They did, and they chose to give it up, just as your club chose to give up on punt rd. Why do we get punished for your lack of home ground due to choices you made?
Do Geelong have the best home ground advantage in the AFL?
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The key fact here is that the CEO of Docklands Stadium Management was called Ian Collins. He held that role from 1999 to 2012. In 2002, a man called Ian Collins became the president of the Carlton Football Club (after being the CEO in the late 80s and until 1993). By 2006, Carlton had pulled the plug on Princes Park.
Could be just a coincidence but it seems to me that Ian Collins had a financial interest in Princes Park shutting down and another Ian Collins just happened to have the power to persuade the Carlton board to do so. (A third Ian Collins also happened to be the head of AFL operations from 1993 to 1999, a role in which many connections with HQ power-brokers could've been made).
You mean like they did for the best part of a century for 1 flag.
Oh yeah I’m shuddering at the thought
I’ll say it again.
As long as we are playing less home games than every other team in the
Competition, the suggestion we are kissed on the dick is the suggestion of a brain-f***ed dullard
Sttew
Brownlow Medallist
I really don't get so many why non-Geelong supporters get worked up by the Geelong Football Club playing 9 of its 11 home games on its home ground in Geelong. It's like these posters need something to bitch about or their lives are incomplete. There are far bigger issues happening in this world.
Nobody's "dicks" have been kissed. Geelong management simply refused to capitulate to the AFL when the proposal to relocate the Geelong Football Club to Melbourne was tabled in 1999/2000. We have to thank Saint Frank for that. His view was why should the only regional based AFL team in Victoria and the second oldest in the competition be a sheep and follow other teams to Docklands thereby disenfranchising 300,000+ fans in western Victoria, and at the same time ensuring the club ran at a huge loss year after year forcing it to sell home games interstate.
As Art Vandelay_ pointed out in an earlier post, Geelong has been based at Kardinia Park for 80 years. Now, all of a sudden, its an issue that we play on our own ground. The posters who are championing this "unfair" argument really need to look at how previous club managements shafted their clubs, notably Carlton & St Kilda.
And i so advise...
Nobody's "dicks" have been kissed. Geelong management simply refused to capitulate to the AFL when the proposal to relocate the Geelong Football Club to Melbourne was tabled in 1999/2000. We have to thank Saint Frank for that. His view was why should the only regional based AFL team in Victoria and the second oldest in the competition be a sheep and follow other teams to Docklands thereby disenfranchising 300,000+ fans in western Victoria, and at the same time ensuring the club ran at a huge loss year after year forcing it to sell home games interstate.
As Art Vandelay_ pointed out in an earlier post, Geelong has been based at Kardinia Park for 80 years. Now, all of a sudden, its an issue that we play on our own ground. The posters who are championing this "unfair" argument really need to look at how previous club managements shafted their clubs, notably Carlton & St Kilda.
And i so advise...
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- Mar 2, 2015
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Punished? That's a weird victim complex to have when you're actually enjoying a nice advantage over the rest of the comp.
Nobody is "punishing" you.
People here have simply pointed out how Geelong enjoy a nice boost every year due to their home ground advantage. i.e. The number of games where they enjoy a distinct home advantage on their weird skinny oval in front of a 99% partisan Geelong crowd of 26k (versus the number of games when they suffer a proper away disadvantage) -- v Ess/Hawks at the MCG is not an "away" disadvantage for the Cats.
I'd estimate Geelong's home advantage amounts to 3 extra wins per season.
This is why the Cats always finish a few spots higher on the ladder than they would if all 198 AFL games were at a completely neutral venue.
... and consequently why they always disappoint their fans in September and prove themselves to be flag pretenders.
Whenever Geelong finishes 3rd or 4th, they are probably more like a 5th/6th placed team.
When they finish 6th or 7th, they are probably more like a 9th/10th placed team. Easy pickings.
