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Coming to Melbourne after seven years as a leading goal kicker at North Melbourne, Brown was well known for his unique, extremely long run up on set shots for goal. After some early setbacks injury wise settled into the full forward position in time to play a big role in the 2021 premiership win with three goals. Unfortunately, the remainder of his time at the club was hampered by injury including the need to undergo knee surgery. He retired from playing football at the end of the season after 45 games and 73 goals but remains at the club in a coaching role with the AFLW team. Date of Birth: 20 November 1992 Height: 200cm Games MFC 2024: 6 Career Total: 175 Goals MFC 2024: 7 Career Total: 360 Games CDFC 2024: 7 Goals CDFC 2024: 9

Like most big men, Verrall is taking time to develop as a ruckman but has shown some encouraging signs. Finished ninth in the Casey Demons best & fairest this year. Date of Birth: 11 March 2004 Height: 199cm Games CDFC 2024: 17 Goals CDFC 2024: 6

Retired at the end of the season after recurring calf injuries severely limited his ability to perform at his best. Date of Birth: 13 December 1994 Height: 182cm Games MFC 2024: 2 Career Total: 199 Goals MFC 2024: 1 Career Total: 80 Games CDFC 2024: 10 Goals CDFC 2024: 1

The key defender has the height and has showed out from time to time with his pace in defence but has progressed slowly in his two seasons at the club. Will need to improve in 2025. Date of Birth: 14 May 2004 Height: 196cm Games CDFC 2024: 17 Goals CDFC 2024: 0

Brown, the son of former Demon hard nut Nathan Brown, made a couple of cameo appearances as a substitute which included a brilliant run down tackle which may have saved the game against the Kangaroos. Had some outstanding games at VFL level and finished equal sixth in the best & fairest at Casey. Date of Birth: 13 January 2005 Height: 181cm Games MFC 2024: 2 Career Total: 2 Goals MFC 2024: 0 Career Total: 0 Games CDFC 2024: 16 Goals CDFC 2024: 12

Date of Birth: 8 March 2004 Height: 195cm Games CDFC 2024: 17 Goals CDFC 2024: 29 The rangy young key forward was a first round pick two years ago is undergoing a long period of training for senior football. There were some promising developments during his season at Casey where he was their top goal kicker and finished third in its best & fairest.

Date of Birth: 28 May 1995 Height: 186cm Games MFC 2024: 3 Career Total: 53 Goals MFC 2024: 1 Career Total: 73 Games CDFC 2024: 11 Goals CDFC 2024: 21 Injuries meant a delayed start to his season and, although he showed his athleticism and his speed at times, he was unable to put it all together consistently. Needs to show much more in 2025 and a key will be his fitness.

Date of Birth: 10 September 2005 Height: 194cm Games CDFC 2024: 9 Goals CDFC 2024: 5 Drafted from WAFL club Subiaco in this year’s mid season draft, Kentfield was injured when he came to the club and needs a full season to prepare for the rigors of AFL football.

Date of Birth: 15 April 2004 Height: 188cm Games CDFC 2024: 15 Goals CDFC 2024: 15 Sestan is coming from a long way back in terms of AFL level fitness and this year, he had the benefit of his first full preseason. It definitely showed as he shed weight and gained more running strength to the extent that he was given midfield moments at Casey and finished equal fourth in its best & fairest. He will put himself into the frame for AFL game time with further development in this area.

Date of Birth: 2 January 2004 Height: 206cm Games CDFC 2024: 4 Goals CDFC 2024: 1 Farris-White was recruited from basketball as a Category B rookie in the hope of turning him into an AFL quality ruckman but, after two seasons, the experiment failed to bear fruit.

Date of Birth: 21 August 1997 Height: 199cm Games MFC 2024: 1 Career Total: 76 Goals MFC 2024: 0 Career Total: 75 Games CDFC 2024: 12 Goals CDFC 2024: 14 Originally selected to join the Brisbane Lions with the second pick in the 2015 AFL National Draft, Schache moved on to the Western Bulldogs and played in their 2021 defeat to Melbourne where he featured in a handful of games over the past two seasons. Was unable to command a regular place at AFL level and was recently delisted.

