A few observations

[sainter]

These points are in no particular order, but probably do indicate my thoughts. More than likely, most saints supporters will disagree with me.

1) St Kilda have NO DEBT. The club have announced earlier in the year that we will post a significant trading loss for 2001. That does NOT mean the club are in immediate danger. Yes, why not become the Southport Saints. Let's move to a state where its only team have the lowest membership in the league.

If the decision was going to financially harm the club, it would not have been made. You only have to read the press release to see that a get out clause that could be excercised by both parties was in place. As has been eluded to in another thread, the club may be saving around $400,000. (I don't think this decision is about money but to infer that the club will now die is just plain wrong)

2) Blight took on the job and when asked of St Kilda's poor facilities said that the off-field facilities of a club have no bearing on players getting a kick on the field. Recently, he spoke about our poor facilities as an excuse. (The alliance with Monash University will go a great deal to helping that)

3) I have never been more angry than last Thursday. For Blighty to come out and embarrass the football club and just as importantly infer that our senior players (Harvey, Burke and Loewe) were partly to blame makes me sick. I would have wrote something last week but did not want to add anymore negative feelings about the club. (Too late now I guess)

Yes, we don't have a winning culture. None of us know how this is going to turn out. People will speak about not sacking Stan Alves. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Blight was employed to change that. To get off to a poor start and only then mouth out about our poor culture was a cop out.

To read that and then hear him say that "his heart is still in Adelaide" is disgraceful. Graeme Gellie coached St Kilda to two wooden spoons in two seasons during the 1980's. Quite clearly, he didn't have the players at his disposal to do any better. At least he cared deeply for the club! To find out recently that he didn't attend our football club auction and a function organised for the parents of our younger players does not surprise me at all.

4) While it is impossible for someone outside the club to comment, Blight is known to have basically had a free reign to do anything he likes. Is this a good or bad thing, I don't know. The club think not.

I'll more than likely add to this list later on. I've had enough to be honest. Of course, judging by the reaction of the bulldog supporters after a poor quarter against Freo, you would think they would have to beat us by 10 goals minimum to escape the wrath of their supporters.

Needless to say, I am almost feeling physically ill over what has happened. Yet the overriding thing that is going through my mind is that his heart wasn't it. For this football club to move forward, we need someone that doesn't necessary come from the club but who has a genuine desire to help us achieve the success we are all craving. From what has seemed to have happened, I don't think Blight was that person.

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

great post sainter said from the heart.it just shows what money can do to a person fair dinkum blight has shown so much arrogance with what u have said i think he should do a skase and head overseas and never return to australia because his actions are very unaustralian!
keep your chin up sainter just get out there and support the boys on the field.
cheers!

 

[Shinboners]

If anyone was listen to the ABC this afternoon at about 1.30, they would have heard Francis Leach speaking about what was going on within St.Kilda. In the same way you can read the exasperation and heartbreak in Sainter's comments, you could hear similar emotions as Leach defended his club. I just don't know how Saints fans deal with what happens at their club.

 

[RacerX]

Top post Sainter. As a dockers supporter I can empathize with you a bit in terms of being frustrated at your clubs off field activities.

You Saints fans truly have stuck with your club thru thick and thin and will clearly continue to do so. I take my hat off to you all.

 

[sainter]

Tiger of Old

I didn't make Blighty sound out to nice in that post did I?

I think he had admirable intentions. The money was not definitely not the only reason why he took the St Kilda coaching position. He was genuinely excited at taking over a club that presented the ultimate challenge.

I just think that as time has gone on, his heart wasn't it. I've just seen on the news how devastated he is and that makes me feel terrible. The players don't seem too happy either and that is a huge ground of concern.

We have a history of sacking coaches but none has ever been as big as this decision. This will either make or break this football club. While I understand why the decision was made, I hope the possible ramifications were taken into consideration. Speaking to a few friends even in the last 30 minutes, I don't know what is going to happen.

We are not broken yet.

