Dr. Gonzo

yeah I wish him well (just not against us!) but I think the time has passed for him at MFC. There's a reason we let him go and I don't think it was just homesickness

No - although we could have got him as a FA at the end of 2019 (assuming the Pies didn't swoop in to grab him - not sure how they would have afforded it though)

So the Cats went into a game with multiple unwell players even knowing the covid restrictions etc that were in place? Why haven't they been reprimanded for this? Surely this was against the AFL and WA's covid protocols to let players they knew were unwell out in public let alone take the field.

Looks terrible. Are they trying to say that the 2021 trade period was chaotic and full of surprises? Because I remember it as one of the most dull trade periods I could remember.

Will get one from the Demon Shop on March 16. Also they had more stock of the premiership jumpers and assorted polos as well as the gold logo jumpers at rebel at highpoint on the weekend. Hopefully the Demon Shop is getting more stock of these as well.

65k would be a great base to build off. Sustained success over the next 5 or so years with all the tv/media exposure etc that comes with it should see us meeting the stated goal of 75k and hopefully nudging 80k.

He was on the BUrgo podcast after the GF and pretty sure I heard him on another one too (Deebrief?)

Gawn, Jackson, Daw- not a bad cohort of rucks, doubt many other teams have 3 genuine ruck options on their list

All that plus people were hesitant without widespread vaccinations to attend large crowd events.

Exactly - the apology is issued only because Safework SA found no evidence of breaches of OH&S laws - this doesn't mean that there wasn't significant fallout from the camp among the players.

Jesus reading that has me salivating for round 1 and the defense of the premiership!! Bring it on Great work @picket fence

Trying to bump up Collingwood's crowd numbers 🤔🤣

The 88 and 2000 ones are much better than the 50s/60s ones I reckon. The 50s ones in particular look a bit weird especially the mouths, 64 is good though. The anniversary ones that have been released are pretty good too (there was one for the 55-57 three-peat as well as the 55 and 64 ones with the Demon skewering the Magpie).

I think we're about 10k ahead of where we usually are at this stage so tracking well for 65k

Agree but we seem to have a lot of members who like to sign up at the first game/just prior to the season. I assume the MCC/MFC members are already counted in the tally?

Are they still doing the $1 membership signups though?

That's true but also don't forget North were the first Vic club to rid themselves of pokies. So they've got to the position they're in without the pokies windfall and while continuing to receive crappy fixtures and relatively crappy stadium deals (although an improvement on what it was 5 years ago).

North are debt free for the first time since the 80s, have close to 50k members and have state of the art training facilities and a home base. I think they're doing OK actually.

40k is a good result for us so far but when you compare to the Pies and Bombers who hit this mark in early November and the Tigers who hit 80k in mid-Dec (😲) it shows how far we still have to go. Hopefully we see a big increase on the back of our flag and and sustained success early in 2022, 65k should be the minimum we are aiming for this year (on track considering we are about 10k ahead of this time last year and we ended up with around 55k). Anyone interested in other clubs tallies can view these threads on BigFooty https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/2022-membership-updates.1290913 https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/2022-club-membership.1289401

Have to get a copy of that one. Another one worth reading is Up Where Cazaly? It looks at the development of the game up to the early 80s (published around that time) so just prior to national expansion, quite an interesting read and is a good lead in to Football Ltd. I picked up a 2nd hand copy off eBay I think.

Currently at 40,823 according to the website (towards the bottom of the page) https://membership.melbournefc.com.au/

Yep $4m license fees from WCE (Indian Pacific/WAFC?) and Brisbane (Skase?) helped save the Vic clubs although I think Oakley had real trouble prying the $4m from Skase and the WCE fans have never let us hear the end of it. They forgot their local comp was all but in the gutter as well and propped up by the transfer fees of the Vic clubs (which were incidentally part of what was sending the Vic clubs broke). A very interesting time in the sport, I recommend reading Football Ltd by Gary Linnell for anyone interested in the evolution to the national comp.

Yep Fitzroy Bulldogs playing out of Western Oval was all done and dusted until the Doggies fans rallied and secured $1.1m via tin rattling and door knocking as well as a 3 year sponsorship from ICI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzroy_Bulldogs A great podcast series on this by the guys who did The Greatest Season That Was 1993

For NFL watchers, the Cincinnati Bengals just made their first SuperBowl since the 80s and could win their first ever. Richmond can get stuffed though.

Channel 7 don't care about the rusted on fans, they want "personalities" to draw in the casuals with their inane banter.