A question about North Melbourne

[Roll Tide]

Have they historically had a weak supporter base? I find it hard to believe that more people didn't jump on their bandwagon after their recent premiership success. Is there a reason why this didn't happen?

 

[Smyth94]

Personally, I think its their location that has hurt them historically. They are geographically just a door-step away from Carlton which hurts them a lot IMO... Carlton traditionally have massive drawing power, it always seemed to me that whoever didn't follow Carlton in the area, followed North, and there weren't that many left overs.

 

[mustapha]

They also joined the VFL in 1925, 28 years later than some of the other bigger clubs. It hasn't hurt Hawthorn (but they had two decades of sustained success) and the Bulldogs are improving (they do have a bigger geographical area although this has less influence now). An extra generation of support when the league was formed could have a big influence down the track. They also had a lack of success for about their first 25-30 years I think.

 

[TuskenRaider]

Personally, I think its their location that has hurt them historically. They are geographically just a door-step away from Carlton which hurts them a lot IMO... Carlton traditionally have massive drawing power, it always seemed to me that whoever didn't follow Carlton in the area, followed North, and there weren't that many left overs.

Yeah, but so are Collingwood. And they manage to have a reasonably large following!

I think it comes down to a variety of reasons, but probably the biggest was there battler status pretty much until the 70's hindered them developing a bigger supporter base.

From an adminstration viewpoint they were regarded as the club who broke new ground and used initiative eg. Friday night games at the MCG were going to be their "thing". I think they've been harshly dealt with a bit in that regard as they really opened up the new timeslot for themselves, only to lose it as the other clubs have wanted a slice of the pie.

 

[Captain Sensible]

Personally, I think its their location that has hurt them historically. They are geographically just a door-step away from Carlton which hurts them a lot IMO... Carlton traditionally have massive drawing power, it always seemed to me that whoever didn't follow Carlton in the area, followed North, and there weren't that many left overs.

Theyre closer to Footscray and Essendon.

 

[Gabbie]

The club would have been in the VFL a lot sooner if a certain club in the north of the city hadn't kept vetoing them as they were scared North would plunder their zone for players!!!

(read the North Story - it's all there)

 

[windsock]

Yeah, but so are Collingwood. And they manage to have a reasonably large following!

North are hemmed in on all sides by other clubs. Footscray to the west, Essendon to the North, Carlton to the east. South of Arden St is the city. Fitzroy faced a similar circumstances with Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond and the city surrounding their home ground.

Collingwood have been able to branch way out into the northern suburbs where no other clubs had a presence. Northern suburbs like Northcote and Preston were traditionally aligned to Collingwood for years.

 

[LoneStar]

The club would have been in the VFL a lot sooner if a certain club in the north of the city hadn't kept vetoing them as they were scared North would plunder their zone for players!!!

(read the North Story - it's all there)

North Melbourne isn't that big and it's sandwiched in between Carlton, Essendon, & Footscray. That certain club in the north of the city wouldn't have been Essendon, would it? And they wouldn't have worked for over 50 years to insure that North's recruiting zone was unenviable in both size & location, would they? (It's no wonder it took North 50 years to win a flag!)
It was nice to see the Bombers crash land near the bottom last year. I'd love to see them settle there for a decade or two.

 

[fusion]

Good responses by all so far, andnot the usual trolling (yet). It's true that North is geographically sandwiched between many richer clubs. Also the demographic of the suburb has an influence. The area has traditionally been a migrant area. Perhaps there has been a low take up of AFL interest.

The club also was a basket case for most of it's VFL history. It was the last of the 12 VFL clubs to win a premiership, taking 50 years. An unglamourous image until the 70s.

The club has tried many new ideas - corporate sponsorship to a new level in the 70s, the Grand Final Breakfast, was one of the first clubs to move home ground to the "modern centralised" system, pioneered Friday night football, experimented with games in Sydney, Canberra and now Gold Coast, sold shares to raise money etc etc....

The club can't be accused of lying down and accepting they are going down. But it's almost impossible to turn things around now. The rich clubs will remain rich, get good free to air exposure, the bulk of Friday night games, blockbuster fixtures etc.

I read somewhere that we have one of the highest conversion rates of supporters into members. Whether we gain a wave of new members due to the 90s success is hard to predict. Whilst we played a very good brand of attacking football, with contested marks taken up forward by Carey/McKernan and exciting crumbers like Allison, Abraham etc we got reasonable TV coverage. Our current game plan is as boring as a nil all draw in soccer.

I think that secretly many other clubs supporters have some admiration about the way we try to survive, and the fact that we've been able to win 4 flags in the last 31 years.

