Your club's lowest point in history

[Seattle Mariners]

September 15th 2023.
Losing to Carlton in the semi final.

Whilst Carlton proved themselves to be a good team in 2023, it was one of the most inexcusable losses in Melbourne's history given the amount of shots they misses that night considering the stakes involved.

 

[Spirit Level]

2001.

No money, wooden spoon, sacking the coach via channel 7

 

[flyinghi64]

MMMMmmmm, let me think??????

 

[ibd77]

The 2007 GF is always going to win this dick measuring contest. However I still have high hopes that an Geelong insider will come out and spills the beans on their supplements program during that season.

 

[uranium_death]

2011-2014. After 3 preliminary finals with Rocket and playing attractive football we went into the wilderness. The AFL’s start up team GWS pinched our future captain Callan Ward. Then the events of October 2014 when GWS pinch our current captain. The Essendon get our Brownlow medallist, Cooney, North get one of our best young players, Higgins and in the preseason our Best and fairest, Libba, does his knee! Yes that was pretty low time. But it’s always darkest before the dawn.

I somehow think that 1989 and 1996 were worse
1989 the club was forced to merge with Fitzroy. Rest is history
In 1996, club finishes 15th, again in financial trouble, board is overturned, coach sacked, and Terry Wallace almost spewed up

2011-2014 may not have been great years, but the club wasn't in dire straits as it was previously. Every club has a lull

 

[uranium_death]

1999. Broke, crap facilities, bad list, and an old mentality
Club was going nowhere
WWII wasn't an easy time either

Last Thursday, I was on table 99 at the Geelong B&F
I reckon it was the worst B&F I've ever been to...

 

[uranium_death]

Leigh Colbert & Gary Ayres walking out on us as well.

In hindsight, both were blessings
Colbert leaving got us Enright and Mooney. That's like trading a Zac Dawson card for a signed Tony Locket 1300 goals card.

 

[SplintWhisky]

Geelong belting us in 2007 when we were supposed to start rising again. The coach probably spent too much time in the tanning beds than at the club. Really showed how s**t the list was and was probably the beginning on the end of "The List Manager's" career as a coach.

 

[dean33]

1983 - 1992. Dark times indeed.

 

[Partridge]

Geelong belting us in 2007 when we were supposed to start rising again. The coach probably spent too much time in the tanning beds than at the club. Really showed how s**t the list was and was probably the beginning on the end of "The List Manager's" career as a coach.

Never ceases to amaze how incompetent coaches can not only destroy clubs but still walk into media gigs afterwards, at times almost blame free.

No club could have survived the one-two attack of incompetence of Frawley and Wallace. Amazing really that they rebounded in less than a decade.

 

[peetoo]

Hawthorn Summer of 1950​

1950 started with the club in turmoil. The club appointed Bob McCaskill as coach, and he wanted Kevin Curran to be captain. Outgoing captain-coach Alec Albiston was angry as he was told by a member of the board that he would remain as captain. Brownlow Medallist Col Austen sided with Albiston and a split occurred. The board sided with the new coach and gave Albiston and Austen open clearances. Without the club's best two players, the team did not win a match in 1950. New captain Kevin Curran was suspended for striking Austen on the first occasion Hawthorn and Austen's new club Richmond played.

The club decided to change its playing jumper to the brown and gold vertical stripes. Two positives were the arrival of John Kennedy and Roy Simmonds. Over the next ten years, Kennedy would play 169 games for Hawthorn, serving as Captain from 1955 until his retirement in 1959, and winning the club's Best and Fairest award four times (in 1950, 51, 52 and 54). Simmonds would play 192 games and win the club's Best and Fairest award in 1955.

Failed merger of 1996​

Falling on-field and off-field fortune saw the club almost merge with Melbourne in 1996. The resulting club was to be known as the "Melbourne Hawks" – a fusion with the Melbourne nickname of "Demons". A groundswell of support led by former champion Don Scott scuttled the proposal, with Hawthorn members voting strongly against it. Melbourne members supported the merger by a small margin. The failure of the merger led to the resignation of the board and its replacement, led by businessman Ian Dicker.

Was going to say 1996 but in one way it was the making of the club

 

[brutus76]

Everything for the last 20 years

 

[BarryMorgan]

1999. Broke, crap facilities, bad list, and an old mentality
Club was going nowhere
WWII wasn't an easy time either

Think this is a pretty popular opinion across the board.

 

[uranium_death]

Think this is a pretty popular opinion across the board.

It really hit Geelong hard. Some clubs got through it a little better is what I mean
Wartime is s**t for everybody though, yes. Very perceptive.

 

[Generalissimo]

Having to sit out a couple of seasons during WWII was one of Geelong's lowest points for sure. It didn't help that some of the sookier Melbourne clubs didn't want us readmitted because they disliked traveling down the highway. When we came back we were almost unfathomably bad and it took us six years to rebuild. The flags in 51-52 were the result.

 

[FredLeDeux]

Having to sit out a couple of seasons during WWII was one of Geelong's lowest points for sure. It didn't help that some of the sookier Melbourne clubs didn't want us readmitted because they disliked traveling down the highway. When we came back we were almost unfathomably bad and it took us six years to rebuild. The flags in 51-52 were the result.

