Coach Alastair Clarkson III - new NMFC senior coach until at least end 2027 - NMFC board approved AC to start 1/11 amid ongoing HFC racism investigation

[Grogg]

Oh I agree.

However the I cannot see the league wanting to do that and then needing to take any level of accountability of the outcome.

They don't have the balls.

 

[krakouers]

Yep. 5% of parking at the Airport for North members. Pretty sweet!

Nice to see some good news out of it

 

[SonofSamsquanch]

I know there is a bigger issue at hand, but I just cannot get over the hole this puts North in. I'm farrrking FUMING! I'm at work but haven't done one ounce of work for the day. Why does this s**t keep happening to us! I bet you anything Clarkson will be made the scapegoat and everyone else involved will get away with no real consequences.

Speedy - get to work!

I need that project finished on time. You know my annual bonus is at stake.

 

[DocSholl]

Woke up in Istanbul just now to read about the events orchestrated by Clarkson and others at Hawthorn. He cannot coach us, or anyone any more. Dereliction of duty to care for young men (and their families) to the highest degree, and confirmation of the amorality of contemporary sport.

On top of that, it's gut-wrenching to read about the damage inflicted upon people's lives.

For North, it's a godsend that the practices of Clarkson were revealed before he started coaching our players. Back to square one with the coaching appointment process.

You're in Istanbul?

 

[arfadunger]

Gee, you guys can't take a trick at the moment. I hope that it all works out for North as best it can.

 

[krakouers]

Could be the beginning of the end for our being shafted by the AFL with priority picks

Efa

 

[Shinboner1]

Could be the beginning of the end for the club

no chance

 

[Midas]

Like everyone I was appalled when I read the article. Appalled at what these people experienced, that this could happen, that it could be kept quiet and that there could be no accountability. Sick to the stomach.

And then I was appalled at what it meant about Alastair Clarkson, and what that meant for NMFC. So much energy and hope, popped with a pin.

After a couple of hours to reflect, some things are clear to me.

1. This is true. These accusations are far too specific and consistent to be 'different points of view'. There is no 'cultural misunderstanding'. There is no 'taking things out of context'. There is no 'two sides'. Any untruth could only be deliberate and vindictive and that is so unlikely as to rule it out.
   
   
2. Clarkson is gone. He is specifically named multiple times. This is not a confusion. This is too serious to be swept under the carpet or apologised for. There is no coming back.
   
   
3. I'm proud of our club because I know it will make the right decision. We may be s**t on the field, and we may have walked under a black cat on a ladder breaking mirrors, but we have good people, and we will take our lumps and do the right thing.
   
   
4. I'm proud of our supporters. No excuses. No what ifs. Not "You can't prove it" or "the dog ate the evidence" or "the AFL betrayed us". It's sh1t, but it is what it is and we will do what needs to be done.
   
   
5. I'm proud of the other supporters that have come here. I think everyone is in shock and - although there are no doubt twitter nuffies I'm not seeing - the vast majority of the football community is on our side in this.
   
   
6. The next steps will be some form of due process. But it can only end one way. We will/should be naming Patch as interim now, and we will/should be activating Plan B.

Hugs to you all.

This is true? OK sure. There is no cultural misunderstanding. OK sure. So you have all the facts pertaining to the situation on hand, do you? To talk in absolutes in any walk of life belies an understanding of the world we live in. That's not Hugs to All, that's just taking your opinion on what you have read today and taking it as fact. I don't claim to know anything and the only fair thing to do here is to let this play out so all parties are heard. For example, and I am not saying this is the case, what constitutes reasonable advice if a kid is trying to establish himself in AFL football but is battling drug addiction? That drug addiction is exacerbated by the company he keeps, including his partner. The people who are attempting to assist that person suggest it would be best not to stay in that environment and that it may not be a great choice to bring a baby into the world in that environment if the said partner who is also battling addiction falls pregnant. Those said people then try to assist that person with addiction by implementing some of the measures that are commonly used by cutting off contact with certain influences to give the best chance of recovery - a very common practice. This is then interpreted by that player, later in life, that they were rendered helpless and forced to do something against their will as that was their interpretation of it at a later date. Contextually would that change the situation? I'd like to think that would not allow this perception to be so binary. That still wouldn't absolve Clarkson of some responsibility but surely that would make your perception that it was unequivocally true questionable at the very least.

 

[Agenda 21]

Could be the beginning of the end for the club

We'll be right.