Shinners,

The club just means too much to us all. Some will rip up their memberships, others will boycott this weeks match, others will flood talkback stations all week. I'll be there on Saturday night but I think it will be an interesting night. All of us care so much and we are all going to react in different ways.

 

[Waltzing Woof Biscuit]

Very well said Sainter. I couldn't agree with you more re. passion for the club. Very disappointing result for the Saints. I feel for you.

BTW, a 10 point win would do this week

 

[ant]

Sainter mate, don't feel too bad about it, the club is better off without Blighty and your President seems like a top bloke who knows what he's doing. This is certainly a disappointing day for you but I remember the day Blighty left Adelaide (different circumstances I know), I was absolutely shattered, but now just a couple of years later we have a great new coach in Gary Ayres and a team that is contending for a finals berth. The wheel will turn.........

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

sainter i was refering to your comment about blights comment that his heart was still in adelaide if thats the case he has put the saints way behind the 8 ball even further than when he arrived.
cheers!

 

[DarkRider]

The dregs of the football world supported by the dregs of humanity.
The only thing I don't understand is why a class act like Malcolm Blight would have associated himself with such a rabble in the first place.

 

[StrengthThroughLoyalty]

good post sainter.

at the moment i have conflicting emotions about the days events.

on the one hand i have a sickening feeling that this board despite having all the right intentions and saying all the right things are in actuality a naive bunch of show ponies reverting to a quick fix rather than doing the hard yards required to rectify a situation. a bunch of short sighted administrators who have not learnt from the failures of previous well intentioned administrators. this will have a negative impact on membership, sponsors, players and future players as well as the psyche of all of us long suffering supporters. it is a huge decision to sack blight, which surely they must have known would create a furore in the football world and give all the small minded knockers the ammunition to shoot down the club with jibes of 'told you the culture was poor', 'basketcase of failures', 'kick them out' etc etc.

the fact that they carried through with sacking blight despite the obvious consequences that would develop is what gives me hope that all is not lost.

this could actually mean that this board are the real deal and have balls by the bucket load in adhering to their core values and best practice principles. having identified that they made a mistake by taking on a coach who's motivation was probably ego, money and footy glory they then rectified the situation by sacking him. if blights heart wasn't in the job, which is evident by his continual negative comments, and he wasn't doing all that the board considered necessary to achieve success at st kilda then the obvious solution is to get rid of him and find someone who is prepared to do the hard yards. this could be short term pain for long term gain as long as they continue to adhere to the practice of professionalism and excellence.

 

[Savatage]

I had no problems with Blights comments RE: Culture because he is right.

Rightly or wrongly what has happened today IS a part of the culture problem displayed by the saints. Sacking coaches IS in our culture, what's been displayed is a typical piece of St.Kilda culture.

Why not just wait till the end of the f**king year at least?

 

[Savatage]

the fact that they carried through with sacking blight despite the obvious consequences that would develop is what gives me hope that all is not lost.


I have been thinking along those lines also, if that is INDEED true then all is not lost at all, it takes a lot of balls, BUT if it was a decision based on a rift or based on somebody speaking the way they see it, then it's a black day for St.Kilda.

 

[Savatage]

Sainter- I WAS physically ill today after I heard it at work. I vomited. I have been shaking all day.

 

[All Saints]

I think Butterss should have resigned and not blame the Coach which is the easy way out to pacify sponsors and the like.

 

[Hit The Boundary Saints]

Years of experience has taught me how to put a positive spin on just about anything to do with the Saints, but at the moment I am at a loss.
I have just got to work (on business in Germany for the week), and got an email from a friend suggesting I check out AFL.com.au immediately. I have spent the last two hours reading the club forum, this and other forums and still don't know what to make of it.

My first attempt at a positive spin is that the board must have had a very good reason to do this, because it shows them up for having made a monumental blunder in the first place. It wouldn't be easy for them to admit the mistake and to do this may show they have got balls. It may also be that they are reactive and don't think through the consequences of their actions, or are very naive in the ways of football.