I'd hate to see us go the way of Fitzroy, but I think at least one Victorian club is destined to move interstate, and a strong Bulldogs team l(on field and in membership numbers) eaves us as the easy target.

 

[Papa G]

Good responses by all so far, andnot the usual trolling (yet). It's true that North is geographically sandwiched between many richer clubs. Also the demographic of the suburb has an influence. The area has traditionally been a migrant area. Perhaps there has been a low take up of AFL interest.

The club also was a basket case for most of it's VFL history. It was the last of the 12 VFL clubs to win a premiership, taking 50 years. An unglamourous image until the 70s.

The club has tried many new ideas - corporate sponsorship to a new level in the 70s, the Grand Final Breakfast, was one of the first clubs to move home ground to the "modern centralised" system, pioneered Friday night football, experimented with games in Sydney, Canberra and now Gold Coast, sold shares to raise money etc etc....

The club can't be accused of lying down and accepting they are going down. But it's almost impossible to turn things around now. The rich clubs will remain rich, get good free to air exposure, the bulk of Friday night games, blockbuster fixtures etc.

I read somewhere that we have one of the highest conversion rates of supporters into members. Whether we gain a wave of new members due to the 90s success is hard to predict. Whilst we played a very good brand of attacking football, with contested marks taken up forward by Carey/McKernan and exciting crumbers like Allison, Abraham etc we got reasonable TV coverage. Our current game plan is as boring as a nil all draw in soccer.

I think that secretly many other clubs supporters have some admiration about the way we try to survive, and the fact that we've been able to win 4 flags in the last 31 years.

I'd hate to see us go the way of Fitzroy, but I think at least one Victorian club is destined to move interstate, and a strong Bulldogs team l(on field and in membership numbers) eaves us as the easy target.

As you have said, North have not sat on their hands but you seem to have tried everything but nothing has really worked. A lot of North Melbourne "identities" have come out and said the move to GC is the only option for the club. The writing is really on the wall.

 

[Smyth94]

I do admire North Melbourne for their spirit and never-say-die attitude and the fact that you are always competitive no matter what the circumstances are on and off the field. If North is the team to leave, I will truly be saddened as they have always carried themselves with dignity and respect, not like another club who is in a similar situation.

 

[rodogs]

I wouldn't have thought location would have had much to do with it in the Post WWII era. Numbers in the inner ring of suburbs decreased for about 40 years during that period as everyone moved to the south east burbs.

North were ********, like the hawks and the dogs, for a long period after they joined in 25'. 50 years without many finals or a flag would have hurt. The small pop in north would have never spread out...

 

[Higgs Boson]

Have they historically had a weak supporter base? I find it hard to believe that more people didn't jump on their bandwagon after their recent premiership success. Is there a reason why this didn't happen?

My view is that (most) footy supporters don't just change teams; generally they adopt a team when they are kids and then support that team for life. Kids don't necessarily buy memberships, but adults and young adults do.

Hence, there is a lag-time between a premiership and related rises in members.

I would predict that if the Kangas can survive, they'll steadily pick up their membership levels (leaving aside other factors) when the young kids who chose the Roos because they were the "winningest" side going around (and had Wayne Carey) grow into membership-buying adults.

As an example, the large Hawthorn membership base of today can, in my mind, be directly linked to their success in the '80s.

 

[RoyalBlue]

As you have said, North have not sat on their hands but you seem to have tried everything but nothing has really worked. A lot of North Melbourne "identities" have come out and said the move to GC is the only option for the club. The writing is really on the wall.

Okay I'll give you Ron Joseph (upcoming board election related) and Sam Kekavich (mouth related), who're the others?

And I expect a lot, you said 'a lot', I want you to name the rest.

 

[rooboy_88]

It is hard with Nth Melb having an industrial element to it and having the likes of Essendon, Carlton and Footscray near by.

WB should have no excuse has they have a big geogrpahical base.

 

[mark73]

As an example, the large Hawthorn membership base of today can, in my mind, be directly linked to their success in the '80s.

Spot on.

And if the club stays permanently in Melbourne, which it is anyway in the immediate future despite what some would like or like you to believe, in about 3-5 years I honestly think we'll start to see a similar thing. The talk of relocation doesn't bother me one bit. The Kangas are estimated to have about 200,000 supporters around the country. Maybe, like Hawthorn, this talk and a successful 2007/8 may prompt a lot of them to get off their sorry arses and become members like they should've been doing all along.

 

[exe ex machina]

I'd rather North Melbourne nominates going into the VFL comp, keeps themselves in Melbourne, develops Arden St, turns their VFL club into a powerhouse in the VFL. Let the AFL bring in a new expansion team (Southport).

