Grapeviney

BTW. Despite my 16 game membership it cost me 30.00 to sit on level 1 last night.

It's a bloody farce and I loathe that ground more and more with each visit.

I avoided the $30 charge and went to Level 3, which was advertised as general admission, except that the first 10 rows were reserved for St Kilda members.

Sat in the bloody heavens and struggled to identify the players properly, especially the new boys.

I get the 16 game membership too but it's not particularly good value - dont even get a good / reserved seat for our Etihad home game.

@#$@#$%#$%^$&%^&*%^&*^&*^&*(*^&

Geez picket, Lyon was rather better than "reasonably good". He was bloody good!

It's been interesting to watch his journey from hero to zero in the eyes of many MFC people since his retirement.

Much of that can be attributed to his starring role in failed coaching appointments, but I don't see why it should diminish his considerable feats as a player.

Looks like it says "James" to me

I thought the same.

Maybe it's Glen James, the umpire who crucified us more than any other during that era.

I'll have you know I have been committed from to some the finest institutions in the world.

Fixed.

enter the portals of hell - enjoy elite status as a demon and watch daily replays of every demon win since 1858

methinks the realms of hell are more likely to be playing replays of our 2012-13 season on high rotation.

and dwayne russell is commentating !

might be quicker to build a time machine and return to the 50's

Isn't that roughly the plot of WJ's 'Highway of Demons', chapters of which occasionally appear on this website?

I will, of course, be squeezing Kim Duthie into any conversation.

As long as you don't try to squeeze her anywhere else .. she's probably got her phone camera still filming..

Hang in there Jazza, you'll come good.

Talking Footy just had a brief interview with Jesse and he was just as vague about his return as he was the other night on the Footy Show.

He said 2-3 weeks at best but he doesn't really know and he's not sure when.

Even he doesn't look like he believes the 2-3 weeks line.

it's the seamlessness of the transition thats most important. It's not going to be Malthouse to Buckley. It's really not that different than Demetriou handing over the CEO of the AFL to Gil McLachlan.

Collingwood planned a seamless transition too, and it looked like it would be up until it went sour.

Of course having the assistant work for two years under Roos would be better than one, but the rigidity of the timing of it all makes me nervous (while recognising that's what we're stuck with).

If we can't find the perfect candidate by the end of the year, will we wait for the right man or will we go for next best?

Caro's thought. Don't appoint anyone so you hope Roos stays for longer and then you might luck in to a Clarkson or Lyon down the track.

That wasn't her only point. She was also critical of the club's seeming haste to sign the assistant to the senior role early in the tenure, rather than later.

As she said, what if we discover after 1 or 2 years that our fantastic assistant coach - say a Mark Neeld type - looks like he'll be a dud senior coach - but we've locked it in for 2 years already or whatever.

Unfortunately, as she also pointed out, the succession thing was a key requirement in getting Roos over the line. Unless the man himself decides to stay on, we're stuck with a less-than-perfect scenario in my opinion.

Maybe he should relenquish all his money and go to a 3rd world country and get a real perspective about pain, sorrow and destitution.

Is he a man or still a boy?

Nice one tough guy.

Would like to see you offer this advice to Mitch in person.

Mids PLEASE help me keep this thread to it's intended purpose, to support a demon.

Let's be gown ups and keep the rumours and insults to another thread guys. The idea was to show this to Mitch as a support mechanism, not show him how many tools are MFC supporters.

The mids are are already busy enough trying to get their hands on their footy for us this year thank you very much

What an odd discussion. Clearly he said the sort of thing you'd expect him to say. It may be spin, but if it signs up a few more members who might not have joined otherwise, it's worth it.

Other than infecting opposition players in the first 5 rounds with the flu to ensure some wins, which I guess is illegal, what else could he do to round up some more members?

Exactly. Call it spin, marketing, promotion, whatever, the club has to actively court new members (and lapsed ones) and promote itself generally to the supporters. It's some poor sod's job to dream up new ways of saying the same old things year after year, and I reckon the format for this year's effort - the letter from Jackson - is as good as any.

What's the alternative? Complete silence from the club until we actually a few games. Yeh - I'm sure that'd go down well on here.

Pizzing down for part of the game along with lightening too. If it were a game of golf it would have been called off.

Apparently they had to delay the start because of the severity of the storm, but as TU noted, it didn't stop Cameron and Patton from getting among the goals.

I would have thought its feasible and reasonable goal for MFC to have the replacement for Paul Roos locked in by year end.