I did get the impression over the last few weeks that Blight was planting seeds of doubt and setting himself up for excuses as the year was not panning out as planned.

Looks like I'll have to burn my "Get ready for the ride of your life" T-shirt

 

[Shinboners]

After my initial reaction (on another thread) where I said that the only people I had sympathy for were the young St.Kilda players and the Saints fans, I have to say that after listening to the reports on radio, I'm starting to feel a lot of sympathy towards Blight. Something just doesn't add up....it seems that Blight was shocked and angry that he was sacked and it also appears that the players, especially Harvey, were stunned. So far, most of what has been said has come from St.Kilda...I haven't heard anything from the Blight camp. And from what I've heard, and keeping in mind that each side would try to put a positive spin on things, the St.Kilda board aren't coming out of this smelling of roses.

Everyone talks about the culture around St.Kilda, and someone made an interesting point earlier in the day. When Carlton recruited Barassi from Melbourne, the administration backed Barassi to the hilt. No matter how many toes Barassi trod on, no matter how many egoes he popped, no matter how many home truths he told to club stalwarts, the Carlton administration always fell behind Barassi. They knew that Barassi was a winner and knew how to win, and to change the then Carlton culture, they had to follow what plans Barassi wanted to implement. From what I can piece together, it seems that Blight tried to do the same thing, but eventually, the people he may have offended ran to the administration who then buckled (Grant Thomas in the coaches box anyone?).

If the board were trying to show the outside world that they wanted to have a certain cultural attitude, and that by putting Blight up as proof of a new toughness, then I think they've miscalculated. The only thing that it has proved is that they came up with a plan and have abandoned it. If they wanted to prove a point, then it would have been better to sack a player.....take your pick for a sacrificial lamb...Jones, Peckett, Everitt. And what happens to the Saints credibility when they go looking for a coach? I'd imagine that they'd interview Mark Harvey....he comes from a club culture that is not only disciplined, but also looks at long term plans, sticks to them, and only make cosmetic changes to their strategies as the situation demands....they don't go and get rid of one of their plan's key elements. I reckon a few aspiring coaches will wait a further year or two for another job to come up rather than take on the Saints poisoned chalice.

Malcolm Blight, for all his eccentricities, is one of the game's true legends. Two premierships as a North player, two more as Adelaide coach, three Grand Finals with Geelong, a Brownlow Medal, a Magarey Medal, and a Coleman Medal. I can't belive that someone so successful could screw things up so badly at St.Kilda that he deserves the sack after less than a year (especially with all the injuries on the Saints list). I reckon he tried to change the culture at St.Kilda just as Barassi had with Carlton over 30 years ago. The only thing is that while Barassi had the full support of the Carlton board then, Blight never had it with the Saints board now.

 

[ptw]

Originally posted by Shinboners
After my initial reaction (on another thread) where I said that the only people I had sympathy for were the young St.Kilda players and the Saints fans, I have to say that after listening to the reports on radio, I'm starting to feel a lot of sympathy towards Blight. Something just doesn't add up....it seems that Blight was shocked and angry that he was sacked and it also appears that the players, especially Harvey, were stunned. So far, most of what has been said has come from St.Kilda...I haven't heard anything from the Blight camp. And from what I've heard, and keeping in mind that each side would try to put a positive spin on things, the St.Kilda board aren't coming out of this smelling of roses.

Everyone talks about the culture around St.Kilda, and someone made an interesting point earlier in the day. When Carlton recruited Barassi from Melbourne, the administration backed Barassi to the hilt. No matter how many toes Barassi trod on, no matter how many egoes he popped, no matter how many home truths he told to club stalwarts, the Carlton administration always fell behind Barassi. They knew that Barassi was a winner and knew how to win, and to change the then Carlton culture, they had to follow what plans Barassi wanted to implement. From what I can piece together, it seems that Blight tried to do the same thing, but eventually, the people he may have offended ran to the administration who then buckled (Grant Thomas in the coaches box anyone?).