The AFL is going to lose a lot of fans eventually due to the poor administration, their tampering of the on-field rules, turning it into a game as soft as soccer or as weak as Gaelic, the continued poor tribunal system, the stringent fines on coaches for speaking out, the continued gheyness of fining and suspending players for fisticuffs, even mere physical contact now, the continued rationalization of Melbourne teams, the favoritism shown towards Brisbane and Sydney re: concessions, etc, etc.

The AFL will collapse eventually and whatever Vic teams can remain alive in the VFL uncompromized stand a better chance of long-term survival. Clubs who relocate, merge into new franchizes or die purely within the AFL comp, are going to grow more and more in the next 20 years.

In a couple or so decades, there won't be a Melbourne Demons, Hawthorn Hawks, St Kilda Saints, Western Bulldogs, Richmond Tigers or North Melbourne Kangaroos.....as were previously known. They'll be all compromized one way or the other into new franchizes and one day when the AFL is no more, replaced by a newer SL comp, or newer national comp, North can be one of the few to continue to survive.

You guys go to GC and you'll be extinct within 10 years....as in swallowed up etc, and the more years that pass the more distant and 'erased' the attachment to your home state. Re: Swans/Lions in another 10-20 years.

 

[shintemaster]

You guys go to GC and you'll be extinct within 10 years....as in swallowed up etc, and the more years that pass the more distant and 'erased' the attachment to your home state. Re: Swans/Lions in another 10-20 years.

Never a truer word spoken, every time some 'identity' says we should move in order to make more money I see it as a reflection on their priorities and those of the society we live in.

 

[exe ex machina]

Too many machinations, sly boardroom pocket-p*issings, AFL/AD interference, 'identities' putting in their two-bobs worth for nefarious reasons. The AFL are just sanctioning/funding something, and the $$ signs are luring and manipulating honest opinions into 'AFL-sponsored' opinions, spin-doctorings etc.

Taking the $$ to move to GC is what a whore would do. The AFL is pimping the North Melbourne club and whoever sells out for it is selling their souls to 'the devil' in the process given the eventual/inevitable degree that the NMFC will become swallowed up and compromized long-term. Just like a crack whore, reliant on the AFL 'junk' to maintain their presence, and forever servile to their whims and demands. Be a club that is self-sufficient and thumbs its nose at all this, like a Collingwood or Essendon that the AFL needs and often bends for.

Who here as an individual would take money from some corporation to sell out their home, family, friends, their very identity? Or would literally sell their soul? Like those bands that sell out, etc.

The AFL is going to collapse IMO. It's a farce that cannot continue to tread the path its on. It will be found out. They're doing everything in their power to sell out our 100 year old game into some hybrid Gaelic game, with soulless franchizes, etc. It may be the way of the modern world, but the AFL itself, and their agendas, are not even doing it all the right way.

Survive to outlast the doomed AFL. Sure, there'll be a national comp still, but it wont be the AFL.

 

[windsock]

And you think the 25K members who follow North in the AFL will switch their allegiances to the VFL?

I would do anything for love, but I won't do that.

 

[exe ex machina]

And you think the 25K members who follow North in the AFL will switch their allegiances to the VFL?

I would do anything for love, but I won't do that.

It would be a ballsy move, and it would require ballsy support from the fans. To turn your back on the glorified but shambolic AFL, betting that it would collapse one day, and your club will outlast it long enough and be financially stable again that day, to make an application to a new national comp that is more like an EPL format.

No guarantees, but at least you'll always be NMFC. That means far more than people give credit for. I can imagine something similar happening to my own club, selling out, and how painful that is. There's a kind of loss still in me, and many others, where the PAFC Power is at (or how much worse it could still get).

Best expressed as, "It's just not the same anymore". Take that however degree it might be for various clubs. Lions, Swans, Port Adelaide, Kangaroos. Just something taken away enough that it kind of spoils it.

 

[Papa G]

Okay I'll give you Ron Joseph (upcoming board election related) and Sam Kekavich (mouth related), who're the others?

And I expect a lot, you said 'a lot', I want you to name the rest.

Fusion

 

[SimonH]

...

The AFL is going to collapse IMO. It's a farce that cannot continue to tread the path its on. It will be found out. They're doing everything in their power to sell out our 100 year old game into some hybrid Gaelic game, with soulless franchizes, etc. It may be the way of the modern world, but the AFL itself, and their agendas, are not even doing it all the right way.

Survive to outlast the doomed AFL. Sure, there'll be a national comp still, but it wont be the AFL.

