La Dee-vina Comedia

Collingwood-speak for "We don't know how many members we have because we can't count"

Every time I go to Adelaide I have to remind myself to put my watch back 30 minutes plus 20 years.

To close the loop, I have today renewed my membership by phone. I also discussed with helpful staff member the difficulty of MCC members renewing online on the MFC website and had it confirmed that we have to do it through the MCC website. I suggested that the MFC website could include this information. In all seriousness, the club should be making it simple for all categories of member to renew. It's basic business knowledge that retaining a customer (or, in this case a member) is easier than finding a new one.

I tried doing it then and the MCC website wasn't allowing it either! The MCC site theoretically allowed a member to sign up with any AFL club* but the system didn't actually work. *Personally, I think anyone who joins an AFL club other than Melbourne should have their MCC membership cancelled as it's a clear sign that the person does not have the requisite integrity or intelligence expected of an MCC member.

If Melbourne is to be typically Melbourne, it should start by using correct grammar. The club is singular, therefore the statement should be "Melbourne is entering an exciting era". Unless, of course, Pert was being deliberately ironic and making a statement about the ignorance of the average non-Melbourne supporting Melburnian.

And nothing says "common" more than a Richmond or Collingwood membership.

I imagine that at some time in the not to distant future the Players' Association will say that players are being unreasonably coerced to attend the club during their supposed break. It will only take one club being unreasonable - and there will eventually be one - before the dam wall breaks.

I think this is one of the greatest posts on Demonland ever. I don't quite know what it means but " a royal commission for scum bags" just rolls off the tongue delightfully. Sounds like Paul Keating in Parliament circa 1990.

I'm not disputing this statement, but how does it fit in with the Collective Bargaining Agreement? I see no problem with players voluntarily doing extra work, but are the club's fitness and conditioning staff able to advise the players on what they should do during their break? Wouldn't that breach the agreement? Conversely, if the club's staff are not able to advise players on what they should do, how is the "extra" work monitored to ensure it fits with requirements and, more importantly, doesn't lead to players over-exerting themselves or potentially causing themselves injury?

I've just tried to renew online. I'm an MCC member wanting to take up the MCC/MFC offer but I can't renew online. Anyone else having the same problem? (I will ring the club and renew, but my concern is with the inefficiency of the membership renewal system).

Is that even possible? Can salmon coloured boots be beautiful? Makes me doubt the credibility of the rest of your posts (not).

For every person who thinks one year out of the game is not enough to recharge there will be another who thinks that anything longer would be too long and too hard to get back in. I admire Pert for taking on this job. Without denigrating Jackson, there was a lot of low hanging fruit when he arrived. He picked all that off and then went on to the more difficult matters and will be rightly remembered as one of the best CEOs the club has ever had. So Pert comes into a job where all the "easy fixes" have already been done and will have to suffer the inevitable comparisons with his immediate predecessor. He would be smart and experienced enough to know that, so I admire him for taking on what has become difficult job to be seen to be successful in.

I'm not sure we should own it. I expect it would be more economical for someone else to own and build it and for us to take out a long-term lease as a key tenant (say, 20 years with a 20 year option). Or we could master lease the whole thing and then sub-lease components, such as the office space and any F&B outlets. I would have thought the less capital we tie up in something like this the better. (That goes for any development, whether it's Yarra Park or elsewhere).

Unless he chooses to play cricket over football.

There's the proof that our plan is the optimal solution.

Let me be the first to ask a dumb question. Does the vertical leap test measure absolute height or height above the player's own height. In other words do the King twins, who average 203 cm have a 30 cm advantage over Chandler before they even take a leap? If so, the Chandler twins (ie, Kade and Kyle) are the second best of everyone, they must have a helluva jump.

Ask me in 5 years time

A sparrow that walks like a swan? Doesn't even sound possible.

You seem to be channelling a former PM who is not worthy of naming who (in)famously said that Workchoices was "dead, buried and cremated".

That's why I suggested mounting a sentimental campaign rather than one based on common sense or logic. It's amazing the foolish things the human race will do in response to sentimentality. (Next you'll be arguing that anyone associated with Collingwood aren't actually part of the human race. Can't argue with that.)

The better strategy would be to mount a sentimental campaign for Collingwood to relocate to Victoria Park. We could then take over Olympic Park

RG is correct that Governments and Opposition parties will use creative language when necessary to give them subsequent wriggle room should they want to do something (or not do something) which they were to politically scared to support (or oppose) prior to an election. I'm not saying, however, that in this instance that any non-specific response should be presumed to disguise a particular position.

I suspect the lack of foresight wasn't the only problem. I presume we would have had insufficient financial resources to do anything there anyway.

Maybe we weren't asking for enough in the first place. Perhaps we should have added a Formula 1 track to Yarra Park and to raise the railway to a Skyrail to the plans and then agreed to a mediated compromise by removing the F1 component and the Skyrail. Isn't that the way politics is meant to work?

I must have caught a different strain of MFCSS. I'm the eternal optimist (otherwsie known as the glass half full sort of guy) who goes to games in a positive frame of mind irrespective of when logic suggests otherwise. And even as an optimist, I still assume we'll find a way to stuff it up next year.