The proof is in the pudding... When has Geelong EVER punched above their weight in finals and beaten a team above them?
The Cats have finished in the top four 7 times in the past decade and made just 1 Grand Final (which they lost by 5 goals)
7 wins, 15 losses from their 22 finals over the past decade.
Talk about underwhelming.
My post is not so much a whinge - nuthin is gonna change... It is what it is... Good luck to Chris Scott and his H&A advantage
It's more of a cautionary tale for any punters who might be swayed by the Channel 7 commentary hype which always surrounds the Cats
Their current premiership odds of $6.00 is massive unders.
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- Feb 12, 2017
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9 teams sharing 2 grounds will never not be funny. Maybe they'll start wearing each others jumper soon too?
Sttew
Brownlow Medallist
It’s a whingeMy post is not so much a whinge - nuthin is gonna change... It is what it is... Good luck to Chris Scott and his H&A advantage
It's more of a cautionary tale for any punters who might be swayed by the Channel 7 commentary hype which always surrounds the Cats
Their current premiership odds of $6.00 is massive unders.
Whether mismanagement or not, the sport is now professional and it still gives my club a greater advantage than anyone else. We still haven't had a full stadium upgrade so you get the wind playing a very important role in outcomes of matches. If you train and live in this environment 24/7, of course you are going gain an edge. It's similar to Brisbane and their wet season. Such extremes of weather do benefit those clubs.
Only people who have been to Kardinia Park can understand what I am saying. It's a very unique stadium. One which always gives us a 2 or 3 goal head start no matter who we are playing.
It’s a mathematical fact that they have the best home ground advantage.
It leads them into more finals losses than any other team. Also a mathematical fact.
It leads them into more finals losses than any other team. Also a mathematical fact.
Yeah I noticed it too, the Cats have a sizeable venue advantage every home and away season.
But it seems to diminish to the point of vanishing every finals season. Which drives Cats supporters mad. Which explains a few of the posts on this thread.
But it seems to diminish to the point of vanishing every finals season. Which drives Cats supporters mad. Which explains a few of the posts on this thread.
Yeah I noticed it too, the Cats have a sizeable venue advantage every home and away season.
But it seems to diminish to the point of vanishing every finals season. Which drives Cats supporters mad. Which explains a few of the posts on this thread.
It has definitely papered over the cracks in recent years. Come September those cracks get split wide open.
At the same time, we most certainly have nothing to apologise for because we stayed at our actual home ground. Pity more clubs didn't do the same thing. Like all things, there are pros and cons to it.
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Sold their soul to the highest bidder, yet in the end we end making more $$$ from our stadium deal. Funny how that turned out.
That is right, the Cats staying and playing out of KP is nothing for them to apologise about. I do think at a certain point the AFL should have demanded a slightly more standard shaped ground though. Not sure how possible that was to achieve.
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It fits the parameters, stop listening to the yobbos on Ch 7 having a tantrum over the dimensions. If anything the chode-like grounds eg MCG could stand to be taller and leaner.
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Not every club got continual massive handouts to constantly upgrade their ground. It's hard to think of a time in the last 20 years when that shithole doesn't look like a building site.
It's looked like a construction site for the best part of 20 years, shouldn't have been that hard to modify the ground a few metres.
Sttew
Brownlow Medallist
Here’s the thing. The oval is narrower than all others but I think that’s a good thing as it induces corridor football. I remember the Malthouse coached Magpies playing boundary hugging football as though the central corridor was full of land mines. IMO it was ugly to watch.
There is no standard for an AFL oval but if there was the MCG should not be the standard. I know it will never happen, but anything that promotes corridor football can’t be bad.
Sttew
Brownlow Medallist
4 times. Can’t you count beyond 3?
I think it's more an entire generation now think all grounds should be the same size, whereas not that long ago they were all different. A bit like cricket grounds (in Australia particularly) in the past, there was variety and each had its own character.
