Swooper Northey

We should never, ever be seen in the royal blue of the 70s and 80s. It was symbolic of a shocking era in our history and a weak administration that allowed us to compromise our colours. I can cope with white ahead of that!

Excellent summary.

Good call. That's most likely what I saw. Thanks for clarifying.

Was just watching Game Day and saw Kent listed as having a hamstring injury. Has anyone heard any more on that?

Sorry Balls, I have to disagree. We should never, ever be seen in that insipid royal blue of the 1970s and 80s. It's associated with an era of complete rubbish. It looked as weak as the white jumper. Navy blue and red is Melbourne. Nothing more, nothing less.

And with HD broadcasts and big flat screen TVs, coverage of the game is clearer than ever before. So it begs the question, how many uniforms actually clash? In the majority of cases, a novel idea would be to see the away team wear white shorts.

And what about when we eventually host Essendon? Why is okay for them to wear a red clash strip against us, but we can't against them? That doesn't make sense. Did you notice that Gold Coast wore its red uniform against Essendon and St Kilda last season. Nothing was said about it.

Some of you might get a kick out of the AFL's response to my queries about clash uniforms following our win over Gold Coast at the G last year. The answers to my note are in red and come from Tess McManus, the AFL's Match Day Operations Manager. Whilst I appreciated the response, try and make sense or see logic in these answers if you can... From: Sent: Monday, 1 August 2016 9:12 PM To: AFL General Queries Subject: Query for the AFL - clash uniforms To Whom It May Concern, as a long-time follower of the VFL/AFL competition I was hoping that someone at league headquarters could help explain how it determines which uniforms teams wear each week? In days gone by, the rule of white shorts for the away team was a very simple concept to understand, but the current situation with clash uniforms has never really been explained to the football public because there doesn’t appear to be any hard and fast rules in place. I can’t see a logical pattern in how decisions are made and would appreciate the AFL’s insight into how the system works. There appear to be clear examples of inconsistent uniform policy every weekend which causes confusion and often frustration amongst supporters and followers of the game. The basic policy is to have one “dark” team and one “light” team where possible. I am a Melbourne supporter, so for the sake of this correspondence, I will use my club as an example. I am sure however that supporters of other clubs could raise similar queries. Melbourne v Gold Coast last Sunday was an interesting case study. Earlier in the year when these two teams played at Metricon Stadium, the Demons were not allowed to wear their traditional red socks. They instead wore a different set of red and blue hooped socks, to reduce the risk of clashing with the Suns. The above is not entirely correct. The Melbourne FC were allocated “clash” socks and as they did not request to wear their home socks, we did not change the initial allocation. That was understood and considered a reasonable outcome. However on Sunday when Melbourne hosted Gold Coast at the MCG, the Suns as the away team made no change to its uniform – i.e. both sides played the game wearing red socks – see above. Given the AFL’s desire to stamp out clashing uniforms, I’d love to know why this was the case, particularly when Gold Coast has a white clash uniform with blue socks which it rarely seems to wear. The same issue also seems to play out when Melbourne hosts the Brisbane Lions at the MCG. In recent seasons, the Lions have worn their Fitzroy-style red, blue and yellow jumper with predominately red socks against Melbourne (a red and blue team which also has red socks). Why does this repeatedly happen, when Brisbane has multiple uniforms to choose from, yet the AFL puts them in the combination that clashes most? The colours of red are completely different (the Lions almost orange) and therefore we don’t believe it is an issue and neither club has ever raised it as a concern Curiously, the Demons (red and blue) and Port Adelaide (black, white and teal) are deemed to clash by the AFL and are forced to wear alternate jumpers when they meet – correct, both considered “dark” uniforms, yet Collingwood and Carlton, both clubs with dark jumpers (both with dark backs with white numbers) don’t change their uniforms when they play one another, even though Collingwood has at its disposal a predominately white uniform for its use which more closely resembles its original jumper. We believe the Guernsey’s have enough of a distinction due to the amount of white in Collingwood’s Guernsey’s however on occasions the combination of shorts can cause confusion. We are working with both clubs to ensure we prevent this moving forward. When Melbourne (predominately navy blue) played the Bulldogs (predominately royal blue), both clubs were allowed to wear their original jumpers, which looked fantastic. Yet when Adelaide (predominately navy blue) played the Bulldogs (predominately royal blue), the Crows were forced to wear their yellow strip – this was a request of the Adelaide Crows. Again, it is hard to see the logic in this, particularly when Adelaide and Essendon (both dark colours with red in their guernseys) wore their traditional jumpers at the Adelaide Oval last night. I would love to understand how these decisions are reached. This is something we are working on with Essendon – I agree, it definitely wasn’t the best distinction. These are just a handful of examples that I can draw upon which points to the confusion and inconsistency surrounding this issue. There are many more that I could point to. Out of respect for a loyal supporter of our game, I would greatly appreciate some insight into how these decisions are made.

