Autopsy Cause of Death of the 2018 Joint Major Sponsor

[Lockhart Road]

I’m really not sure what you hoped to achieve here LH... I understand the frustration and desire to throw shade, but really I can’t see it acheiving anything other than your termination...

I certainly appreciate the drama as a fan and human, and your writing is entertaining. However it just comes across as all negative which I guess I hope you are comfortable with and don’t regret.

Thanks, mate. I’m an all or nothing sort of person. Being restrained and kept in-between by various methods, whether inadvertent or on purpose, was playing hell with my peace of mind and my health. Yes, I’m comfortable. Five and a half years at my age is long enough.

 

[El Zorro]

I’m really not sure what you hoped to achieve here LH... I understand the frustration and desire to throw shade, but really I can’t see it acheiving anything other than your termination...

I certainly appreciate the drama as a fan and human, and your writing is entertaining. However it just comes across as all negative which I guess I hope you are comfortable with and don’t regret.

I believe China wouldn't even be in Port's radar if it wasn't for LR's "negativity". I'll chalk it up to lack of knowledge of his role in the whole China venture, but you should try to inform yourself a bit more and consider the whole journey. LR wasn't always negative.

 

[Visenfest]

Fair point.
Unfortunately BF is a breeding ground for negativity.
Be too positivevand you will be swatted like a measley fly.

God forbid that people should expect a modicum of competence from the club they support.

 

[Zakk Wylde]

Indeed the Club contacted me and colleague via conference call last Wednesday to discuss Shanghai 2019 and how Hong Kong could play an effective role in staging a promotional function at the Hong Kong Football Club in late February, involving the AFL, St. Kilda and PAFC.
Also discussed were the Rugby 7s at HK Stadium on the first weekend in April, then an AustCham HK event on the Tuesday evening before the Shanghai match.
The object of the call was thus to proactively set up a series of HK based functions aimed to increase local participation in the Shanghai football weekend and the Sunday 2 June match at Jiangwan.

The caller from the Club was Shane Smith, CFO and also Head of Operations for the Club’s China team. He’s a solid energetic workaholic manager who somehow has never been to Hong Kong as yet, but has been to Shanghai 12 to 15 times, maybe more.
I asked him a few questions about the financial situation and about sponsorships. I needed the answers so that I could constructively frame around the information my input to the discussion rather than waffle in the dark.
He emphasised that his answers would be confidential, and we agreed that what he said would be ‘off the record’. He explained at that point that he’d been told that I’d ‘been doing a bit of writing recently’ and was not unnaturally wary.
What he told us in confidence remains in confidence.
On Thursday and Friday last week we all exchanged emails in a follow-up to the conference call. They were all positive, retaining the pro-active style of the Wednesday call.

My next communcation received from the Club was the CEO’s termination advice yesterday.

Disappointing.

 

[chiwigi]

Fair point.
Unfortunately BF is a breeding ground for negativity.
Be too positivevand you will be swatted like a measley fly.

There’s a difference between being positive and blindly following.

 

[OneGreatClub]

There’s a difference between being positive and blindly following.

My issue is that all are entitled to our opinions and some on here are a biit more savvy of the inner workings of the club but there ar others who look on from the outside yet they beleive have all the answers and if they were in charge could fix it. ..and are negative about everything the club does.

 

[Tredz]

Thanks, mate. I’m an all or nothing sort of person. Being restrained and kept in-between by various methods, whether inadvertent or on purpose, was playing hell with my peace of mind and my health. Yes, I’m comfortable. Five and a half years at my age is long enough.

Appreciate all the work and effort you have put in and contribution over the years LR. The fact that you are comfortable with the decision make me believe that it was the right decision for both the club and yourself.

 

[glitch01]

I'm actually looking forward to hearing what Lockhart Road really thinks of Koch and the rest of the board now.......

 

[El Zorro]

My issue is that all are entitled to our opinions and some on here are a biit more savvy of the inner workings of the club but there ar others who look on from the outside yet they beleive have all the answers and if they were in charge could fix it. ..and are negative about everything the club does. View attachment 594376

Oh, the irony!

 

[Kiss from a Rozee]

Thanks, mate. I’m an all or nothing sort of person. Being restrained and kept in-between by various methods, whether inadvertent or on purpose, was playing hell with my peace of mind and my health. Yes, I’m comfortable. Five and a half years at my age is long enough.

Yeah I get that, I’m the same honestly

Do as I say and not as I do and all that.

 

[crazy_big_al]

I'm actually looking forward to hearing what Lockhart Road really thinks of Koch and the rest of the board now.......

So when are we getting your real thoughts.