If the board were trying to show the outside world that they wanted to have a certain cultural attitude, and that by putting Blight up as proof of a new toughness, then I think they've miscalculated. The only thing that it has proved is that they came up with a plan and have abandoned it. If they wanted to prove a point, then it would have been better to sack a player.....take your pick for a sacrificial lamb...Jones, Peckett, Everitt. And what happens to the Saints credibility when they go looking for a coach? I'd imagine that they'd interview Mark Harvey....he comes from a club culture that is not only disciplined, but also looks at long term plans, sticks to them, and only make cosmetic changes to their strategies as the situation demands....they don't go and get rid of one of their plan's key elements. I reckon a few aspiring coaches will wait a further year or two for another job to come up rather than take on the Saints poisoned chalice.

Malcolm Blight, for all his eccentricities, is one of the game's true legends. Two premierships as a North player, two more as Adelaide coach, three Grand Finals with Geelong, a Brownlow Medal, a Magarey Medal, and a Coleman Medal. I can't belive that someone so successful could screw things up so badly at St.Kilda that he deserves the sack after less than a year (especially with all the injuries on the Saints list). I reckon he tried to change the culture at St.Kilda just as Barassi had with Carlton over 30 years ago. The only thing is that while Barassi had the full support of the Carlton board then, Blight never had it with the Saints board now.

yep.....I agree 100%

ptw

 

[Macca19]

Originally posted by sainter
3) I have never been more angry than last Thursday. For Blighty to come out and embarrass the football club and just as importantly infer that our senior players (Harvey, Burke and Loewe) were partly to blame makes me sick. I would have wrote something last week but did not want to add anymore negative feelings about the club. (Too late now I guess)

Yes, we don't have a winning culture. None of us know how this is going to turn out. People will speak about not sacking Stan Alves. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Blight was employed to change that. To get off to a poor start and only then mouth out about our poor culture was a cop out.

To read that and then hear him say that "his heart is still in Adelaide" is disgraceful.

ok i think you are talking about the interview on 5AA here in Adelaide. You have got a few things wrong.

In that interview he (and i listened to it today by the way)
a) never bagged Harvey Loewe or Burke.

b) he did not mention a losing culture AT ALL. He was asked about the culture of the club. Not in a winning or losing form but as Port are seen as a wharfie club, Adelaide a posh club, St Kilda a party club. He was asked about how the players acted compared to his past coaching jobs and he said "it is 500% worse here than anywhere else ive coached"...he was saying the players are after the limelight and not the hard yards. And looking at the players you have now and have had in the past id sya he is 100% correct on that.

c) He did NOT say "my heart is still in adelaide". I dont know where you got that from. He talked about what happened around the time and after he quit the Adelaide Football Club. He said he was burned out, and did not want anything to do with football. After his decision was made, Bob Hammond called him and said to take 3 or 4 months off and just think about his decision. He said his decision was final. What blight DID say was "I probably should of taken Bobs offer and thought it through a bit more thoroughly".

listening to the interview, he said nothing wrong..i was waiting for this big bad comment, but it never came. You are WAY too touchy. Was anything he said a lie or false or stretching the truth?? No. You DO have a losing culture (altho he didnt mention it), you do have a reputation as a club with slack players.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but you dont that to see that Alves was crucified and shouldnt of been dropped.
Stan won 13 games in his last year, youve only won 15 games in the 3 years since. That is a disgrace. You should NEVER of dropped Alves who gave his all to teh club, who was harsh on the players and said how he felt. You have suffered because of it and its your own fault for being way too picky. Sheldon shouldnt of been given the arse either.

 

[Macca19]

Originally posted by sainter
I just think that as time has gone on, his heart wasn't it. I've just seen on the news how devastated he is and that makes me feel terrible. The players don't seem too happy either and that is a huge ground of concern.

We are not broken yet.

You might as well give the club secretary a go at the coaching job.

