitting near the bench. There was a little row of early-20-something girls in front of me. At one stage they actually made starled noises of pleasure when Brad Miller jogged past. Embarassing for all involved, but they'll remember him.

Mmmm... Our MCG. Say it together - Our MCG. And nothing beats being a core part of routine operations and cash flows when re-building a relationship. Our MCG. The tip of the corner of my mouth turns up a little every time I say it. We beat Collingwood in six grand finals at our MCG.

Yeah, from the tiny moments of contact I've had with Jennifer Watt, she's seems pretty much on the ball. There's no doubt she's determined to do a great job. I mean, let's face it, even from a professional perspective anyone associated with getting the Melbourne Football Club back to the status and security it needs will have a gold star on their resume! I wonder if she's leading the nuts-and-bolts organisation for the summit? That'd be a pretty full-on gig. 250 people all up, counting board, staff, some players are coming too, and of course the rowdy mob that will mostly be Demonland and Demonology downloaded into "3-D portable meat avatars". I think we can guarantee that there will be a few people who, once they've had their turn, will spend the rest of the day shooting people down with derogatory comments, or just moaning about how it's all too hard. Especially if their contribution isn't given as much time as they would like (which most likely will be many of them). That'll be the big challenge, keeping people on task and constructive. Can this thread be dedicated to 'I will not respond to the club's efforts to include supporters by being an arse on an important day' pledges?

If he has played under 30 games then he is eligible for the rookie list. Tick. But not earlier.

I thought CJ was coming good; I'd put some effort into convincing myself there was a good future there. But the one year deal was completely appropriate for all concerned - CJ had just barely done enough to keep himself on the list, but would have to back it up next year because he's not a kid anymore. If he built on it next year he would've been able to get a proper contract from there, and everyone would be happy. Hhe wanted more, the club stood firm, so he's walking. The specific mention of Carlton seems odd, in that it limits his appeal to other clubs if he goes around saying 'that club'. I wonder what the story behind the story is there? Maybe we'll redraft him if nothing comes of it. Who knows. Maybe there were other issues involved, maybe he didn't come back fit from the break and there was tension there. As far as the list goes - CJ held one of those positions - HBF/into wing - which are often used as a development area for new players (Grimes, Buckley, Petterd, even Cheney) and which we may, if things go well, have a couple of more versatile players interested in running through there - Garland and Rivers might both find themselves having stints playing a bit loose if Martin, Frawley and Warnock hold reasonably firm. Bell, Dunn and Bartram provide a bit of depth as running defenders, and frankly all three are on CJ's level, despite their various weaknesses. Final thought - given that a big problem this year for the club was a lack of defensive effort, should we really be too worried about the loss of a player whose chief weakness is attitude and hardness?

Aslo. Let's knock em off - we'll be better than we were last year, they wont be better than they were. And we went with them to three quarter time last time.

2009 - Hawthorn away (Tassie) (premier) 2008 - Geelong away (Geelong) (premier) 2007 - Hawthorn (at the Dome) (11th) 2006 - Bulldogs away (Darwin) (9th) 2005 - Brisbane away (Cazaly stadium) (grand finalist) 2004 - Kangaroos away (Canberra) (10th) So, in six years two premiers and a grand finalist at very much their home advantage. Plus Kangaroos at what was then their 'second home' And dogs in Darwin. One game in Melbourne. No games against any bottom four teams. I can only assume this has been the price we pay for the favourable main season fixtures we're been getting over that time...

It hurts, huh. I say win. A winning team is an overvalued team. Half the first round of the draft in 2010 will be undervalued as trade coin. If we're winning, and if, for example, Miller is happy to return to his childhood area (and I mean practically the same streets), we could get a first round pick for him, which would be seen as luncay in any normal draft. Gold Coast are the next Freo; they will have huge pressure on them to be competitive immediately, will have to make a lot of trade and draft decisions in a hurry and they will have a surplus of early picks with diminished 'marginal utility', making the value of mature players much higher, especially key position players. Being in a good position to dupe them will be almost as valuable as getting a high pick now. Why do you think that the full set of Frawley, Newton, Petterd, Bate and Dunn all got signed for two more years? Win! Win like crazy, win everything you can! It's the best way to improve out draft position!