Oh, look, a part of me wishes you were right, but 'the AFL is going to collapse' really is wishful thinking without a shred of evidence to support it. Every year, it gets larger, it gets richer, its control over the game gets stronger. Plus it is underpinned by a very large level of interest in the code in the Australian populace as a whole (focussed largely on the competition it runs); it's not like the dotcom bubble, where there was no underlying source of revenue to support companies' inflated values.

The two major sporting-comp takeover/collapses in recent history were:
a) because the administration was paying the players well-below-market rate compared with the cash they were bringing in, making it easy to just buy all of the players (cricket)
b) because a huge corporation with a lot of cash to throw around, trying to make a splash with pay TV revenues, was unable to cut a deal with the existing comp organisers because they were in bed with the corporation's main local competitor (rugby league).

Neither of these are true, or are likely to be true, for Aussie rules. The pay TV market has well and truly bedded down (and has had all competition knocked out of it); other new media will not have revenue streams that would support even a tiny fraction of the money required to buy/establish clubs, buy players and set up a viable alternative competition (we're talking about at least 1 billion dollars here).

In addition, the 2 'revolutions' (one successful, one largely unsuccessful) were both resolved by an armistice between the warring parties a few years later, resulting in a unified top-level comp once more. Any attempted takeover/parallel comp for Aussie rules would inevitably go the same way. Therefore, a large corporation looking for a (bigger) piece of the Aussie rules revenue pie, would be better off taking a shortcut and saving themselves hundreds of millions of dollars of wasted setup and infrastructure costs, by just going and talking with the AFL directly. Which is exactly what they do.(Unless prohibited by anti-siphoning rules, in which case they bitch and moan and then talk with the rights-holder).

To point to individual failures of the AFL administration, make complaints about rule-changes et al (many of them valid points), does nothing to make the case that the AFL will collapse or disappear. In the same way as saying 'Iraq going badly, increasingly lame and isolated president, dog's breakfast of a healthcare system, vast homeless population, tens of millions of working poor' does nothing to change the fact that the United States of America is the largest and most influential national economy in the world.

[Leaving the AFL and going somewhere else, like VFL] would be a ballsy move, and it would require ballsy support from the fans. To turn your back on the glorified but shambolic AFL, betting that it would collapse one day, and your club will outlast it long enough and be financially stable again that day, to make an application to a new national comp that is more like an EPL format.

No guarantees, but at least you'll always be NMFC.

The fact is that North Melbourne would most likely be a very successful VFL club, just as they're a pretty marginal AFL club. Depends on the size of the fish and the size of the pond that you want. But joining the VFL is only 'turning your back on the AFL' in the most vague and theoretical sense. Who do you think is the biggest single influence on the game in Victoria? Who do you think allowed/encouraged the former VFA to adopt the current name of its comp? There is no such thing as turning your back on the AFL, at least not if you're operating a club at a pro or semi-pro level in Victoria.

The Kangas are estimated to have about 200,000 supporters around the country. Maybe, like Hawthorn, this talk and a successful 2007/8 may prompt a lot of them to get off their sorry arses and become members like they should've been doing all along.

Harassing a higher and higher percentage of a low number of supporters to become members, is no way to long-term survival. And an estimated 200,000 supporters is, in contemporary AFL terms, a relatively low number. Kangaroos already have a very committed supporter-base (in that a very high percentage of them are members). What they have to do is grow the number of supporters, so that (with proportions of members:supporters remaining stable) the membership will grow naturally. Where they will come from is the $64,000 question; but as people have said, it sure ain't going to be from the area within a 5 minute drive of Arden Street.

 

[MarkT]

Late start to the VFL put them behind the 8 ball. Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon were all initial entry clubs. The next biggest Vic club, Richmond, were an early introduction. Then a long period of no success once they joined would have been a big factor in their historical lack of support and the generational transfer goes from there. I don’t subscribe to the location theory at all. I grew up in Flemington, which was a hop from North Melbourne and that whole area was unaligned to any predominant club. The North Melbourne, Flemington, Kensington area had a large commission flat population and that’s a lot of people with a lot of Children concentrated in an area close to Arden St. North didn’t grab anyone at the time. North were just plain crap for a very long time. Had they had some of the entry list assistance that modern clubs have had – for the very reason of preventing a North type entry – things may well be very different.

 

[MarkT]

Collingwood have been able to branch way out into the northern suburbs where no other clubs had a presence. Northern suburbs like Northcote and Preston were traditionally aligned to Collingwood for years.

Why did Collingwood have success there as opposed to Carlton or Fitzroy? Geography is not a big issue IMO. Collingwood was a poor industrial sandwiched between Carlton, Richmond and Fitzroy. People forget that Fitzroy had a lot of early success and were great competitors of Collingwood. There were also VFA clubs around the area.