I am not sure why there is all the angst and barbs at Barrett.

A number of posters here really are a precious lot.

I don't understand the angst either - other media interpreted Jackson's comments the same way.

3AW were discussing it pre-match tonight and were a bit critical on two fronts.

Firstly, that we might anoint a successor this year, only to find that a Clarkson or Lyon is available when Roos' time is up; and secondly, that if Roos does indeed bow out after one (more) year, or even two, that the successor won't have had enough time as apprentice to make the succession work. Longmire had numerous years under Roos before taking over (mind you, Buckley had several years under Malthouse and that's not going great guns at the minute either).

Anyway, just passing on what I heard. I tend to think (or hope), like BH, that Roos will want to extend once he gets us up and going.

Of course you are right Nutbean but Honest John(who wasn't) always had a big advantage, it didn't matter how much Shyte he uttered he had the News Corp cheer squads to back him up and the Sydney brain dead shock jocks applauding his every action. That lot will nearly always get you 55% approval from the the voters.

That may be true, but he was also helped by a largely inept Labor in Opposition, particularly after the 2001 election >>>> the white-anting of Simon Crean from day one of his leadership, and then the Latham fiasco.

You didn't read what I wrote. I disliked his politics but he was the consummate politician. For all those "ills" you highlighted - how many of them stuck ? How many cost him politically. He could sense what the majority of Australians wanted ( understanding that a good majority in political terms is 55%) and respond to it . So you are only half right in saying that he backing of his party - he also had the backing of the majority of Australians. He managed to make some rather unsavoury policies saleable.

I never voted for him but you cannot compare the buffoon that is Abbott to John Howard.

People forget that it took time for Howard to grow in to the job, so much so that it seemed his might be a one-term Government early on; a handful of Ministers were forced to resign in the first couple of years, Hanson and the gun laws threatened to split the conservative vote, and then of course there was the risk of going to the polls with the GST.

Howard was considered so hopeless that when he was resurrected as Opposition Leader for the 2nd or 3rd time, The Bulletin had him on the cover of their magazine with the massive headline: "Mr 18 per cent - Why Does This Man Bother?"

The rest, as they say, is history.

You're right though - he developed a fabulous radar for what the average Australian punter was thinking on any given issue.

Did I mishear or did he say his back was a bit tight / sore before the Geelong game?

Hi David Williamson,

Have you thought about a sequel to 'The Club', based on the MFC?

I'm thinking something based on Dante's Inferno, where the nine circles of suffering are made up of our past seven seasons (in hell of course), and then one circle each for injuries and crap umpiring.

Whaddya reckon?

I also had a surprisingly long chat to Roosy. Nice guy.

Best of all I met and had a great chat to my childhood hero, Robbie Flower. They say you should never meet them as you tend to walk away disappointed. I'm pleased to say it was the opposite. A fantastically friendly and engaging guy. It made my night.

Thanks to the generosity of a good friend at an auction a few months back, I'm lucky enough to have an MFC jumper signed by both Flower and Roos.

This friend, who knows Roos (not through football) speaks very highly of him as a person. He and his wife went through a terrible tragedy a number of years ago and Roos was incredibly supportive throughout their ordeal and beyond, despite coaching and all his other commitments.

I can't say I've ever spoken to Robbie at length, but on the occasions I did chat to him he always came across as humble and softly-spoken.

/ end diversion

There's a place called Burpengary?

Burpengary. Actually it's the involuntary gagging response made when an MFC supporter learns that Garry Lyon is about to be involved in a major decision affecting the club's future.

I'm not really into conspiracy theories - particularly those that can be so neatly summed up in a Youtube vid - but for me the most interesting incident requiring further investigation in my lifetime is / was the death of cricketer Hansie Cronje in that plane crash following revelations of match-fixing in cricket.

I'm in India at the moment, and there was a front page story in the papers here yesterday reporting the comments of the senior police investigator into match-fixing at the time who said that the Government ordered him to close the probe down because it was bringing out too many skeletons from the closet in the multi-million (bilion?) betting industry. Basically, they never got the chance to get to the bottom of the case...

I wonder if we'll ever know the truth?

This is a novel way of trying to get in: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-10/asylum-seeker-arrives-on-christmas-island-dressed-as-cricketer/5081802

I think it's becoming a shrewder move to drop down a bit in the draft as the days go by.

In no possible universe is pick 9 better than pick 2 - except on Demonland.