Get ready to freak out! Jarman to take the reins at Demons With selective quoting skills like these, I'll be a feature writer in no time.

Very candid Q&A with Robbo has gone up on the MFC website. Interesting that he's basically acknowledging that he and McDonald are almost done for. Must be a very odd time for those guys, knowing that they are unlikely to play finals again, and that they aren't really part of the long term 'grand plan' to bring us to the top of the ladder again. I think we'll see Robbo come back with a bit of intensity, and given the emptiness of our forward line at present, he'd be a handy player to have back.

Pre-season draft - a vague 'not likely' Rookie draft - with half a dozen to pick; pretty good option I would say. Young enough to fit with the grand plan, old enough to be available immediately if needed. No harm in giving him a year.

Those wacky Fitzroy supporters. Anyhow, don't lose sight of the fact that we still got better home game crowds this year (even adjusted for away-home games) than the Dogs and Kangaroos. Melbourne are a solid asset for the AFL, and given a bit of oxygen we would quickly reinvigorate. It's dissapointing that the AFL's strategic agenda makes us more useful as a 'holding club' ready to merge with Gold Coast or Sydney, but I guess they'll get their own share of dissapointment when we say NO.

If there was actually a consistent criteria for 'deserving' good fixturing, even if it was a shonky one like those the AFL trots out (poor performance is the excuse one year, poor drawing power the next) I'd probably be ok with YM's comments. But there isn't. Since it's based on political clout, there's no 'deserve' in it. The talk of protests is the classic resort of the disenfranchised; to assert themsleves as impossible to ignore. Everything we can do to make ourselves visible (constructively) in the next year gives us a little more clout, and a little more marketing to boot. It's the only way we're going to get out of this hole. Wear the colours, never watch games alone, put up a poster at work, run the tipping competition, go in fun runs, hire a skywriter; anything visible helps.

Good on ya, Calabrese Boy. When people talk about Grimes or Mclean having leadership qualitites, it's definately because they go around the club saying things like that, instead of hardening up and focusing on what they can do. Can Demonland introduce a 'swear jar' rule where anyone who slags off our own club has to buy a membership for a pensioner or something?

Mark it in your diaries - it's going to be a great day. Now officially unofficial - an event has been created on Facebook, so if you are on Facebook just search for 'Jeff Kennett is a bastard', it's an open group so anyone can join and can invite anyone to join. I'm tipping a huge crowd on the day; the more people mark themselves as 'attending' early, the more momentum it can build as we approach the date. I'll be headed off to start a thread on the bay 13 forum at big footy, could someone let Demonology know? And let me know if there are any other places it'd be good to place this on. Now all it needs is some celebrity endorsement and a mascot.

Nugget, based on this post and a few others you've made lately, you seem to have taken a step up in motivation. We'll see what comes out of this Ideas Summit, and then perhaps get a team together to promote/support the club in whatever ways we can. But yeah, VCE first. Good luck, make sure you smell the paper. (Smell is a memory stimulant)

Yeah, don't want to go off half-cocked when we're actively drawing attention to ourselves. Here's a thought though - anyone up for a weekly kick-around outside AFL HQ? There must be a bit of grass or at least flat concrete around there somewhere. Set up with a few flags, wear the colours, call it a vigil if you like. It also gets to start very low-key - two guys having a kick would do it - but can grow into something a little more when occassion calls for it. We could even do a rotation. Imagine if there were a few Demons having a kick outside AFL HQ every frickin day of the week? It'd become part of folklore.

