Relocation or Merging?

[Refried Noodle]

Cos of the debate in the thread about moving the dogs to Western Sydney:

Hypothetical:

Your team has to either relocate, merge or fold. Which one would you prefer?

I don't care about which club you support and that "they are never going to merge/relocate" etc. This is just a 'what if' topic.

 

[Coin_Toss]

Relocate.
I won't like merging with another team.
Folding is a BIG NO-NO!

 

[Flag Man]

Soccer

 

[Jabso]

Relocating.
Even if it is a proper merger unlike the Brisbane's take over of Fitzroy's history a relocation would be preferable.

 

[WhyAlwaysMe]

Most likely in Port Adelaide case it would be back to the SANFL so thats what I would do.

 

[Hawkk]

Relocate for sure!

Merging = certain death!

 

[CelticCat]

This is a debate i've changed my mind about over the years.

I think the best option is relocation, provided that the teams colours and/or nickname are maintained. In this way, some of the heritage of the club is preserved. Some people have forgotten, or are not old enough to know the pain south melbourne supporters went through when their club relocated to sydney. However, in the long run it was the right decision and a lot of the old bloods in victoria have come back to the fold. When a club relocates, it has not died, it just plays its home games somewhere else and the old supporters can at least see them play when they come back to the state for a game.

I used to believe that merging clubs was possible, i now recognize that i was kidding myself. I thought it would be good because the clubs involved would not move too far away and the supporters could still attend home games. But now i recognize that you basically destroy two clubs, then create a new club with little or no supporter base because both sets of fans don't recognize the new club (nickname, colours, logo, etc).

For a while, I even preferred the idea of my club (geelong) dropping down into the VFL if they went bankrupt. I thought at least the entity of the club would be unchanged and you can still follow them around to local games.

But if the relocation is done properly (for example, brisbane) it is a win-win for both the supporters and the game.

 

[Wizard]

Where is option South Sydney? Fold and than come back from the death 3 years later.

 

[Roylion]

Relocation is definitely preferable to merging. I would have preferred Fitzroy to relocate to Brisbane at the end of 1986 and retained its' history, rather than merge with the Bears in 1996 and lose their history in the AFL.

Having said that, the merger of the Bears and Fitzroy has been quite successful and not as one sided as Jabso seems to be suggesting. Mergers could be quite successful, if the identity of the clubs nickname, colours, logo were largely retained in some of recognisable form.

Victorian club mergers that could retain much of the identity of both original clubs could be Carlton and the Kangaroos who could play as the Carlton Kangaroos with royal blue and a CFC logo. The Kangaroos and the Western Bulldogs might work as the North-Western Melbourne Kangaroos playing in Western Bulldogs colours out of the Western Oval. I also didn't mind the thought of my own club Fitzroy merging with Melbourne to form the Melbourne Lions, playing out of the MCG and using the Melbourne jumper with a large gold Lion on the front (Fitzroy's red, blue and gold colours) and maybe small MFC and FFC logos somewhere on the jumper. That last scenario came very close to happening on two occasions.