I haven't been on Demonland for a while due to work commitments and family matters. However, I thought I should make a post about the serious issues the Melbourne Football Club is facing. After finally breaking our 57 year Premiership drought in 2021, things are now looking grim and we need to fix the serious problems that the Melbourne Demons are currently facing. This is why I support former Demons champion in David Schwarz about having an entire review of the Melbourne Football Club. I don't think CEO Gary Pert should do a mere internal review as I don't think that will be enough. We need both internal and external people investigating the problems the Melbourne Football Club has and look to identify these problems and find solutions to them. Kane Cornes actually wrote a good news article discussing our issues the other week: https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/the-demons-stand-at-the-gates-of-footy-hell-these-are-the-five-mistakes-that-got-them-there-20240808-p5k0ms.html I actually agreed with many of the unpleasant truths that he identified about the Melbourne Demons. An external review is the only way to get to the bottom of all our problems at the Melbourne Demons. Some of the problems have been out of our control like Luke Jackson wishing to leave the Demons and return home to WA. Others, have been due to rotten luck, like poor Angus Brayshaw being knocked out by Brayden Maynard and then forced to medically retire due to all his concussion injuries. Why the Demons players didn't seek vengeance for what happened against Angus Brayshaw still bitterly disappoints me. But I guess I have a more bloodthirsty attitude compared to others and would of liked to see football played the way it was in the good ol' days of the 1980's with brawls and pay back against any of our players that were hurt by an opposition player with "an eye for an eye" mentality. Sadly, our attitude against Collingwood on King's Birthday this year was as soft as butter on a hot summer's day in my opinion and was humiliating to witness. Nevertheless, other issues have to do with poor list management and recruitment. The foolish trade for Brodie Grundy, with the experiment given up after one mere season of trying to see if it could work and then trading away both James Jordon and James Harmes. Not trading in a tall forward or a forward-ruck to help Max Gawn was a big mistake. I don't think we bothered using Tom Fullarton at all either. Losing Alex Neal-Bullen is disappointing too, but family comes first and hopefully we can arrange a fair trade for him to either the Crows or Power. Then there are cultural problems and the poor behaviour of Demons players. Obviously, some of these matters cannot be mentioned. But the most important factor is the need to raise the level of the professionalism of a significant portion of our players. David Schwarz even mentioned this on the radio with Demons players allegedly mucking around during their preseason camp down at Anglesea. Most importantly, we also certainly don't want to see one of our greatest Demons players ever and Norm Smith medallist in Christian Petracca leave the Club. Losing Christian Petracca would be as bad as Ronald Dale Barassi leaving for Carlton at the end of 1964. So reconciling with Christian Petracca is a crucial matter that needs resolving. The stagnation regarding our Home Base development at Caulfield Racecourse has also been incredibly frustrating and this also needs to see further progress. In the end, I don't think I am alone with these concerns and the entire Melbourne Football Club (from boot studder to President) has a lot of pertinent questions to answer. We as Melbourne supporters and members deserve answers and explanations for how things have fallen into disarray so rapidly in season 2024. Anyway, we still have 2 rounds to go. So let's see what happens....

If you were doing the exit interviews, what would be a key message that you would want delivered to a particular player? Where would you want them to focus in the off season to improve? Verall: More Fitness and marking, getting to contests to be improved Jefferson: More muscle mass and hit more contests. Howes: More fitness and strength to challenge for a wing spot in 24 (etc) Then there are ones like “enjoy your retirement” to BBB, TMAc, Hibbo, Melk, etc, and ‘enjoy the Harbour views, Grundy” What messages would you give?

I understand we did a football department review at the end of 2020. Or was it 2019? I can't remember exactly.🤔 Nevertheless, I thought that the MFC CEO Gary Pert did an excellent job with that review at the time. My question is, do we need to do another football department review? In some ways, it is also quite healthy to do a review every few years. We definitely need to give the Demons senior coach Simon Goodwin more help and perhaps employ more development coaches. Especially if our football department budget is expanded to the Pre COVID-19 amount. We may or may not need a few new assistant coaches. Especially if we lose Adem Yze to the Richmond senior coach role. A specialist goal kicking coach may also come in handy? I think Mark "Choco" Williams has been brilliant at the Demons. However, we should aim to get more specialist coaches to assist our players. Improving our forwardline connection and our goal kicking accuracy is crucial. However, our overall kicking efficiency around the ground needs to be greatly improved too. I think an internal review is satisfactory. But should it be an external review this time? Anyway, I am keen to hear the opinions of other Melbourne supporters about the suggestion of having a new football department review?