I've written to the AFL about the inconsistent clash jumper policy because it's one of my biggest gripes in the current game. After repeated emails to a generic address I eventually got a response from Tessie McManus who is the Match Day Operations Manager at the AFL. Her email address is: [email protected] I'd encourage you to make your thoughts known because even though I appreciated the fact that she responded, she couldn't really provide a sufficient answer to my many queries. These included: 1.) Why did we have to wear a white clash jumper against Port when Adelaide wore it's predominately navy jumper in its away match against the Power? 2.) Why were Carlton and Essendon both permitted to wear their traditional uniforms when they met, yet we had to wear white in our away match against both clubs? 3.) Why did we have to wear hooped socks against Gold Coast at Metricon, yet in the return match at the MCG the Suns made no change to their uniform? 4.) Why is Brisbane allowed to wear its Fitzroy themed red, blue and yellow jumper against us, with predominantly red socks? These are just a handful of examples that I can draw upon which points to the confusion and inconsistency surrounding this issue. There are many more that I could point to.

Yep - go for [email protected]. I'm worried though that the inbox will be manned by a work experience kid. Perhaps it needs to go to Jennifer Watt or even PJ?

I've written to the AFL about the inconsistent clash jumper policy because it's one of my biggest gripes in the current game. After repeated emails to a generic address I eventually got a response from Tessie McManus who is the Match Day Operations Manager at the AFL. Her email address is: [email protected] I'd encourage you to make your thoughts known because even though I appreciated the fact that she responded, she couldn't really provide a sufficient answer to my many queries. These included: 1.) Why did we have to wear a white clash jumper against Port when Adelaide wore it's predominately navy jumper in its away match against the Power? 2.) Why were Carlton and Essendon both permitted to wear their traditional uniforms when they met, yet we had to wear white in our away match against both clubs? 3.) Why did we have to wear hooped socks against Gold Coast at Metricon, yet in the return match at the MCG the Suns made no change to their uniform? 4.) Why is Brisbane allowed to wear its Fitzroy themed red, blue and yellow jumper against us, with predominantly red socks? These are just a handful of examples that I can draw upon which points to the confusion and inconsistency surrounding this issue. There are many more that I could point to.

I notice that the Demon Shop link is now inactive. Regardless I've written to the club this evening outlining my displeasure with the new uniform. I said that the club only needs to look at social media posts and club forums to gauge instant feedback. I've pointed them to Demonland's poll whereby nearly 80 per cent of respondents claim to 'hate it'.

The AFL has a lot to answer for on this issue. For an entity that is so paranoid about protecting its 'brand', the identity of our clubs are being tampered with on an almost weekly basis with a ridiculous distortion of jumpers. It is rare to see two clubs play a match in their traditional jumpers, many of which have stood the test of time. These are uniforms that were identifiable in the era of black and white television yet in today's day and age where most homes have HD television, there is an assumption that we can't tell teams apart. There is no consistency to the clash jumper rule and I've never heard the decision-making explained in detail.

When talking about tough small forwards in the Puopolo mould, don't forget Kent either. Hard-at-it with pace and genuine goal sense. I think we overlook the difference he will make once fit and available for selection.

Brisbane was allowed to wear its red and blue Fitzroy jumper with red socks against us last week and the AFL didn't deem that to be a clash in any way. I can't work out the rules. I'm convinced they make it up as they go.

He's a complete and utter tool. So arrogant. I refuse to listen to 3AW Sports Today for that reason.

The HFC says it wants to leave Waverley because although the facilities were once state-of-the-art, they're now in the bottom four in the league. No thanks.

We need true quality. A lack of class has killed us for years and continues to do so. A couple of players on the periphery at other clubs may be handy pick-ups eg. Ben Newton, but I'm convinced we need to target a couple of true A-graders to make the difference that we need. Otherwise the gains we make (if any) will be incremental rather than substantial. A quality ruckman who can actually kick the ball, a couple of skilled big-bodied midfielders and another strong forward threat are the orders of the day. The time has come. I'm sick of seeing our club bullied by interstate teams on our home ground.

That's just a brilliant photo and my enduring memory of the champ. The crowd would scream ROBBIEEE!!! as he made rivals look like complete duds.

My childhood hero. How we used to pretend to be Robbie, bouncing a plastic footy down the hallway of our house, dodging and weaving and leaving opponents in our wake, just like the famous number two. I'll never forget the joy of screaming "ROBBIEEEE!" as he took yet another screamer or kicked a beautiful goal. He made me proud to support the MFC. Vale Tulip. We will miss you, but never forget you. A champion in every sense of the word.

It worked for a bloke named Cameron Ling.

Should he decide to go to Freo, I wish him luck getting a game behind Sandilands, Clarke, Griffin and Hannath.

I know that Lyon was outstanding the day we beat the Dogs in that '94 semi-final (yep, he kicked 10), but the undoubted highlight was Schwarz. I don't think I've seen any Melbourne player at CHF carve up an opposition like that. It was bloody spectacular.

Brilliant article by Jesse Hogan of The Age (not our emerging forward of the same name). If you watch the video, his narration absolutely captures the essence of what it was like to watch the Dees in '94. It's a great reminder that life watching Melbourne was once a joy.

There's plenty of things on the AFL's agenda to fix, but this needs to be one of them. For the public to better understand these decisions, I'd like the league to be transparent and show how these decisions are made. Richmond aside, try explaining how we clash with Port? We have to wear our clash jumper when facing the highly conflicting colours of black, white and teal.