 

[GremioPower]

This was in 2013:

http://www.portadelaidefc.com.au/news/2013-10-06/port-signs-reciprocal-rights-deal-with-hong-kong-fc

DAMN!

 

[Relativity]

Love your work LR. If the Saints were smart they would be on the blower to you to try and cut our lunch in HK.

 

[Lockhart Road]

Love your work LR. If the Saints were smart they would be on the blower to you to try and cut our lunch in HK.

Thank you. But not going to happen. Hard enough to work with the Club I’ve supported since I was seven ... anyone else including the AFL itself would be suicidal.

 

[Steve Dore]

Love your work LR. If the Saints were smart they would be on the blower to you to try and cut our lunch in HK.

If the Saints read Lockhart Road's contribution to HumongousSherrin and think they could convince him to work with them to undermine the Port Adelaide Football Club then smart is the last thing they are.

 

[Relativity]

If the Saints read Lockhart Road's contribution to HumongousSherrin and think they could convince him to work with them to undermine the Port Adelaide Football Club then smart is the last thing they are.

It is not undermining to pick up a dropped ball.

 

[OneGreatClub]

Sheesh

 

[Steve Dore]

It is not undermining to pick up a dropped ball.

... cut our lunch in HK.

 

[Lockhart Road]

Let’s not get into a debate on this please guys. There are many things, many angles, many ideas tried or ideas that never got to being tried, that I’ve thus far not included in any BF post, but which are suitable for future nostalgic articles that could act as OPs for new threads. Memoirs, so to speak.

One that I’ve just remembered involves a small amount of compensation being offered to me by the Club back in 2015. At the time, and since May 2013, what I was involving myself in had built up to almost a full-time job, I was that keen ... and my wife, being HK Chinese, was getting more and more pissed off with it until she sounded off, without my knowledge at the time it happened, to KT and Matt Richardson on separate social occasions when they were visiting HK. They didn’t know what the hell to do, this being unprecedented and Mrs Road being a firebrand on my behalf especially when investment by us in our time and out-of-pocket expenses are concerned ... such things as hosting dinners, buying a table or two, or even five, at the initial Club functions at the HKFC, etc. The concept of a nominal ‘gratuity’ was subsequently floated. I told KT to please donate it towards his first visit to China at the end of 2015 - the visit I described in Part One of the OP. The subject never came up again, I made sure of that, despite strong words continuing in my direction at home.

 

[bomberclifford]

Let’s not get into a debate on this please guys. There are many things, many angles, many ideas tried or ideas that never got to being tried, that I’ve thus far not included in any BF post, but which are suitable for future nostalgic articles that could act as OPs for new threads. Memoirs, so to speak.

One that I’ve just remembered involves a small amount of compensation being offered to me by the Club back in 2015. At the time, and since May 2013, what I was involving myself in had built up to almost a full-time job, I was that keen ... and my wife, being HK Chinese, was getting more and more pissed off with it until she sounded off, without my knowledge at the time it happened, to KT and Matt Richardson on separate social occasions when they were visiting HK. They didn’t know what the hell to do, this being unprecedented and Mrs Road being a firebrand on my behalf especially when investment by us in our time and out-of-pocket expenses are concerned ... such things as hosting dinners, buying a table or two, or even five, at the initial Club functions at the HKFC, etc. The concept of a nominal ‘gratuity’ was subsequently floated. I told KT to please donate it towards his first visit to China at the end of 2015 - the visit I described in Part One of the OP. The subject never came up again, I made sure of that, despite strong words continuing in my direction at home.

I too am married to a firebrand.
I relate to this story more than you would imagine.

Just quietly, I would have loved to see KT and MR’s faces ...

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

CAUSE OF DEATH OF THE 2018 JOINT MAJOR SPONSOR ..... PART ONE
Desperate half-measures
Things had grown that desperate ... so desperate that the CEO leapt into being point man for every pitch - the equivalent of parachuting your crack troops into battle in the first wave, and leaving yourself minus adequate, or any, back-up. Finally, all that was left to pitch to was Sally Zou and AusGold. The CEO was by then on the edge of reaching out to her. I sent an email urging him not to. The Club has done well out of Sally, thanks to the CEO taking up her challenge and meeting it, and thanks to the due diligence that has been invested on her. No bad debt there for us, I’m glad to assure. But, when dealing with such an unorthodox operator who engages in her own style of scarlet pimpernel party tricks, there’s a time to hold ‘em, and there’s a time to assess the risk to the Club’s credibility, viability and reputation ... and fold ‘em.