 

[Hearts to hearts]

Could be the beginning of the end for the club

oh, come on. North Melbourne survives everything. We will draft and trade and keep going.

 

[rooboy335]

What a terrible day for everyone involved. I'm devastated like most of you all. My heart goes out to all players/family members and anyone else who've been impacted. I read the article this morning and have since spent all day just trying to make sense of it all. My mind is still just so confused.

I went over to the Hawks board to have a quick read and stumbled upon a post from StingBitten who I hope doesn't mind me re-posting here, and whilst nothing that is or will be said today will clarify absolutely everything about this situation, the post did help in developing my understanding of where both sides were probably coming from. I definitely recommend giving it a read:

Pardon the intrusion.

I work for an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation and have worked predominantly with Aboriginal people (with both professionals and clients) for around 15 years.

Just a couple of observations:

Kennett
There is simply no sense of 'pisstake'/dressing-down humour in the Aboriginal communities I've worked in. I've spent hundreds of hours in the community with Aboriginal men and they can laugh constantly from the start of the day until the end, but rarely at the expense of each other. There are deep cultural reasons for this that I'm not in a position to explain. The only time I've seen this occur is when two parties are extremely angry with one another and about to 'do battle' - the intention being to inflict pain on the other and their family.

Couple this with the collective sense of 'shame' in Aboriginal culture and mocking someone's appearance (torn jeans) in front of another Aboriginal person. The death nail would have been the use of loose change, offering money for that person to improve their appearance. Finally, the fact it came from a powerful White male would hold deep-seated colonial trauma. It's bizarre, because I've seen an extreme range of behaviours and terms used by Aboriginal people about each other and the non-Indigenous community, but the personal takedowns just do not seem to be in the vernacular (at the base level).

Kennett meant it as an off-hand joke, there was no malice and I believe that he would've said 3 million times in his life to a range of people. But that's the perspective I imagine may have been taken.

Pregnancy
Reading between the lines, I imagine that the relationship of 'Ian' and 'Amy' was deemed to be conflictual (possible DV, trauma, domestic arguments) and at some point the club felt the player's partner was the primary issue and that they needed to step in and resolve it. I imagine the player was extremely talented and had the potential to take the club to new heights - or they simply would have allowed the player time away and delisted them at season's end.

This is a mistake non-Indigenous people in power make time and time again - I've witnessed this heavily in the Child Protection and Justice system. A problem is identified, and a solution is actioned based on the decision of powerful non-Indigenous people (justified in the best interests of the afflicted party).

Again, the road to hell here is paved with good intentions - we as non-Indigenous people think of binary solutions that create exponential/logarithmic outcomes (i.e. cutting off the issue leads to X10 performance from our product). The binary thinking comes from a 'that party is the issue, and they must be stopped. Terminate, remove and cut-off is the way to address this. From there, our product will now meet another party who is a better influence. Their performance will multiply and we will consider this a success'.

An Aboriginal community response is much more layered - it involves a great deal of deep and reflective listening (dadirri), it involves a lot more family members and input, and the solutions are rarely linear and will unlikely align with a simple model of product success/failure. One thing I will say, is that every solution will likely include more family contact, connection and engagement. Not less. We as non-Aboriginal people are the experts at subtraction and removal (imprisonment, removal into care, removal of freedoms and liberties) which is what has been applied here.

Moral of the Story? I don't know if one, two or any of those people deserve to be sacked or cut off forever - none of your staff are individually morally corrupted. This is a deep-seated, systemic issue that's been in place since 1788. It involves hundreds of years of differently evolved thought and values between two cultures that couldn't be more different. All we need is more education and understanding to work through this over the coming generations. For God sake the majority of Aboriginal players in your State come from distances that would be considered from one end of Europe to the other, find ways of bringing in culture and Aboriginal people that are specific to their needs - it's 2022. And when things get really hairy, let them be the ones to form the circle, to start and finish their Yarns as their custom dictates.

I genuinely hope your club doesn't swing the axe here - try something that doesn't remove, subtract or eliminate. Trust me - It's been done.

 

[buttox]

Could be the beginning of the end for the club

Cockroaches and the NMFC.
We will survive.

 

[krakouers]

Cockroaches and the NMFC.
We will survive.

Do we start pushing for cockroaches to take up NM membership?
I mean, it’s a growing market

 

[Agenda 21]

oh, come on. North Melbourne survives everything. We will draft and trade and keep going.

We had a little girl ride a rampaging elephant, at Arden st. We fear nothing.

 

[james95]

Blues fan here.