I just think that as time has gone on, his heart wasn't it.

how the hell do you know his heart wasnt in it?? By the way he acted?? By how he looked on tv while getting thumped by 92 points? What a load of rubbish. His heart wasnt in it! Do you have a brain sainter? If so i suggest you use it in the future. I hate Blight but he is not the bad guy here. He had big plans for your club, i would of expected alot of changes at the end of the year, but he hasnt been given the cahnce to carry the mout. Of course he is going to be devastated! This is the worst mistake St Kilda has ever made in their football history. He just finished a review of every player on the list so he could look at and decide who the no hopers are at the club and you think his heart isnt in it? If his heart wasnt in it he would of QUIT. But he didnt. Yes youve had a bad season, but Blight wouldnt quit after not even one season. So you know whats gonna happen now? Your gonna see your club stay down the bottom of the ladder, and witht his decision - its where you belong. At the end of the year you would of seen the end of Jones, Everitt, Hall - the no hopers who play 4 good games a year and stay on the list because of it. The players were FULLY behind Blight and his plans. They would be ropable right now. Now youve got some stand in coach who noone has heard of before. Who the hell is Grant Thomas??

'Malcolm Blight did not fully embrace our football club.' said Butters. Yeah - he didnt go out and get into drunken havoc each weekend.

Im very pissed off that some Saints fans have taken this out on blight.

 

[karnaby]

Onya Sainter (& others), today hasn't exactly been a barrel full of laughs.

Macca re: 'Im very pissed off that some Saints fans have taken this out on blight.'

Sorry mate, but we either support the club or we don't. Reading all the previous posts it seems to me that no-one was doing much more than rationalising their thoughts on why the club acted in the way they did. Like it or not Blighty is no longer on the same side of the fence as me or any of my fellow supporters.

Obviously there are a large number of little pieces that go into making up the whole picture, some of these are starting to see the light of day & no doubt more will over time. We as supporters have a definate right to assess these little bits of the picture and make of them what we will. If in the end Malcolm doesn't come out smelling like roses, bad luck, it's really no different for any individual or club.

 

[sainter]

Thanks Karnaby

No doubt I'll be popping back into this thread for my right of reply later tomorrow when I'm a little more awake (If I'm allowed one of course )

 

[Same Old's]

We'll all be able to "observe" more once we get Blighty's side of the story. At least then we'd have some perspective.

 

[Westy Boy]

Re: Re: A few observations

Originally posted by Macca19
You are WAY too touchy.

Oh for heaven's sake, Macca, I wonder how you would be feeling if you had to go through what the Saints supporters had to today. If you want to see someone who is being "WAY too touchy", look at your last post with the pedatic arguments about whether Blight "implied this, implied that, didn't say that exactly... "

That was a brilliant, well thought out post from a passionate supporter, who's club is being attacked from all quarters for a situation that he has no control over. But what do you go to do? Viciously attack, and kick him and his club while they are down. Four times and counting tonight. Well done.

Do you know what the worst thing is?

You know jack shlt. I know jack shlt too, but the difference is that at least I wont go judging supporters and clubs with circumstances I know nothing about. Although you may think you know it all in respect to today's events, but you nothing about what led to them, Macca. I don't either, but like most people (including Saints supporters) on these boards today and yesterday, I don't pretend to. You weren't in that board room making one of the toughest decisions in the clubs history. You, nor I, know the reasoning, ideals and principles on which the decision was made, Macca.

You also know jack shlt about about the reasons that Stan Alves was sacked. It is NOT plain and simple. Do you think the board met that year and said, "oh look, we just made the finals again for only the 15th time in our history, why don't we just sack the coach?" .... are you that blinkered to think that the club would make a decision like that? Or have you at least thought that there could have been something MAJORLY, MAJORLY wrong with incidents involving Stan Alves? Sainter pointed out that hindsight is a valubale tool (in regards to Stan), but you ignored that, and still attacked HIM for his club's sacking. Do you know what hindsight means? You should, you use it to butcher into clubs better than most.


Consider this quote from Rod Butters on 3AW this evening, Macca.