In the end it was decided there was no choice but to copy the Oak Plus logo - Oak having stepped up to replace EA as JMS for 2017 - on the players’ chests. The duplicated Oak Plus logo was then stuck upon the players’ backs - minus explanation (for longer than ten minutes, at least) via media release to the marketplace in general or newsletter to Club members in particular - a dodge that pointed to half-measures born of desperation playing Red Rover All Over up and down the skinny corridors of Allan Scott Power HQ.

The warning was reluctantly heeded, and it meant we didn't finish with her company all over our jumper.

The online version from yesterday arvo doesn't mention Port, but today's print edition sticks us front and centre in the 1st paragraph of page 4 and 3rd of the continuing story from page 1.. Oh what today would have been like for the club, if she was our JMS as some as some at the club in desperation thought about doing so.

Online doesn't have her as the lead story like the paper edition has. If you want to find the story online you dont go to the home page or news section, you go to the business section. Why???

The first 2 paragraphs on line + print edition are the same and appear on page 1.Port slipped into paragraph 3.





https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/busi...s/news-story/f51a831017b8feadae003deb384349b2
Sally Zou’s company Aus Gold Mining Group has had its sole mining project shut down amid findings of illegal dam construction, the death of large numbers of kangaroos and doubts about her financial situation.
Ms Zou, the state Liberal Party’s single largest donor who has been embroiled in two high-profile legal stoushes in South Australia, has had a mining operation at Tibooburra in western New South Wales shut down by the NSW Resources Regulator.

The regulator has issued a directive that Aus Gold — the company of which she is the sole director — stop all activities at the mine site, except those required to maintain it safely.

If Aus Gold does not comply, it faces fines of up to $1.1 million, plus $110,000 per day, while the offences for a person found guilty of such offences are $220,000, plus $22,000 per day.

Ms Zou has not yet responded to the closure, though she has returned to Twitter this week and today posted the following status, which quotes former US Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/busi...s/news-story/f51a831017b8feadae003deb384349b2





And its about more than kangaroos dying. That's fluffy fodder for the plebs because they know it will get a big response from that - ergo Michael Moore's Roger & Me documentary about how GM massively reduced production at the plant in Flint Michigan in 1989 and the workers sacked most of them struggling to survive and the biggest response the doco got, was that people were upset that he showed a desperate ex worker killing a rabbit to eat, to help survive, not the underlying story of evictions and peoples lives being fundamentally changed.

As the ABC reports re this situation yesterday
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-15/lease-suspended-on-sally-zou-ausgold-mine-site/10816914
Chinese businesswoman Sally Zou's AusGold Mining Group has been ordered to temporarily shut down its mine in New South Wales after numerous issues at the site.According to a report by the NSW Resource Regulator released last week, problems identified at the Good Friday Gold Mine.......

Ms Zou has also courted controversy over her business dealings, with revelations late last year that 11 employees from the mine were taking legal action over pay.

In one incident, Ms Zou paid workers in cash after bringing a backpack full of bank notes to a meeting.

The NSW Resource Regulator reported that it had inspected the mine, near Tibooburra, in September last year and found a storage dam had been built that had not been approved.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

UWai logo is missing from our list of secondary sponsors, both Club and China sponsors. Its no longer on the back drop at pressers like in 2018.

They lasted one year. They, too, at one point were set to have their logo on the back of our jumper at around $200k per annum as a fill in when a 2nd JMS didnt materialize. UWai were introduced to the Club by Lockhart Road's PAFC HK advisory group colleague.

Unfortunately Cathay Pacific has gone. Would’ve been a big one-up on the Crows who have lost China Southern. They lasted less than 2 years for the crows.

Although the decision to drop PAFC was made by Cathay pacific for reasons beyond the clubs control, given their problems which started when they were hacked in October 2018. It shows we did not come up with any out-of-box thinking like say to Cathay Pacific you can have two years free sponsorship branding to stir up West Lakes. It also shows our commercial people did not have the required close relationship with Cathay Pacific

2018 was the Year of the Dead Dog.

2019 luckily we have got Gupta in the Piggy bank.

 

[Duck Farmer]

It also shows our commercial people did not have the required close relationship with Cathay Pacific

They were too busy enjoying their first class seats at economy prices in the biggest rort since the IKEA lady started the car.

 

[Doctor Feel]

lol I like how there is never any media about sponsors ceasing because we don't need to know that, right?

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

lol I like how there is never any media about sponsors ceasing because we don't need to know that, right?

* that must have been really interesting at the members convention on Saturday, when KT explained why we didn't get a 2nd JMS in 2018 and what really happened and Dwayne Russell said that you could hear a pin drop as the crowd intently tuned in.

Oh wait that never .........