What I find a little sad though is that it is those same people that latch on to the "we're not a big, attractive club" trope as an excuse. It's bullshit and it's defeatist. We aren't a small club. We lie at the seat of the biggest growth area of Australia, in culturally diverse hipster cool Footscray, we won a premiership two years ago and have a list and coach many teams could only dream about. If you can't sell that, you're not trying hard enough.
Interesting choice of words adding attractive club in there which I know I have not said an I cannot see any who have disagreed with your position saying that either.
In what way are we a big club:
- Membership - one of the smallest in Victoria
- Play home and away games in front of big crowds - No play at most 2 games at the MCG in ordinary time slots and we play our home games at Docklands and Ballarat which does not hold 11,000
- Blockbuster games - No
There is no measurement that we are not a small club. However, that does not mean we are an unattractive club to Players who want to build and be a part of something special, but we will remain an unattractive club to those players who want to play in 'big'games throughout the season. No amount of 'selling'will ever change that.
You note the 2016 premiership, how did we go about building that team? Who were big fish in the prime we landed? Did we lose players in the build up who had been part of the fabric, Griffen, Cooney and Higgins? Why are they worse then losing Dahl and Libba now, which you have made your position on this well known. How much experience did Bev have when he took on the senior coaching role and how was his initial interview after taking on the position?
We are what we are as a club, and unlike North and St Kilda who are trying to buy there way out of trouble we are doing things differently to the big clubs and are rebuilding a list that has the potential to have more sustainable success than we had after 2016 as the majority of those young guns that won that are three years older and more experienced next season and entering their prime.
Do we make mistakes in the way we go about it, absolutely we do. Do I support everything we do, absolutely not. We have become and innovative progressive club that is becoming stronger and more sustainable by embracing what it is, not being envious of those that have more and I hope we continue down this alternative path, even though there will be actions I will vehemently disagree with as this is how we challenge the big clubs with unlimited resources, favourable draws and first class home grounds.
We should be striving to be the best we can be, which is a sustainable successful club, and to do that we need to do it differently as accepting we are a smaller club is not defeatist or bullshit, it is reality, we just need to be more innovative in what we do and personally I will trust those in the club to make those decisions, though I will disagree with them and believe they will make mistakes, as right now the club is in its strongest position it has been since the old VFA days