We were worse in 1957-58 than we were in 1945-49

 

[Meteoric Rise]

This night in 1987....

AFL Tables - Richmond v North Melbourne - Fri, 22-May-1987 7:40 PM - Match Stats

afltables.com

I was one of the 14,220 crowd at the MCG one Friday night in May watching a Richmond team that was overly reliant on David Buttifant lose to a North Melbourne team that contained Michael Passmore and Paul Spargo(Chucky Spargo's dad.) I was with some mates who were always up for a bit of mischief, so we were lingering with intent in the stand next to the Members, separated from that most august area by a cyclone wire fence, which we were considering scaling. This was the only chance any of us were ever going to have to rub shoulders with MCC members.

Right at this time a long haired dude wearing 20 inch winklepickers and a jacket with studs all over it who was in possession of an open can of Bourbon and another unopened one in his jacket pocket approached the same fence, from the members side, at speed, scaled it and jumped down the other side without spilling any of his bourbon, which established without doubt this was not the first time he had done this. He then carried on past us seemingly oblivious to the fact we were there. At around this point I realised this was Alan McKellar, one of our more promising young players. This is going to be a ******* long 30 years, I thought.

McKellar went on to play all of 45 games for the Tigers, and a further 2 with Sydney, who were I think worse than us at the time. He amazingly managed to secure 5 Brownlow votes in 1987 and a dizzying 10 Brownlow votes in 1989, before getting a nosebleed, playing only 6 further matches after that. I went on to achieve a life time of total obscurity, expertly avoiding doing any useful work in several industries I would not recommend to any sane person. But we did manage to sneak into the members that night. What a shocking disappointment that place was, so I get why McKellar felt the need to escape it so dramatically. If that is how the other 1% live then give me a dust up with a Collingwood supporter at the back of the Southern Stand any day. We also got ourselves into the North rooms post match whereabouts we were thrilled to get a close up view of the wall of make-up behind which the person known as Dixie Marshall was hiding, somewhere.

 

[peetoo]

This night in 1987....

AFL Tables - Richmond v North Melbourne - Fri, 22-May-1987 7:40 PM - Match Stats

afltables.com

I was one of the 14,220 crowd at the MCG one Friday night in May watching a Richmond team that was overly reliant on David Buttifant lose to a North Melbourne team that contained Michael Passmore and Paul Spargo(Chucky Spargo's dad.) I was with some mates who were always up for a bit of mischief, so we were lingering with intent in the stand next to the Members, separated from that most august area by a cyclone wire fence, which we were considering scaling. This was the only chance any of us were ever going to have to rub shoulders with MCC members.

Right at this time a long haired dude wearing 20 inch winklepickers and a jacket with studs all over it who was in possession of an open can of Bourbon and another unopened one in his jacket pocket approached the same fence, from the members side, at speed, scaled it and jumped down the other side without spilling any of his bourbon, which established without doubt this was not the first time he had done this. He then carried on past us seemingly oblivious to the fact we were there. At around this point I realised this was Alan McKellar, one of our more promising young players. This is going to be a ******* long 30 years, I thought.

McKellar went on to play all of 45 games for the Tigers, and a further 2 with Sydney, who were I think worse than us at the time. He amazingly managed to secure 5 Brownlow votes in 1987 and a dizzying 10 Brownlow votes in 1989, before getting a nosebleed, playing only 6 further matches after that. I went on to achieve a life time of total obscurity, expertly avoiding doing any useful work in several industries I would not recommend to any sane person. But we did manage to sneak into the members that night. What a shocking disappointment that place was, so I get why McKellar felt the need to escape it so dramatically. If that is how the other 1% live then give me a dust up with a Collingwood supporter at the back of the Southern Stand any day. We also got ourselves into the North rooms post match whereabouts we were thrilled to get a close up view of the wall of make-up behind which the person known as Dixie Marshall was hiding, somewhere.

There was an early 2000s blues v hawks game at princes part nd the members of the crowd were in total agreement tHat neither team deserved a win, but one probably would. They are good sports carlton fans, just don’t upset a female who looks like a beutician she may have mob connections.

 

[Warwick]

There’s a thread on our board re. this. Some low times…


Think I’ve just found West Coast’s though. That press conference of Michael Prior’s where he complained his AFLW side shouldn’t have been drawn against Melbourne because they were too good is probably the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard from someone involved in football.

 

[Generalissimo]

We were worse in 1957-58 than we were in 1945-49

That's not a fair comparison. By '47 the rebuild was well underway and we were a mid-table club. You have to compare 57-58 with the two seasons after readmittance. In'44-45 we won three games over two seasons with a percentage of about 60. Our last wooden spoon year, 1958, we won four games with a percentage of 73. Bad as that team was, it was nowhere near as dire as the post-WWII Geelong side.

 

[BigVic]

Having to sit out a couple of seasons during WWII was one of Geelong's lowest points for sure. It didn't help that some of the sookier Melbourne clubs didn't want us readmitted because they disliked traveling down the highway. When we came back we were almost unfathomably bad and it took us six years to rebuild. The flags in 51-52 were the result.

The wars affected the Cats