There will be enough sad/brutal (but accurate) 'three word' summary posts for 2019 (mine is 'we went backwards'), so to keep us in good spirits for what should be a better year (it has to, right!?), I thought I'd focus on some of the positives (it shouldn't be hard to list them!) What went right? What do we salvage from the wreck of 2019?? For me: - Another fantastic year from Maxxy. I know the commentators gush over Grundy, but we have the #1 ruckman, no questions. True leadership material, hopefully he figures more in this regard next year. - Fritta (who was finally played in the right spot) - Salem was a constant out back, and needs to be utilised better next year. We could do with his foot skills further up the ground. - I know his season was interrupted, mostly his own fault, but May will be a huge asset. He's tough, reads the play well and can lead from out back. He just needs a good off season to get his body right. - Petracca showed glimpses towards the end of the season. He just needs to let loose in 2020.

There is an idea from Daniel Kahneman (Behavioural Economics) that we evaluate an experience on the ‘peak-end effect’. That is, we are hopeless at assessing the full season rationally, and instead take our feeling from the season by the peak experience (good or bad) and the end experience. We all know what was the ‘end’ experience. It was disappointing, and a definite lowlight to leave us all feeling a bit worse about the journey the club took us on this year. However, what was your ‘peak’ experience for the year? What was the intense emotional moment (good or bad) that shapes the way you saw our year. Here are 3 of mine: The smashing of the crows in Alice. Man, what a performance. The Geelong final win. Probably my peak emotional experience and an absolute beauty. And #3 was the win over WCE that got us there. (My peak negative was the Geelong game with the loss after the siren). What was yours?

