Good to see the Kangaroos have their priorities right!

  • Thread starter SydCanTasRoos
  • Start date
  • Tagged users None

Remove this Banner Ad

Hehehehe for fear of confusing a certain few Kangaroo fans again, I won't comment.
rolleyes.gif
 

Log in to remove this ad.

The Broadmeadows entertainment centre has been planned for about 8 years but North have had to jump through a lot of legal hoops due to a very tenacious local group opposed to gaming machines in the area. A fair proportion of the million dollars spent has gone in legal costs while working their way through the maze of tribunals and courts. The protesters are still protesting but North now finally have the go ahead to commence the project. It will be a gaming centre and social club but also a venue for dinners,conferences etc and is likely to add a couple of million a year to the club's bottom line so although the outlay seems large now it should prove to be money well spent long term.
 
I have come to the conclusion that there are several fans on this website who want the Roos to fold. Fact is every other club has headed down the same path IE Pokies (Melbourne in Bentleigh, Richmond in Wantania etc) The Roos are simply trying to garner some more revenue and possibly build a new fan base down at Broady. You interstate clubs might laugh at this but may i remind you that the Kangaroos were the powerhouse of the 90's (7 prelims in a row, 2 flags, 3 GF's etc) on meagure resources, so instead of bagging the Roos, how bout praising them ?
 
I think the original point trying to be made was not if they should be building pokie machine palaces in the first place but paying their players what they owe today should be the #1 priority. Well that's how I read it.
 
maybe/maybe not. I'm not here to discuss my club, but i am sick of all this kangaroo tall poppy syndrome bashing around here ? Give the Roos a break for god's sake ?
At least for the memory of the late, great Ron Casey, a man who did so much for football/and the roos in general.
 
North have always been a club that gives priority to their players. Those same articles also mentioned that North often pay players in advance when it's requested for particular reasons. They've got a cash flow problem,not unusual for a lot of clubs at this time of the year,and the 4 players affected are comfortable with the situation and will be paid before Xmas. The $million spent on the Broady project has been accumulated over 8 years,it's not as though it was paid out last week!

Donkey Kong. There's no point trying to reason with a lot of the people on this board when it comes to the Roos. All you can do is present the alternative view point as calmly and rationally as possible. Because these f#*&^%%$# useless #$#@& wouldn't know a f$%#*&^%$ thing about football if it crept up their f%^$#&*^ ar$%# and gave them piles!!!
 
Lioness 22,

Showing some diplomacy skills at last.

You being a Brisbane supporter, should be one of the last to criticise any other team's administration with the Bears/Lions so-called "merger", a token 6 FITZROY players and a few million dollars thrown in by AFL to help establish AFL in a rubgy state.

Before Lioness replies as to North's involvement (North would have received some monies from the AFL) re North/Fitzroy or Bears/Fitzroy "merger", let's remember the facts. The Fitzroy board together with North's board thought the most beneficial outcome for Fitzroy and its supporters was a merger with North.

The board held a public meeting and a majority favoured to merger with North.

The AFL thought otherwise. That was really one of the most dastardly acts from the commission authorised to act on behalf of all clubs ( not a select few.) Cowardly NOT because the North/Fitzroy merger didn't go ahead, but in the UNDERHAND way in which it was effected.

Club presidents, led by Richmond's Leon Daphne, convened a meeting to restrict and place limitations on North's board. The presidents' feared a "powerful club" to rival the then "big 3". (Richmond had extreme money problems, which lead to their campaign - SOS - save our skins).

The limitations which were placed on North, were not placed Brisbane.
Three things I will never forget on that Thursday night -
1 The look of pain and angish that was on Ron Casey's face on the night he announced the board had called off their negotiations.
2 The arrogance and behaviour of Ross Oakley and some stupid statement about that's "what happens in the corporate world"
3 The then Bears president appearing on the "Footy Show", making an absolute, unmitigated fool of himself, shaming those asasociated with his club and deriding, jeering Fitzroy and its supporters by stating publicly, "Well that's a big percentage booster".

The only person to emerge with integrity intact was the late Ron Casey. Not once did he abuse the "players" involved.

As to North having their priorities in order, they do. The complex at Broadmeadows
started over 8 years ago, but has had to overcome many and varied obstacles. Splinter groups and minorities making a nuiscance of themselves.

Reading some posts, it seems that what the majority of clubs do is OK, but as soon as North announce an innovation, they are derided.

Is this simply jealousy because the of the humble club rooms and of the success North have enjoyed relative to larger clubs?

Michele
 
Which club was responsible for friday night football ?
Which club first toyed with the idea of playing home matches interstate, with several other clubs following suit ?
The Roos are known as the innovators, and i suspect that other clubs (IE Richmond) are jealous and try to discreidt them whenever possible.
Oh i forgot, Norff were the first club, I believe to come up with an 'alternate' ansett cup/away game jumper.
When the facts are presented, many resort to complete gibberish, or total lies to alter the facts to fit in with their views. That is what Grouch is saying (which is 100 percent correct) a lot of people on BF don't know how a real footy club operates.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

OK my thoughts on this issue.
I think the Roos are on the right track, they are looking ahead, they want to be able to pay their players in 5, 10 & 20 years plus. Pokies are the best way to go about it, you can't rely on sponsorships, or memberships, you have to have a regular alternative income. When I first hird (heh heh) that they were putting pokies in at Windy Hill I was horrified, how could they commercialise my great club, it would detract from the tradition, yada yada yada. The Bombers are in such a financially good state because of pokies at Windy Hill & the Melton Club.
Good luck Roos, I think in the long term it will mean the difference between folding or surviving.
Cheers

------------------
mantis
 
That's quite correct Mr. Ripper. I believe it was 1978 under the Presidency of Frank Bibby wasn't it, that it was first proposed that Fitzroy play some home games in Sydney? It didn't go ahead of course and South Melbourne filled the breach. Didn't we also play in Sydney on May 23rd 1903 against Collingwood? Didn't we also play the first AFL match at Bruce Stadium, Canberra against West Coast in 1995? Didn't we also play in a couple of AFL matches in Tasmania in 1992?

Michele,
I personally am a great admirer of North Melbourne and their efforts to stay competitive in the AFL, which they have done very well. The current hoo-haa over North's financial woes is in my opinion exaggerated. Just about every Victorian club (except perhaps for Essendon) has had cashflow problems at this time of the year at some time in the past twenty years. Likewise the $600,000 loss is aloso exaggerated. Many people also forget that North made a $600,000 profit in 1998 and an $80,000 profit in 1999. Not bad for a club supposedly on it's last legs.

However Michele, in regards to the merger, as I have said many times before, North shot themselves in the foot, on three seperate occasions.
1) Insisting on 52 players on the list, when in light of Brisbane's offer of 44 players was never going to be accepted by the other clubs. Greg Miller was quoted as saying no 54 players no merge on July 3rd, the day before the merger between Brisbane and Fitzroy was affected.
2) Attempting to double-cross Fitzroy in the final stages of the negotiations, over the agreed name, the proportion of the colours in the new uniform and also the amount of Fitzroy directors that were to be on the new board. This caused Dyson Hore-Lacy to make contact with Brisbane on July 3rd.
3) North not allowing Fitzroy to agree to pay Nauru any more than $550,000 which led to an administrator being appointed by Nauru to recover the debt on June 28th 1996. If North had agreed to pay Nauru out in full as part of the merger deal, then an administrator would not have been appointed and Fitzroy and North would have probably merged.

So please, while the AFL was primarily responsible for the Brisbane-Fitzroy merger, North did not help their own cause at all. If they (especially Greg Miller and Mark Dawson) had been more upfront and more honorable, then North probably would have merged with Fitzroy. According to Dyson Hore-Lacy , Ron Casey did not take much part in the later negotiations, which was from North Melbourne's viewpoint unfortunate.
 
OK Michele, I think you need to calm down a bit. I said what I said cause I really have no comment!!!!!!!!!!!! What is your problem??

[This message has been edited by lioness22 (edited 03 December 2000).]
 
Michele

I would recommend that you read Dyson Hore-Lacy's book, "Fitzroy" for the inside story about the last years of Fitzroy and what went on with the merger (available at Readings bookstore for about $20 or so). Even allowing for the fact that we haven't heard Greg Miller's side of the story, it does appear that he was a contributing factor to the merger failing with a number of last mintute demands that acted against the spirit of the merger agreement. So, while we really can't shift all of the blame (just a mere 99% of it!) onto the AFL, Noel Gordon, and Leon Daphne, certain sections of the then North board have to take their share of the responsibility for the merger failing. All in all, apart from the Fitzroy board, no-one comes out of the story smelling of roses.
 
agrees with shinboners when it comes to mergers no one comes out smelling like roses and we will be down this same path again no doubt as we all know even tho the afl are saying they dont have future mergers in their planing publicly privatetly they continue to make things difficult for melb based clubs with this 95% salary cap rule!
cheers!
oh and ps to north fans i have nothing but praise for your club for fwd thinking etc.
 
Shinboners

I would not exclude the Fitzroy Board.

They allowed their club to get into the situation where they lost control. I know very little about the whole affair but it demonstrated a far more tactical rather than strategic approach in my eyes.

ptw
 
Donkey, Donkey, Donkey!

Channel 7 invented Friday night footy.

I think South might have got the jump on North as far as home games interstate goes.
And of course Fitzroy were second.

You'll find that Collingwood were the first to wear an alternate strip in an Escort/Ardath Cup match v Swan Districts.
And also marketed the official training jumper back when Yakka were sponsors.
Infact I bought mine at Merret Hasset Sports Store in the Bourke Street Mall.

It is a common practice of petulant posters to accuse others with a different view point of things like gibberish.
Of course when you do that you should always make sure you are on the money first.

But I'm interested, what did Ron Casey do for football as opposed to North?
 
tiger_of_old

I think it is right that the AFL "makes it hard" for Melbourne teams. Not actively discriminating against them, but if the AFL feels the need to support, say Brisbane, then in my mind that is good as the Brisbane market is of strategic importance to the AFL.

If a club decides (as they are certainly entitled to do) that the are going to stay in the overcrowded Melbourne market, then I think they need to do that on their own, and not expect additional support from the AFL, or expect the rules that apply to Brisbane to also apply to them.

It appears to me that the AFL's merger strategy has gone from "active" to "passive". ie Let them fight it out amongst themselves and wait for the casualties to follow. Utlimately I support this strategy....but each to their own.


ptw
 
First can I mention a recent interview with Essendon officials which admitted they had cash flow problems on'96 and had to re-structure drastically.

But it's no shame. Footy clubs are not there to make profit but merely to trade solvently (remember this year both the AFL and Colonial had a shortfall too.

It's a bit sad about clubs being 'forced' to approach thinks like Pokies - It's hardly a family freindly thing is it.

Here in Hawkland we don't like to mention that a good amount of revenue comes from the pokies at waverley gardens. This is a shopping centre and pokies are now banned in shopping centres - for obvious reasons.

In fact that club is one of the most profitable in the state.
 
I strongly disagree that the board that was in charge of Fitzroy in 1996 was responsible for the predicament the club found itself in. Out of the 8 board members, as far as I can remember, only three were on the board in 1990, they being Elaine Findlay, Kevin Ryan and David McMahon, who were all appointed to the board in the late 1980's. Of the others:
- Dyson Hore-Lacy was elected in 1990. and became Chairman in 1991.
- John Stewart was elected in 1993.
- John Petinella was elected in 1993.
- Colin Hobbs was elected in 1993.
- Robert Eales was elected about 1990.

Ray Paton was on the board from 1990-1992.

Some of these people I know personally and to suggest that they were responsible is completely incorrect as well as unjust.

In 1978, Fitzroy were $400,000 in the red and the figure only worsened in the 1980's, when the club (like most other clubs) embarked on a buying spree that netted players like Bernie Quinlan. The board of the 70's and early eighties is the one that should be blamed if anyone. A lack of a geographical base, a proper home ground and being sandwiched between Collingwood and Carlton, as well as a very poor losing record in the 60's and early 70's meant that Fitzroy had few supporters, few members and therefore little chance of keeping up with the richer clubs.
 
Roylion

I think I said that I do not know much about the goings on at the time but looking at it from a outsider's perspective.

You are right that Fitzroy had quite a few hurdles to get over (geography, membership etc)and as has been said a few times before clubs are not there to make a profit. They are there for the members (as in most cases the members own the club) and always what the member want is premierships....and survival identity etc.

Were the individuals on the board at the time 100% responsible, No. Were the boards collectively responsible (including the 1996 board), ultimately yes. Collectively they allowed themselves to get into a position where they lost a lot of negotiating power and were insolvent.

I don't know what the Roy's board decided as their strategy in '93, but if it was continue in Melbourne, then I think they lacked some strategic focus on how to make that succeed, and what to do if it did not, and when to realise when it was failing.

My original post centrered on tactics vs strategy. I saw a lot of finding sponsors at the last minute, refinancing and the like which, from the outside, appear to be reactions to a given situation. I did not see a long term strategy.....mind you I have not read Hore-Lacy's book as I can't get it where I live so I am happy to stand corrected.

With Western Bulldogs and North I can see a strategy. Play games away from Melbourne. I think this is part of a strategy which involves relocation before merger. Do what we can to stay in Melbourne but also set up the infrastructure and soften up the members to support relocation if necessary.

You obviously know a lot more about the Fitzroy position than me so I am interested in your views.

ptw
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Good to see the Kangaroos have their priorities right!

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top