I reckon there's more good to be done in 'positive' protests. Find opportunities to put your commitment to the Demons out there. The Run to the 'G - get a team together wearing red and blue - it will stand out. Similarly, the Ride around the Bay. Another interesting one might be a mini-sponsorship deal, where some kind of tourist/family venue (Zoo, aquarium) offers a discount on a given day to anyone turning up in their Red & Blue gear. Small things which get people used to the idea of 'getting out there' for the Demons. THEN, if the AFL still hasn't shown any improvement in it's treatment of Melbourne - Once that network is built, we can get a proper group together - we'll be able to mobilise a lot more people, and they will be better at keeping a lid on it rather than going stupid as soon as they're in a mob.

It's quite possible that this article was to some extent an aopolgy for her last Demon-related article, which was poorly written and researched and also tagged us with an $5m 'post-demolition' debt, instead of the $2m that it actually was. She has made a point of including an direct statement that it is a $2m position now, which looks a lot like a correction to me. Hmm.. I'm thinking about the 'we deserve it' style comments we've heard from the club. Is it possible they are banking on an on-field resurgence in the next couple of years? Could be an interesting ploy - by reinforcing the notion that the poor fixture is because of bad performances it means that the AFL will have a harder time making excuses to not give us a decent fixture when we're back in the finals mix. We have to pin them down somehow - is anyone here prepared to assume that if we start to get results on field the AFL will just automatically give us a decent fixture? No? Didn't think so.

Good call. If they are going to keep their boots on our neck, I won't be going to any little money spinners for the AFL either. I'm gonna keep saying it, 2009 will be the toughest season for the Demons, and then it's upwards from there. Buy memberships, go to games, bring your friends. BE VISIBLE - wear the scarf and put a frickin poster up at work if you're game. DON'T watch the interstate games at home alone on the couch. ALWAYS, whenever you can, go to a pub or get some friends together to watch it. STAY POSITIVE - this coming year is gonna be hard work, but it's gonna be the turning point. CELEBRATE everthing good that happens.

A provocative statement like that can work in an isolated case... When it's a regular mantra being farted at you from multiple [censored], it's just demoralising. I really look forward to the day people stop 'helping us out' like that.

Emirates airlines from Dubai. Etihad Airlines from Abu Dhabi. Both from UAE. Both competing for sponsorship opportunities and flight way-point stops from around the world. And you thought state vs state competition was an issue in Australia! Frankly, I'm glad we didn't get them as sponsor. UAE might not be run by raving fundi dictators like Saudi Arabia and Iran, but I dunno if I'd feel comfortable getting sponsorship from a state owned corporation in a country that imports child slaves. And their migrant labour laws (more than half the population) would make Jeff Kennett seem like a militant unionist.

It was a couple of years back, but there was a time when Eddie announced the impending doom of other AFL clubs with something bordering on gloating - like Jeff Kennet has this year, and the Adelaide President, whoeverheis. But he has mellowed a little bit since then. The mantle of biggest d$#head has definately passed to dear old Jeffrey K, who this year explicitly announced that Melbourne would have to move to the Gold Coast no matter what happened... while half the Demon's leadership group was at the next table at the function he was addressing... and he knew it. He also stated that Hawthorn won the premiership and was a powerful club because their staff worked harder than the staff at the Bulldogs or North. Charming. This fixture gives us moral impunity to annoy the AFL. I once again propose the round 1 'Jeff Kennet is a bastard' themed game against North Melbourne, and set ourselves for drawing a record crowd.

As I've been told, there's not much more to the story than is already noted above - just some guy decided to have a go at the players who came to one of the routine after match functions this year. Not a big issue in itself, since it's not a constant occurance, but that's pretty weak behaviour, and I'm reminded of it every time I see people launching into semi-coherent, obviously drunk after-match rants. I see these rants at the local club/pub when I watch games there - sometimes loud and trying to tell everyone about it like it's their fault, sometimes it'll be a guy on a mobile having a long and boring monologue about how 'they were all crap, except for X player that I told you was good, but the rest should all be sacked'. We all have it in us a little, we all do it sometimes, it's just a way of 'processing', as the trauma counsellors would say. But it's important to keep the ugly edge off it and know when to just hold firm.