2012: THE YEAR THAT WAS by Whispering Jack The great author and social critic Charles Dickens opened his epic novel A Tale of Two Cities in this way: The words ring loud and strong as I sit and ponder over a year whose end is almost upon us. More tough times for the club that founded the game and once ruled it, but has more recently perched uneasily on the tumbril heading for the guillotine while up there, in that far away city whose inhabitants barely care, the usurper reigns. The early optimism ever-present at the dawn of a season seemed justified in the very early days of Mark Neeld's AFL coaching career. On the first Saturday in March, his Demons overcame the Magpies by 9 points at Etihad Stadium. Despite the format and the experimental nature of those games, there was encouragement to be gained from the way they went about things that night but alas, it was short-lived and provided little more than a passing tinge of a promise of better things to come. The illusion was shattered within days when star forward Liam Jurrah, recuperating from a wrist injury, was arrested on charges relating to an alleged machete attack in an encampment in Alice Springs. The case became a complex saga with twists and turns that tormented the player, his community and his football club until he walked out late in the season leaving the beautiful story of his journey from Yuendumu to the big city in tatters. The end was an amicable divorce and in most years, his story would have been a mere distraction but in 2012, it was simply a distraction within a nest of distractions and deep wounds. There was much more to come. Two days after the breaking of the news about Jurrah, on the second Saturday in March, Hawthorn slaughtered Melbourne in the next NAB Cup game. The magical rebirth was over and, less than a week later, they lost in Adelaide to a less than well-respected Port Adelaide combination. The injuries were coming and the form was suddenly worse than poor. On 20 March, the iconic Jim Stynes, who had only recently stood down as club chairman, died at the young age of 45. A week later, he was buried at a state funeral held at St Paul's Cathedral, honoured by thousands including his players proudly wearing their red and blue blazers. On 31 March, the season proper began. At the MCG, a listless Melbourne succumbed in the heat by 41 points to the unfancied Brisbane Lions and suddenly, the club was under attack with the vultures in the media circling. The coach was less than convincing in post-match interviews, the attendance of the players at Stynes' funeral so close to the start of the season was now scoffed at and the stirrers became more and more vicious in their contempt of the club as the defeats came and the performances tended towards the insipid. Now, Melbourne was easy prey; fodder for all manner of opportunists with various agendas, some hidden and others kept deep below the surface. The new coach was falsely accused of discriminating against his indigenous players. The slur was traced to the AFL's community engagement manager Jason Mifsud who apologised to Neeld and offered his resignation but AFL chief Andrew Demetriou refused to accept it. Mifsud remains in his employment to this very day despite clear breaches of trust and dishonesty. The mystery remains as to the true origin of the allegations and as to whether parties other than Mifsud were behind them, for the controversy opened up more doors for the club's detractors who used it to question the manner of Neeld's appointment. Has a young coach ever in the history of the game been exposed more to the media blowtorch, much of it without justification, than this man? Worse was to come with the revelations of racist and sexist posts on the Facebook page of the CEO of the club's major sponsor Energy Watch. The club acted swiftly and decisively to sever ties with Energy Watch but the usual suspects were swifter in sinking more boots into the hapless Demons who admittedly did manage to cover most of the lost ground by securing Webjet and Opel as sponsors. The season dragged on, the injuries, the poor form and the defeats got worse amid a few dim rays of light amid the gloom. Nathan Jones was indefatigable, recruit Mitch Clark a revelation at full forward and some of the youngsters were showing good signs. After nine straight losses, the Demons had a night out at the MCG and finally broke the ice to beat the Bombers but the injury toll continued to mount. Clark's foot surgery was a major blow and the list of players injured never went below a dozen in number during the second half of 2012. The inevitable result was that wins were even harder to come by and the season's total of four victories consisted of three over new franchise teams, GWS and the Gold Coast, as well as that Round 10 upset over Essendon. Then came the thunderbolt known as the "tanking affair" which famously opened with suggestions by former player Brock McLean on the Fox Footy Channel that "you would have to be blind Freddy" not