I've always thought as long as it's an oval with goalposts the rest doesn't matter. Kardinia Park doesn't need to be widened any more than the SCG needs to be lengthened. Once they added the 50 metre lines you suddenly realised how short that ground is.
The answer to the op is clearly yes
The cats are the only team in the league that get to train and play on their home ground
Also have the oddest shape ground in the league
A huge advantage , but in the end it actually hurts them
They make finals every year, due to the above, over achieve every single year, and then more often than not get knocked out of finals when they have to come back to the real world, the MCG to play finals.
Their record in the last decade in the first week of finals is 1-8.
This speaks for itself.
The cats are the only team in the league that get to train and play on their home ground
Also have the oddest shape ground in the league
A huge advantage , but in the end it actually hurts them
They make finals every year, due to the above, over achieve every single year, and then more often than not get knocked out of finals when they have to come back to the real world, the MCG to play finals.
Their record in the last decade in the first week of finals is 1-8.
This speaks for itself.
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Can't hurt too much. In the last 30-odd years how many flags have the Tiggies won? What about Melbourne? Playing out of the MCG, it'd surely be more than Geelong have won in the same time period.
It hurts them because it gifts them a finals spot every year, when they don't deserve it, and then they go crashing out of the finals and get hurt in their draft position, and then round and round we go again.
It means Geelong rarely win finals, especially over the last decade.
Geelong success in 7, 9, 11 can be seen as an aberration, on the back of the biggest windfall of father son talent assembled in history.
Getting Hall of famers and all time greats in Hawkins, Ablett Scarlett for basically nothing, will never happen again.
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Garbage. We go crashing out of finals because we play like s**t, that's all there is to it. We had a home final in 2013 and bundled it because surprise surprise, we played like crap and the other team played better. If Kardinia Park is this mythical venue that gifts us wins like some think it does, why didn't it work then? Patch of grass, goal posts either end, better team wins.
Disagree. The difference was, during that timeframe, the "near enough is good enough" mentality was finally dispensed with. We won more games at Geelong because we were a better team. No great mystery in that. No great mystery that as our slide has started, we've started dropping games at Geelong again (2 of the last 3 in 2021, to Fremantle already this year).
People in my view continue to make way, way too much about draft picks. Even from that entire era, we only had a whopping five picks in total within the top 10. They were (in order of being drafted): Joel Corey (1999), Jimmy Bartel (2001), Andrew Mackie (2002), Kane Tenace (2003), and Joel Selwood (2006). None above pick 7, and those with memories will recall the perceived wisdom as that you needed top 5 picks - like St.Kilda had access to. Hence them having the "best list ever". Sure, those three father/son selections helped - Scarlett, Ablett, and Hawkins. But only Hawkins was rated before the draft, and yes he would have gone early (in reality he had very little impact in 2007 in any case, and didn't play finals either that year or 2008). The other two were both late bloomers. Like all great teams (and that goes for Hawthorn, Richmond, and Melbourne now), everyone focused on the stars but it was built on a mountain of very good performers that were picked far later. It's the same as fans bitching about Melbourne's early picks now, sure Petracca and Oliver were early, but Gawn was pick 34. How did every club have two bites and still miss him? (Dylan Grimes somehow getting through to the pre-season draft is one that's unlikely to be topped in that regard.)
To me the mindset of the club and team defines the dynasty. We decided as a club we could win anywhere, didn't care where we played (I vividly recall how excited they were to play games at the MCG in 2007 for the big game atmosphere), and just got the job done. That's the difference.
My personal view, and it'll get howled down, it that the endless excuses that come from Scott and the club now are because they know their method hasn't worked, and they're reluctant to face reality that it failed. The more you focus on what picks you don't have, where you play, woe is me, the less you just focus on winning. Great sides win anywhere, and they don't make excuses.
So for me, the home ground is definitely a factor, but it's nowhere near the factor.
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