"We, at the very least, would have expected that a club would be the second most important thing to a senior coach"

Does that indicate that there's something wrong? Something wrong in the fact that a senior list player got a chance to have a meeting with Malcolm for the first time only last month? Something wrong when the former captain only speaks to his coach on matchdays?? Something wrong when a coach, immediately after a game, doesn't speak to his players and opts to play golf instead? I'm not saying these are facts .... but if true, they put the situation into a new light, don't they?

I am in no way saying that St Kilda is innocent in this. They have f*cked up -- Butters admitted that he shouldn;t have gone after Blight in the first place. Blight, before the sacking, admitted that accepted the job in the first place may have been a mistake. In my opinion, St Kilda should have waited til the end of the year to sack him ..... but doesn't it tell you something that they didn't? Do you think that Rod Butters (a very smart and successful business man) likes seeing the club belittled by the likes of you, and that he didn't take the consequences and ramifications into account when he made the decision? Rubbish. They knew very well what would happen, and they wouldn't have done it if there wasn't a major issue which was affecting the St Kilda Football club. At this point, we don't know the full details. We don't know, PERIOD.

For a change, stop and consider WHY things happen, macca, instead of ranting and raving about WHAT's happened and who YOU think is to blame. Can your brain at least understand that there may have been something very, very wrong with the attitude Blight had towards the players, the club, and the game generally? Things aren't as clear cut as they may seem, Macca... consider that before your next barage on an innocent supporter who, like his fellow fans, is merely trying to work out what's going on with his club at the moment.




http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/news/2001/07/20/FFXIZ03FBPC.html

Have a read of this article.... might give you a bit of perspective.

 

[Grendel]

Sainter, mate.

Sorry it turned out like this. From reading through the various threads, I find that Shinners (not suprisingly) post re his comparing Barassi's tenure at the Blues to Blights with your Saints to be closest to how I feel about things.

I guess Im also of the opinion that Blight should have been given carte'blanche, at least for a full season. Things that may or may not have been publicly said, could have and probably should have been dealt with 'in house'. If the President was having trouble with Blights lack of consultation or Thomas and Blight clashed, that surely could have been resolved seven weeks from now? If not, why not? The reasons so far put forward from Butters are fairly weak. The coach should have all say in the actual running of the football dept. If this turns out to be unaceptable to the admin dept, then by all means terminate the contract. But at least give it time to see if positive changes are being made.

Like many have already pointed out, the sacking merely re-inforces already percieved flaws from those outside of it, in the whole of the St.Kilda Football Clubs culture. This cannot be a good thing to happen at any time, let alone 2/3rds into a season proper.

The interesting thing is that the Board has said that the sacking was brought about because they are now determined to remove the 'old' ways by being seen to have the strength of their convictions. What makes me curious about this is, wouldnt previous administrations that have also sacked (Alves, Sheldon) coaches have thought that they too were acting from a conviction that what they were doing was in the best interests of the club?

When will a St.Kilda board make a coaching choice and then stick by that choice? This sacking seems to again be more a need by some Board members to be 'seen' to be doing something. If they didnt know of Blights (pathetic Pittman, Modra, Jarman, McDermott, Mcguinness) penchant for getting his way and bending a club to his will, the question has to be asked 'What are they doing running a Football Club'?

Have the Board taken into account that right from the start Blight was saying that changes would be made. That careers would be over if those changes were not met? Have they considered the turnover of players, the (sorry to remind you) woeful recruiting during Watsons time? Did they truly believe that one man could change overnight what for the last three seasons has been a chronically underperforming and poorly executed on-field playing list? Did they also take into account that most of the recriuts for this season were made prior to Blights appointment?

It seems that they are basing the sacking more on Blights 'reluctantance' to be a Sheedy style (public face of a club) coach.

From the way that the whole matter has been handled, I hope for the good of St.Kilda FC that the Board is TOTALLY commited to whomever they appoint.

 

[Waltzing Woof Biscuit]

Spoken like a champ Westy.