to realise that winning was less of a priority for the Demons than draft picks in his last season so he left to go to Carlton of all clubs. The Blues had three number one draft picks courtesy of the system including Matthew Kreuzer who was secured after a spectacular eleven game end of season losing streak that culminated in the farcical Kreuzer Cup and which is referred to these days in some circles as the "grand slam of tanking" but all this was missed by the panel of three supposedly wise inquisitors who were so lost for words that they failed to ask the glaringly obvious, leaving many suspecting that McLean was a mere patsy set up to embarrass his old club (or more precisely, certain officials of his old club). The politics behind the McLean revelations was also lost on the AFL's (now departed) Adrian Anderson who hastily launched a 5½ month long inquisition which drew to a close late in the year and out of which no charges have been laid to date. The enquiry was discriminatory in that it ignored other clubs whose own activities have been queried on the subject over a period of a decade and was confined to Melbourne and Melbourne alone. Incredibly, one of the club's detractors was former Chairman Paul Gardner who went public with this massive toe poke to the head, "I knew what they were doing and why they were doing it, but I didn't have to watch it any more." Information leaked to the media resulted in a storm of controversy in early November with an inflammatory and damning editorial knitted together by Melbourne Age chief football writer Caroline "Madame Defarge" Wilson and this led to a statement by President Don McLardy that the club would use every resource available to defend the integrity of the Melbourne Football Club. Ray Finkelstein, a prominent QC and former judge was appointed to handle the clubs defence. There have been suggestions that the possibility of a sanction against Melbourne or some of its officials but in the absence of similarly prolonged and through investigations of other clubs also suspected of tanking but not investigated, the AFL's integrity would be left in tatters carrying the smell of corruption. The saga is set to play itself out next month amid suggestions that face-saving deals will be done but I will leave further comment to Herald Sun journalist Warwick Green who recently wrote: The outcome of the enquiry will not be the end of the matter for the Melbourne Football Club. The board which has shown considerable strength and unity over a trying period still needs to deal with the core of the political maelstrom and the antipathy towards it from malcontents and disaffected supporters and from within certain segments of the media. These things are damaging and cannot be easily dealt with but they reflect deep-seated grievances and quarrels that have tracked the club through almost fifty years of disquiet that have destroyed many careers and good people and have held back its resurrection. At the other end of the spectrum, Sydney upset Hawthorn in a memorable grand final and, for the second time in a decade, the premiership cup went north while the oldest football club in the world remained in a state of disarray. We need to aspire to their level of solidarity, calm and experience within our ranks if we are to attain success. It was only when the playing season was over that we could experience some better times. Nathan Jones was a worthy winner of the Keith "Bluey" Truscott Memorial Trophy in recognition of him lifting his game to a point where a little more improvement next year will see him at the level of the elite, Jeremy Howe took Mark of the Year after amassing numerous nominations at the same time demonstrating that he's more than just a spring heeled Jack while the two Jacks, Grimes and Trengove had the most difficult of initiations into the world of AFL captaincy that will hold them in good stead in the years to come. Mitch Clark stuck it right up his critics with aplomb and he will be back while young Tom McDonald showed sufficient quality as a defender to warrant some striking list decisions made by the club in terms of its future defensive structure. The list changes effected in the last quarter of the calendar year was breathtaking in breadth and scope. We saw fifteen players gone including former captain and club stalwart Brad Green, Jared Rivers, Brent Moloney, Matthew Bate and some others who were good servants of the club but it was time for change. They were replaced by an eclectic mix of young and old in a sign that the football department was willing to take the steps necessary to bring about the best of times for an ailing club. The newcomers will be among the trailblazers as the team named for this great city begins its revival. Names like Viney, Dawes, Toumpas and next year Hogan will help change things forever, bringing to mind the theme of resurrection in these words, among the last to come from the unfortunate man who bears the name "Sydney" in Dickens' great tale:

2012: THE YEAR THAT WAS by Whispering Jack The great author and social critic Charles Dickens opened his epic novel A Tale of Two Cities in this way: The words ring loud and strong as I sit and ponder over a year whose end is almost upon us. More tough times for the club that founded the game and once ruled it, but has more recently perched uneasily on the tumbril heading for the guillotine while up there, in that far away city whose inhabitants barely care, the usurper reigns. The early optimism ever-present at the dawn of a season seemed justified in the very early days of Mark Neeld's AFL coaching career. On the first Saturday in March, his Demons overcame the Magpies by 9 points at Etihad Stadium. Despite the format and the experimental nature of those games, there was encouragement to be gained from the way they went about things that night but alas, it was short-lived and provided little more than a passing tinge of a promise of better things to come. The illusion was shattered within days when star forward Liam Jurrah, recuperating from a wrist injury, was arrested on charges relating to an alleged machete attack in an encampment in Alice Springs. The case became a complex saga with twists and turns that tormented the player, his community and his football club until he walked out late in the season leaving the beautiful story of his journey from Yuendumu to the big city in tatters. The end was an amicable divorce and in most years, his story would have been a mere distraction but in 2012, it was simply a distraction within a nest of distractions and deep wounds. There was much more to come. Two days after the breaking of the news about Jurrah, on the second Saturday in March, Hawthorn slaughtered Melbourne in the next NAB Cup game. The magical rebirth was over and, less than a week later, they lost in Adelaide to a less than well-respected Port Adelaide combination. The injuries were coming and the form was suddenly worse than poor. On 20 March, the iconic Jim Stynes, who had only recently stood down as club chairman, died at the young age of 45. A week later, he was buried at a state funeral held at St Paul's Cathedral, honoured by thousands including his players proudly wearing their red and blue blazers. On 31 March, the season proper began. At the MCG, a listless Melbourne succumbed in the heat by 41 points to the unfancied Brisbane Lions and suddenly, the club was under attack with the vultures in the media circling. The coach was less than convincing in post-match interviews, the attendance of the players at Stynes' funeral so close to the start of the season was now scoffed at and the stirrers became more and more vicious in their contempt of the club as the defeats came and the performances tended towards the insipid. Now, Melbourne was easy prey; fodder for all manner of opportunists with various agendas, some hidden and others kept deep below the surface. The new coach was falsely accused of discriminating against his indigenous players. The slur was traced to the AFL's community engagement manager Jason Mifsud who apologised to Neeld and offered his resignation but AFL chief Andrew Demetriou refused to accept it. Mifsud remains in his employment to this very day despite clear breaches of trust and dishonesty. The mystery remains as to the true origin of the allegations and as to whether parties other than Mifsud were behind them, for the controversy opened up more doors for the club's detractors who used it to question the manner of Neeld's appointment. Has a young coach ever in the history of the game been exposed more to the media blowtorch, much of it without justification, than this man? Worse was to come with the revelations of racist and sexist posts on the Facebook page of the CEO of the club's major sponsor Energy Watch. The club acted swiftly and decisively to sever ties with Energy Watch but the usual suspects were swifter in sinking more boots into the hapless Demons who admittedly did manage to cover most of the lost ground by securing Webjet and Opel as sponsors. The season dragged on, the injuries, the poor form and the defeats got worse amid a few dim rays of light amid the gloom. Nathan Jones was indefatigable, recruit Mitch Clark a revelation at full forward and some of the youngsters were showing good signs. After nine straight losses, the Demons had a night out at the MCG and finally broke the ice to beat the Bombers but the injury toll continued to mount. Clark's foot surgery was a major blow and the list of players injured never went below a dozen in number during the second half of 2012. The inevitable result was that wins were even harder to come by and the season's total of four victories consisted of three over new franchise teams, GWS and the Gold Coast, as well as that Round 10 upset over Essendon. Then came the thunderbolt known as the "tanking affair" which famously opened with suggestions by former player Brock McLean on the Fox Footy Channel that "you would have to be blind Freddy" not to realise that winning was less of a priority for the Demons than draft picks in his last season so he left to go to Carlton of all clubs. The Blues had three number one draft picks courtesy of the system including Matthew Kreuzer who was secured after a spectacular eleven game end of season losing streak that culminated in the farcical Kreuzer Cup and which is referred to these days in some circles as the "grand slam of tanking" but all this was missed by the panel of three supposedly wise inquisitors who were so lost for words that they failed to ask the glaringly obvious, leaving many suspecting that McLean was a mere patsy set up to embarrass his old club (or more precisely, certain officials of his old club). The politics behind the McLean revelations was also lost on the AFL's (now departed) Adrian Anderson who hastily launched a 5½ month long inquisition which drew to a close late in the year and out of which no charges have been laid to date. The enquiry was discriminatory in that it ignored other clubs whose own activities have been queried on the subject over a period of a decade and was confined to Melbourne and Melbourne alone. Incredibly, one of the club's detractors was former Chairman Paul Gardner who went public with this massive toe poke to the head, "I knew what they were doing and why they were doing it, but I didn't have to watch it any more." Information leaked to the media resulted in a storm of controversy in early November with an inflammatory and damning editorial knitted together by Melbourne Age chief football writer Caroline "Madame Defarge" Wilson and this led to a statement by President Don McLardy that the club would use every resource available to defend the integrity of the Melbourne Football Club. Ray Finkelstein, a prominent QC and former judge was appointed to handle the clubs defence. There have been suggestions that the possibility of a sanction against Melbourne or some of its officials but in the absence of similarly prolonged and through investigations of other clubs also suspected of tanking but not investigated, the AFL's integrity would be left in tatters carrying the smell of corruption. The saga is set to play itself out next month amid suggestions that face-saving deals will be done but I will leave further comment to Herald Sun journalist Warwick Green who recently wrote: The outcome of the enquiry will not be the end of the matter for the Melbourne Football Club. The board which has shown considerable strength and unity over a trying period still needs to deal with the core of the political maelstrom and the antipathy towards it from malcontents and disaffected supporters and from within certain segments of the media. These things are damaging and cannot be easily dealt with but they reflect deep-seated grievances and quarrels that have tracked the club through almost fifty years of disquiet that have destroyed many careers and good people and have held back its resurrection. At the other end of the spectrum, Sydney upset Hawthorn in a memorable grand final and, for the second time in a decade, the premiership cup went north while the oldest football club in the world remained in a state of disarray. We need to aspire to their level of solidarity, calm and experience within our ranks if we are to attain success. It was only when the playing season was over that we could experience some better times. Nathan Jones was a worthy winner of the Keith "Bluey" Truscott Memorial Trophy in recognition of him lifting his game to a point where a little more improvement next year will see him at the level of the elite, Jeremy Howe took Mark of the Year after amassing numerous nominations at the same time demonstrating that he's more than just a spring heeled Jack while the two Jacks, Grimes and Trengove had the most difficult of initiations into the world of AFL captaincy that will hold them in good stead in the years to come. Mitch Clark stuck it right up his critics with aplomb and he will be back while young Tom McDonald showed sufficient quality as a defender to warrant some striking list decisions made by the club in terms of its future defensive structure. The list changes effected in the last quarter of the calendar year was breathtaking in breadth and scope. We saw fifteen players gone including former captain and club stalwart Brad Green, Jared Rivers, Brent Moloney, Matthew Bate and some others who were good servants of the club but it was time for change. They were replaced by an eclectic mix of young and old in a sign that the football department was willing to take the steps necessary to bring about the best of times for an ailing club. The newcomers will be among the trailblazers as the team named for this great city begins its revival. Names like Viney, Dawes, Toumpas and next year Hogan will help change things forever, bringing to mind the theme of resurrection in these words, among the last to come from the unfortunate man who bears the name "Sydney" in Dickens' great tale: