One member's view of the Footy First manifesto

Fehring

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Thread starter #1
As a die-hard Saints’ fan, I have been dismayed by the latest events at our club. There has been a lot of talk on this forum and elsewhere, and I thought it was time that someone took a look at the Footy First manifesto and reviewed it.

The manifesto is so shallow, if it was water it would not form a puddle. It is 12 pages long and does not outline a single thing that they would do if they were in charge (spending more money on “footy” is not a plan). The manifesto includes a sticker, a double-paged poster of a Saints emblem (which, incidentally, looks to me like trade mark infringement) and a lovely colour cardboard greeting card with the faces of the Footy First team on it.

Below I have pulled out their main points and made my comments:

“During Mr Butterss’ time on the Board, the club has had four Senior Coaches, four chief executive officers and four chief financial officers”
There have been three coaches during Butterss’ time as president, including our second-longest serving coach ever. Presumably the current coach will be around for a few years yet.
Agreed that the CEO/CFO position seems like a revolving door. There have been rumblings about Archie Fraser. If Footy First is elected, will they make it five CEOs in eight years? How is that adding to stability?

“Footy First members and its footy sub-committee will not meet with Mr Butterss or his group to be sold on some kind of compromise deal”
This is the most ludicrous thing they say. If they are really interested in the best interests of the football club, why wouldn’t they meet with Butterss? What’s to lose? If you don’t like what he has to say, you say thanks and go your separate ways. Are you so weak that you think he will hoodwink you into making a deal against your will? Are you so arrogant that you think Rod Butterss has absolutely nothing useful to say?

“One choice is the same footy sub-committee of Messrs Butterss, Casey and Kellett you have had for six seasons.”
Whoa. I thought it was terrible having new people in roles. When you were talking about CEOs and CFOs, continuity was a marvellous thing. Now it’s horrible. And you want to replace them with the following people:
  • Nathan Burke: 1 year’s experience working in a football department.
  • Andrew Thompson: 0 year’s experience working in a football department.
  • Mordy Bromberg QC: 0 year’s experience working in a football department.
  • Michael Klim: 0 year’s experience working in a football department.
Total years experience of the Footy First board in a football department role of any sort: 1. No, seriously. 1 year.

“In fact in 2006 we dropped to last on the list of AFL Club’s revenue. Even after AFL special subsidies are taken out, our revenue still puts us in the bottom four clubs.”
First, to include AFL handouts is ridiculous. So we have stronger revenue than three other Melbourne clubs. Second, we lost significant money by pulling out of the Tasmania deal (for two reasons - 1, we lost money from the Tasmanian Govt, 2, we lost 3000 Tassie members), but everyone accepts that this was a great outcome for us. It showed that we are maturing as a club. Melbourne, Bulldogs, Kangas and Hawthorn all sold games interstate this year to boost their coffers. Geelong plays home games in Melbourne for the same reason.

“And you, the Member, received the lowest monetary level of benefits of any club member in the league”.
Like I give a toss.

“Footy First would have spent less on debt reduction and far more on the football department”
Great. Can’t wait to go back into debt. You beauty. And what if you put us two million dollars in debt in pursuit of a premiership that we fail to win and then a few years later we find ourselves at the foot of the ladder with falling membership, falling sponsorship and a massive debt? Butterss has retired debt and is now increasing footy department spending for the third year in a row. We don't need your crazy "plans".

“Thanks for your eight years on the board. But you have had your time…You, Glenn Casey, Mark Kellett and Ray King have had between six and eight years on the Board.”
So, length of service is a bad thing? How long have you been on the Gregory’s Transport board? Presumably since it was formed in 1983. Is there a ceiling on how long other members serve on the Gregory’s board? Of course there isn’t, because we all accept that experience is a great thing. Most of us would agree that renewal is a good thing, but the way to do that is to gradually introduce new people who can learn from the experienced people. Tipping out a combined 30-odd years of experience on the St Kilda Board in one go just because they’ve “had their time” is nothing short of mornonic.

“Do not insist on a messy contest”
I would swear that the Footy First team have been all over the airwaves telling us that the St Kilda members must decide, even though it will cost us 100k and 2 months of bloody infighting.

“Nathan and I promise you this. We will make it a powerhouse in the AFL and put footy first.”
It would not be hard to make St Kilda a stronger club. The current administration and the one before that (Plympton) have put together more than a decade of decisions that have turned this club from basket case into a respected member of the league. They have built the base upon which Westaway and his cohorts know they can perform. I wonder if Footy First would be coming forward if St Kilda really was the basket case they are pretending it is. Westaway has supposedly been a Saints fan all his life but he was apparently not willing to put up his hand for a board position before now.

“We will reinvest in growth assets, and most importantly, put more money back into the football department”
What areas of football department spending are you going to increase? And by how much? You cannot seriously send me a 12 page manifesto where the main point is “increase football department spending” and not answer these questions. How stupid do you think I am, that I’ll just turn over the club to you when the sum total of your plans is “spend more money on stuff”.

“Why did they not fix the injury problem four, five or six years ago?”
From memory we didn’t have an injury problem four, five or six years ago. We had almost a full list to choose from through 2004. It was 2005 that the problem first bit hard, and at the end of that year the Saints appointed Craig Starcevich, who was credited with performing miracles in injury management up at Brisbane. Half way through this season Butterss appointed a three-man team of renowned AIS sports scientists to look in to the problem. What more do you want them to do? Do you think appointing the sports scientists was a good idea? Would you keep them on? Would you appoint more? Would you personally take a masseuse course and warm up the Clarke brothers’ legs yourself? What? Just tell me one thing you’d do. Anything.

“Premierships are hard to win. We all know that, but we believe that supporters know that a golden opportunity has been lost in the last four seasons, given the talent we had. Footy First will turn this around!!!”
Beware boards promising premierships.

An article on page 1 of the Sunday Age chronicled our love of the Messiah. Westaway is not the first messiah to come our way. He’s not even the first transport magnate. That honour goes to Lindsay Fox, who came in with a five year plan to win a premiership and left us with four consecutive wooden spoons. Fox occasionally tries to meddle in the Saints, but mostly he just attends Carlton games.

There is no doubt that a lot of people have problems with Butterss. Footy First represent that anger, but they represent nothing else. They present absolutely no solutions. They basically point out some problems, promise to earn more money, spend more money and win a premiership and give us absolutely no clue as to how they will do it. They treat us like fools and ask us for a blank cheque.

Saints fans, whatever you think of Butterss, you simply must demand more than that. We must stand up against this sort of egotisical messiah crap. As the old saying goes, and as we know only too well, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
 

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cartwright

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#2
good point on the injury issue - there was no problem all those years back (actually 5-6 yrs ago we were building a list).
the soft tissue injury issue arose during 04-06 (mind you while Nathan Burke was assistant coach) ....
so if we're going to point fingers .......................
 

Look2Me4Guidance

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#3
Yeah top points mate. I agree. If Footy First was to come in, how do we measure their success? If we finish runner up and post a loss of $400,000 have we improved our overall situation? It's very easy to criticise people in the job, any danger of coming forward with just the hint of a plan? I just hope the Saints faithful don't vote for Footy First purely because they want to see if the grass is greener.....
 

Fehring

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Thread starter #5
And, to add insult to injury, check this out from the Australian this morning:

"St Kilda has the money and the playing list and would earnestly trade to find the draft picks it would hope might tempt West Coast. But while Judd will listen intently to what St Kilda can provide, he is concerned that the Rod Butterss board must face an election in November."

Thank you, Greg Westaway.
 

Punter!

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#6
And, to add insult to injury, check this out from the Australian this morning:

"St Kilda has the money and the playing list and would earnestly trade to find the draft picks it would hope might tempt West Coast. But while Judd will listen intently to what St Kilda can provide, he is concerned that the Rod Butterss board must face an election in November."

Thank you, Greg Westaway.
Judd is only concerned about the looming butters election due to the possibility that if he's voted out then absolute muppets will be left to run the show and spend judds pay packet! More chance of him coming if butters stays. Butters = long term stability.

Vote no Greg SPENDaway!
 
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#7
And, to add insult to injury, check this out from the Australian this morning:

"St Kilda has the money and the playing list and would earnestly trade to find the draft picks it would hope might tempt West Coast. But while Judd will listen intently to what St Kilda can provide, he is concerned that the Rod Butterss board must face an election in November."

Thank you, Greg Westaway.
Your a FOOL FEHRING - Butters is all smoke n mirrors ( how many legal threats has he put up - how many has he gone on with??) - HE IS GONE so get over it.

I doubt if he will actually show up at the meeting - he will have to face REAL Men asking REAL Questions!

Pump him up all you like and down play Westaway - end of day we will say good night to the most egotistical President in our history
 
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#8
good point on the injury issue - there was no problem all those years back (actually 5-6 yrs ago we were building a list).
the soft tissue injury issue arose during 04-06 (mind you while Nathan Burke was assistant coach) ....
so if we're going to point fingers .......................
You obviously don't remember 2002 when we could only name 2 proper emergencies for a match because we had so many injuries.
 
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#9
The debate about St Kilda Footy First is now largely irrelevant.

They have 8,000 proxy votes, and normally only around a thousand members even bother to vote at elections ...

Unfortunately if you are a Rod Butterss fan you will have to accept that it is someone else's time.

Nothing much you can do now.

Butterss might have been safe were he not such a d|ckhead in the media, but great politics from SFF and a high level of complacency will see the Butterss administration destroyed.
 

NeilElvis

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#11
As has been stated Fehring, the $1mil profits are great & probably should be expected considering the on field performance of the last 4 yrs, membership being high, decent sponsorship and having the lowest number of staff/spending on recruitment/injury prevention/footy department spending.

I'd rather the club make $50k & the club operate on ALL cylinders (marketing, membership, sponsorship servicing, recruitment, injury prevention, etc).

I know you're a solid Butterss supporter, so let me ask you a few questions that have me leaning towards FF.

#1 Did you feel embarrassed by Butterss in his personal battles with Thomas?

#2 Has the botched job on the elite training centre caused you concern?

#3 Has the appointment of Ken Sheldon raised concerns when considering Butterss talk of 'best practice footy department'? Was Sheldon the best the club could get? Or was he a mate of Glen Casey who got a job on the sly?

#4 Why has St.Kilda's recruitment department been operating on the smell of an oily rag? We only seem to draft Vic kids & the occasional QLDer! Surely if JB was better resourced a quality kid from WA/SA/NT would have cropped up?

Personally I'm sick of corporate spin & Butterss stupid battle with Thomas. His love of being in the media prevented him from just saying nothing about the Thomas rubbish & saving the club embarrassment. Westaway obviously has his faults but has come across thus far as a straight shooter.

He & Burkey have just about got my vote.
 

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#12
I don't know anything about running a business, but Butters ego got out of control and at the end of the day he is going to go, like it or not. What it highlights in typical St.Kilda fashion, we had something good going and blew it. 2008-9 will be the leenest in some time, but if history has told us anything, get some youth in and build that way we may challenge seriously again
 

Fehring

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Thread starter #13
I know you're a solid Butterss supporter, so let me ask you a few questions that have me leaning towards FF.

#1 Did you feel embarrassed by Butterss in his personal battles with Thomas?

#2 Has the botched job on the elite training centre caused you concern?

#3 Has the appointment of Ken Sheldon raised concerns when considering Butterss talk of 'best practice footy department'? Was Sheldon the best the club could get? Or was he a mate of Glen Casey who got a job on the sly?

#4 Why has St.Kilda's recruitment department been operating on the smell of an oily rag? We only seem to draft Vic kids & the occasional QLDer! Surely if JB was better resourced a quality kid from WA/SA/NT would have cropped up?
#1. Disappointed by the feud but Thomas has been undermining the club all season. Lyon threatened to expose Thomas, so Butterss took the heat and outed him instead.

#2. I'm concerned that we haven't sealed the deal but I understand the reason - they want to keep the pokies. I'm happy that they're putting the heat on Kingston by looking at our options. Casey is the fastest growing corridor outside of the Gold Coast and I'd be pretty happy if we ended up there.

#3. This one I'm really not sure about. He was brought in to handle the footy department last year after Thomas left (Thomas WAS our footy department). I've always had tremendous respect for Bomber. He was the coach who led us out of mediocracy and into our first finals series in 18 years. He got the coaching job because he had a 100 page plan for the club in the days before coaches did such things.

#4. Like everything, we ran on the smell of an oily rag for years because we had a multi-million dollar debt. Spending on recruitment in 2007 went up a great deal (as did spending on a number of areas) and we were one of only two or three Melbourne clubs to have a full rookie list.
 

Fehring

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Thread starter #14
Westaway obviously has his faults but has come across thus far as a straight shooter.

He & Burkey have just about got my vote.
I heard Westaway on SEN this morning. He had the hide to say that Butterss should avoid conflict and step aside. This is a guy who launched a board coup and then refused to even meet with Butterss to discuss a compromise.

It was the first time I've actually heard him talk and his arrogance blew me away. Was that just me, or did anyone else pick up the same vibe?
 
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#16
Butterss refuses to hold the EGM any earlier than 26th November.

How on earth can that be good for the club, and why on earth does Butterss need more than 2 months to prepare himself?

Absolute disgrace, and for a few people I know this has made up their mind.

You cannot tell me someone with the best interests of the club at heart would delay the EGM 2 months.
 

sainter

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#17
I heard Westaway on SEN this morning. He had the hide to say that Butterss should avoid conflict and step aside. This is a guy who launched a board coup and then refused to even meet with Butterss to discuss a compromise.

It was the first time I've actually heard him talk and his arrogance blew me away. Was that just me, or did anyone else pick up the same vibe?
Why wouldn't he ask for Butterss to step aside?

It's pretty obvious that his ticket has the support of the vast majority of our members so I would have thought it was a reasonable request. I really can't see what Rod hopes to achieve by delaying the EGM.
 

Fehring

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Thread starter #18
Why wouldn't he ask for Butterss to step aside?

It's pretty obvious that his ticket has the support of the vast majority of our members so I would have thought it was a reasonable request. I really can't see what Rod hopes to achieve by delaying the EGM.
I'm highlighting the fact that when Westaway was in a position of weakness (before the manifesto was sent out), he refused to even meet with Butterss. He was hell-bent on a showdown. All of a sudden he's Mahatma Gandhi.
 

Fred

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#20
Did you hear him? I am genuinely interested in whether anyone heard him and what they thought of him.
No, I didn't hear him. I would expect that anyone running their own large successful company would be a straight shooter with a degree of confidence, which may come across as arrogance.
No bad thing in my view.
 

Fehring

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Thread starter #21
No, I didn't hear him. I would expect that anyone running their own large successful company would be a straight shooter with a degree of confidence, which may come across as arrogance.
No bad thing in my view.
People who run large companies tend to have plans. He seems to just have matching ties. So, arrogance isn't really going to cut it for me.
 
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My views:

I have repeatedly preached in this forum on the benefits of stability.
By this I mean extended continuity of service of a president, a united board, or the coaching staff - in particular - the head coach.

Stability on and off the field allows growth and promotes success. It is not the only factor, but if you look into our turbulent history, the Saints most successful era coincided with that of our longest serving coach. Sadly our second most successful era coincides with with our second longest serving coach (you guessed it - Grant Thomas). This era has been presided over wholly by Rod Butterss. The two characters were 'best of mates' when they arrived together at the club and we all know how that ended up.

Going way back to the Plympton era, we were, for the first time I know of in our history, flush with money when he handed over the reigns to Butterss.
(This is not to say that there was no debt to be serviced). The Waverley reparation had funded a recruitment drive with big-named players traded in, top draft recruits and included dragging a powerhouse coach out of retirement to steer the new St Kilda towards success.

16 rounds later the sacking of Malcolm Blight saddened many of us. We all thought his guidance would bring the professionalism of the successful wealthy clubs to St Kilda whose history of poverty and unprofessionalism seemed to go hand in hand. With the benefit of hindsight - Butterss was showing just how cutthroat he was / is. Expectations were not met. Sacked.

GT took the reigns - he began to make real headway building on areas where Mal Blight started, improving and bringing in new ideas, new standards and higher expectations. His was the type of change in mindset that the club had needed for well over a decade. He brought professionalism and respect to the club. He worked off a shoestring budget in many areas - but demanded more money be spent in some. These demands were the seeds that later resulted in a serious rift between the headstrong coach and the president.

The removal of GT was a shock to many of us. He had his weaknesses but his strengths seemed to far outweigh them. He took over the head coach position when we couldn't find a first rate coach willing to take us on. When he left - the Saints were "hot property" - eagerly sought after by the best coaches in the land. For most of his tenure as head coach (except for a golden patch in 2004) GT's players were susceptible to higher rates of soft tissue injury than those of any other club. Ultimately it was this and 2 premiership points that were taken from the club that was his undoing.

The reasoning behind his dismissal was based on the fact that the board were restructuring the club in a manner modelled on the successful interstate clubs. Apparently Thomas was unwilling to relinquish some of the duties he held. This would have prevented the restructure of the club and prevented us from achieving a more professional approach. Also Butterss held some doubt that GT was capable of delivering a premiership.

All of this may have been the truth, but in light of later disclosures regarding these two, one can't help but feel as if the personal problems between them may have contributed more to the sacking than any of this spin.

Now we find out that the injury rates that we have endured for six or seven years were, in all likelyhood, quite preventable - if only we had been allocated a buget that was remotely of the same scale as other clubs have. Instead, it seems these moneys have been chanelled into the much publicised $million profits - to erase our debt.

The difference it seems between the Footy First and the incumbent board's philosophies is "Where do our priorities lie? Should we make financial success our greatest priority, or do we make on-field success our greatest priority.

To most of us - that is easy - stuff the balance books - give us a premiership - NOW.

It is not so black and white as that. When Butterss took over - we were earmarked as the most likely club to be moved interstate or merged. The AFL were Hellbent on reducing the number of Vic clubs. Our future was in real threat. We are the forth or fifth most likely now. This is in no small part due to the continued successful off-field performance of the club.

The continued existence of the St Kilda football club is probably the most important goal immaginable for the fans. The next most important goal is success. We need to level the playingfield somewhat in order to compete with the rich interstate clubs and the wealthy Vic clubs. This is where the board has let us down somewhat. Negotiations stalled then were abandoned regarding the redevelopment of Moorabbin. We do not have first rate facilities and we do not have staffing numbers to allow us to compete.

Again the cutting costs is good for the balance books but is severely hampering our chances of on-field success.

I know that Andrew Thompson and Nathan Burke have a much better idea of what is going wrong at the club than I do. They are both clever men - leaders of men. They would be as aware as any of us just how destabilising a board spill could be. If they felt that something needed to be done so badly as to risk the effects of a spill in order to achieve it - then I think we all need to sit up and ask why they would.

You have to decide if you trust that Burkey and Thommo have the best interests of the club at heart. I think they do. They are not novices at sports administration and so I expect they will do a very professional job taking the club in a slightly different direction building on the solid foundation built but the Butterss board. There is some risk though. Ours is the worst revenue of all clubs in the AFL. If spending is raised without regard to income we could soon be in significant debt again. (Some debt is inevitable and normal, bur sucessive negative balances could spell disaster).

We need to "grow" the club through increasing revenue.
We need to "level the playing field" by increased staffing and obtaining better facilities.
We need to invest in our future by increasing our spending on recruitment.
 

sauce_head

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#24
To most of us - that is easy - stuff the balance books - give us a premiership - NOW.
StKildonan, I respect your opinion, but you are the same person who has consistently slated Sydney for winning the premiership playing ugly. You have said you would prefer us to play free flowing football, even if it costs us games.

I wonder about your consistency of wanting the ultimate, but I appreciate your desire for it, we all do.

What some of us are concerned over is the contunual existence of our club after this short term tilt at the title. Fehring has rightfully pointed out that we have made every attempt to improve our injury "crisis" by bringing in PROVEN people from other clubs. A lot of it has been plain simple bad luck. Kosi's injuries for instance have been freaks, Hamill has deteriorated over time, Roo, when injured was through body contact, Macguire broke his leg, Hayes did his knee, none of these are prevenable by muscle conditioning or bulk - it can not all be blamed on the footy department, actually, who knows how much can?

All the doubters of Footy First are asking for is to treat the StKilda Football Club, the club you love and write on Big Footy to promote, with some respect. Give it enough respect to demand that Footy First give us some solutions. Voting for them without demanding they show some form of policy is nothing short of irresponsible. Yes irresponsible.

We really know nothing about how they will achieve what they have set out.

Send them a message, ask for details, get ALL the information from all parties, THEN make a decision.

Voting on the back of an unsubstantiated promise is foolish and to the detriment of our club. Voting for Footy First is not necessarily to our detriment, but we can not tell that yet, can we?
 

NeXus_Helen

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#25
The most critical mistake the St.kilda Football club has made in its modern era was deciding to move to Telstra Dome instead of the MCG. The first and foremost reason is INJURIES. Every team says it takes 1 or 2 days more to recover after playing there. What does that mean for a team that plays there 13 or 14 times a year??:eek::eek: Ou injury crisis started when we moved our home games to Telstra Dome. It is fact that Telstra Dome has the hardest surface in the AFL!!!

The Telstra Dome has also cost us bucket loads of money. I remember when we moved there they said the break even point was a crowd of approximately 25,000.......Bollocks, it's more like 35,000.

I don't really care which board wins the election. The biggest issue is our home ground. For St.kilda to win a premiership we need to move our home games to the MCG. That is where the Grand Final is played and that is where our team should be most comfortable in playing. Not some stupid indoor stadium that sits on a concrete base:eek::eek:
 
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