Blown away by all of this news, it all seems too specific and serious to be bulls*it from people with an agenda against Clarkson.

Feel sorry for all involved and hope the truth is found and perpetrators dealt with appropriately.

Plenty of people love to joke about north and how poor they are onfield, but one thing I have to give them is they always make the correct decisions when morals are concerned.

Is there more to the reason Jed Anderson

17

Jed Anderson

Age

30

Ht

179cm

Wt

81kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

16.3

4star

K

7.8

3star

HB

8.5

5star

M

2.2

2star

T

4.7

5star

CL

3.0

4star

D

17.0

4star

K

10.5

4star

HB

6.5

4star

M

2.7

3star

T

4.8

5star

CL

3.7

5star

D

10.2

3star

K

6.0

3star

HB

4.2

4star

M

1.6

2star

T

2.6

4star

CL

1.4

4star

left the club delisted? Was there more to the reason why he left Hawthorn initially than seeking more game time?

 

[Midas]

What a terrible day for everyone involved. I'm devastated like most of you all. My heart goes out to all players/family members and anyone else who've been impacted. I read the article this morning and have since spent all day just trying to make sense of it all. My mind is still just so confused.

I went over to the Hawks board to have a quick read and stumbled upon a post from StingBitten who I hope doesn't mind me re-posting here, and whilst nothing that is or will be said today will clarify absolutely everything about this situation, the post did help in developing my understanding of where both sides were probably coming from. I definitely recommend giving it a read:

Thanks for posting. An enormously strong way for us to grow from a situation like this and learn from those who are living this and can help enlighten us moving forward.

 

[Gumble Frankieton]

Could be the beginning of the end for the club

Beginning of the end for the Hawks?

If this stuff had happened at North then things would be more than grim and the usual suspects would have their knives out as usual.

As it stands, all the club has done is sign up a coach that any club with a vacancy, or not as with *, would have loved to sign. It’s what the club does once they are in possession of all the information that matters.

 

[Horizons_00]

2x well respected coaches with a allegation like this will send shockwaves to the entire competition.

The damage on their reputation as a coach and a person is tainted forever. Still feels surreal imo

I feel for Sonja and the players too.

 

[The Filth Wizard]

Is there more to the reason Jed Anderson left the club delisted?

Jed is still listed, we haven't delisted him. It's something I've seen a few times now. The club hasn't delisted anybody from our senior list yet and were waiting on the PP thing and trade results to make decisions on some fringe players.

 

[DesertRoo]

Cockroaches and the NMFC.
We will survive.

Ain’t that the truth, we’ll just dig in harder..

 

[carnthedons]

Mark Williams is not indigenous

Yes he is and may have some input on the subject

 

[The_JHF_Clinic]

I think it’s important that everyone takes a collective breath and allows the AFL investigation to play out. Reportedly, Hawthorn engaged ‘external First Nations consultants’ to liaise with the Indigenous players. This was clearly a constructive move in terms of helping the players to feel comfortable engaging with the process. However, from what I have gathered so far, the perspectives of the accused persons were not obtained as part of the Hawthorn process.

While speaking this morning, Gil emphasised that the makeup of the AFL review team would be diverse and be led by a KC. He also stated that it’s important for “natural justice to be offered to the accused.” It’s common for different peoples’ perceptions to vary significantly with historical incidents. This AFL review is really going to deconstruct what happened, from all perspectives, so clearer judgements can be made. It’s looking disgraceful for Clarkson, Fagan and co at this stage, but there’s a lot to play out so I’ll be reserving judgement until then.

 

[Ashley B]

The Hawks will be slapped with a wet lettuce leaf but we might be looking for a new coach .

 

[spurs]

Following on from this line of argument.

Wtf does that mean?

 

[King Corey]

oh, come on. North Melbourne survives everything. We will draft and trade and keep going.

Look, my selfish hope is that Alastair is innocent (not just 'found' innocent), fulfils our dreams and becomes a ridiculously successful coach of the NMFC.

But if we must walk down that dark path together as supporters, where he was culpable and his tenure at North Melbourne is over before it begins - it's worth taking a pseudo-Stoic view about other versions of "what might've been".

As much as we've all been in an euphoric Clarkson afterglow, there is the possibility that without any of this investigation ever happening - we weren't going to end up multiplepremiershipville under him and we had ourselves a Carlton Malthouse-Pagan outcome.

I've tried to shy away from it but if this goes down the gurgler you betchya I'll be running that script in my head, just for the football side of things. And yes, to make myself feel better.