"Up yours Demetriou".....Brayshaw dismisses Gold C

[saintspremiers]

JB is the new North Melbourne FC President, and they have told Demetriou to
get stuffed with their claimed $45M bribe (vs. $100M claim by the AFL).

Whilst I think North are a basket case, I'm glad that they have stood up to the AFL on their unreasonable demand on deciding within a month on the relocation package.

Demetriou is a dead set clown - how dare he decide to force such a decision so quickly on North just because, in his words, that there is the threat of other codes (ie. The Titans), which has forced the AFL to move quicker than planned initially.

The Subject line "Up yours Demetriou" was used as it reminds me of other clubs fight for survival 10+ years ago.....

So what will happen now??

A 17th team? Yeah, whatever.......

24 Rounds per Eddie's suggestion.....not a bad idea, but not if it means the Pies play 6 AWAY games at the GC vs ALL the interstate sides! (his idea!).

IMHFO it will be Saints 3 home games, Pies 3 home games.

[iwantmeseats]

whyh the HELL do people think its a good idea to sacrafice home games IN MELBOURNE and go play em up at bloody carrara!!?? NOT on in my book, jesus!

[SaintBot]

whyh the HELL do people think its a good idea to sacrafice home games IN MELBOURNE and go play em up at bloody carrara!!?? NOT on in my book, jesus!

atm we have 16 games in melbourne

and 6 in all ends of australia


with the carrara deal we still have 16 games in melbourne

3 or 4 games at carrara

3 or 2 other games in different states (unless we play in brisbane as well)

[skeptic]

pffft... this is rich

the kangaroos supporters have neglected and not given a cr@p about that club since the 70s and r now jumping on the bandwagon... this will last 2 years tops until they implode into the rabble that they are

[rogerwa]

north might be patting themselves on their backs today telling dimwit to ram it...what will they have to say in 12 months when there is no nth melb

heart ruling the head= gone

[Bernard Shakey]

AFL have made the right decision.
North have been rooted since they changed their name to the Kangaroos.

They have not been able to attract support in Melbourne for the past 5 years or so even though they have played finals most years.

Go north or die.

[saintsRrising]

JB is the new North Melbourne FC President, and they have told Demetriou to
get stuffed with their claimed $45M bribe (vs. $100M claim by the AFL).

Whilst I think North are a basket case, I'm glad that they have stood up to the AFL on their unreasonable demand on deciding within a month on the relocation package.

Demetriou is a dead set clown - how dare he decide to force such a decision so quickly on North just because, in his words, that there is the threat of other codes (ie. The Titans), which has forced the AFL to move quicker than planned initially.

.

Personally I cannot follow you at all...

The AFL have offered a massive inducement for the Roos to swith states...somewhere between $45 mill and $100 mill. But even at $45 million it is massive.


It is an offer to Roos that they do not have to accept

Yes the AFL has it's own Agenda..... but the roos do not have to take it.

So why is the AFL such bad guys.

If someone offered me a mountain of cash to changes houses I would consider.

I might knock them back as I may not want to move.....but it is a bit rich to call the person giving the cash an arsehole!!!!


the reality hear is that roosfans want something for nothing....they want the AFL to fund them in Melbourne.


The AFL has said happy to help...but only if you move.

The Roos fans should be grateful.

They don't have to accept as is their right....but to abuse a generous offer is pretty unfair. And it is a generous offer. Bit is an offer none the less....

[bigred]

pffft... this is rich

the kangaroos supporters have neglected and not given a cr@p about that club since the 70s and r now jumping on the bandwagon... this will last 2 years tops until they implode into the rabble that they are

They didnt give a crap in the 70's either.



This reeks of Fitzroy.

The AFL have made up their mind on this one. I'm afraid its going to happen regardless.

[Eastern]

north might be patting themselves on their backs today telling dimwit to ram it...what will they have to say in 12 months when there is no nth melb

heart ruling the head= gone

As frightening as it sounds; I THINK ROGER IS RIGHT. There must be a 1st time for everything

[stinger]

of course he is right...the afl were the only friends the roos had....and when you have friends like them..who needs enemies......dimwit is a good hater too......

[Eastern]

of course he is right...the afl were the only friends the roos had....and when you have friends like them..who needs enemies......dimwit is a good hater too......

But, don't tell him. Can you imagine the size of his head. We will never get a hat to fit him !!

[Richter]

north might be patting themselves on their backs today telling dimwit to ram it...what will they have to say in 12 months when there is no nth melb

heart ruling the head= gone

What's the difference? If the club moves to the GC then they essentially have lost the club anyway. At least this way they can go down fighting.

Better to have honour in defeat than to give in meekly IMO.

[riccardo]

I'm afraid regardless of what Brayshaw is going to do (and changing the name back is a positive step) North Melbourne are buggered.

They rely on the CBF to survive, as well as the Carrara deal, and I'm fairly certain the AFL will now attempt to remove both these sources of funding from them. So, unless Eddie Jnr finds an oil well in his back garden, they'll be out of money in about 17 seconds.

In future years, I'm certain these North fans that have crawled out of the woodwork will regret not showing thier "passion" for thier club until it was too late, as thier negligence in letting the Kangaroos slip into debt and lack of identity will almost certainly cost it its future.

[TimeToShineFellas]

Ironical that a former player is now behind the Kangaroos to leave Melbourne.

Brayshaw is fighting well out of his division on this.

[Brian Collis]

I hope Brayshaw succeeds. Its up to their supporters to become members so they need 35k to be viable

[saintspremiers]

well I reckon whilst North may be gone, at least they are fighting it.

How would you like it if it was our club, and the AFL wants to move you to the GC, take control of the club, all without a stadium deal in place.

Why didn't Dimwit just say unless you improve the bottom line by X your licence will be revoked??


Interesting that Carlton were never put in this place by the AFL - perhaps they knew Pratt would walk in and bail them out!!!

The plan isn't really to "move" them, it's effectively to dissolve them and start afresh in 5ish years time once all the remanents of the old club are gone.

Anyway, I see they are no longer the Kangaroos and are going to call themselves North Melbourne again.....good move, hopefully Footscray will follow!!

[st_Trav_ofWA]

thats the first knail in the kangaroos coffin . sure relocating would of been like killing them off to some suporters but at least the Kangas name and brand would still exist now it looks like the kangas will shrivel up and go into non existance ans the southport team will swoop in and take their spot .. in the end its the lame ass socalled suporters that club has that are to blame we have been in that situation with no money little success and pressue to just give it up but our fans said no we rattled the tins we donated our hard earned and we kept the spirit alive the Roos tryed to get the AFL to save thier ass and it was always going to come back and bite them . i feel for the few diehard roos fans who buy their membership each and every year luckily all 5 of them will have some spare cash come 2010

[saintsRrising]

Again...I can't really see why there is such angst against the AFL here.


It was an offer...and heaps of cash and in kind for nothing....except having to change states.

There was no compulsion.




On the other had for years the Roos have only survived due to millions of charitity that the AFL have given them (though one could argue that some of this is fair enough for the AFL rorting the draw in gavour of the Pies etc...)



Now it is their club....and so fair enough that they decide where to play, what to call themselves etc........but why all the abuse for what is a generous deal??????

Fair enough that the Roos seek not to take it.....but all the carry on by Roos supporters and others is more like the AFL had put up that they were being moved with no choice or little benefit.


The current situation is a bit like a drowning man hurling abuse at a passing sailor for having the temerity to through him a lifeline and offer to drop him off at an island.

Maybe the Roos can refloat their ship...maybe not....but why the vitriol for what is a pretty generous offer???



Now...no I would not want St Kild to play all our home games on the GC either......but if the ALl put the same deal to us while I would not want the saints to accept it I would not be hurling abuse at the AFL either.

[saint66au]

well I reckon whilst North may be gone, at least they are fighting it.

How would you like it if it was our club, and the AFL wants to move you to the GC, take control of the club, all without a stadium deal in place.

Why didn't Dimwit just say unless you improve the bottom line by X your licence will be revoked??


Interesting that Carlton were never put in this place by the AFL - perhaps they knew Pratt would walk in and bail them out!!!

The plan isn't really to "move" them, it's effectively to dissolve them and start afresh in 5ish years time once all the remanents of the old club are gone.

Anyway, I see they are no longer the Kangaroos and are going to call themselves North Melbourne again.....good move, hopefully Footscray will follow!!

Agreed...good on em for having a crack at surviving here...but they need a maassive membership drive to turn all this Shinboner spirit into $$$$$

I honestly hope they can..I have no issue with the Kanga's..and also happy they are going to revert to North Melbourne..although their Cheer Squad have never known any different.

talk is cheap..when its not St Kilda its easy for people to say off-handedly "oh stuff them let em relocate who really cares"..but we all know in their shoes we'd lambast anyone who said that to us!

[saintsRrising]

talk is cheap..when its not St Kilda its easy for people to say off-handedly "oh stuff them let em relocate who really cares"..but we all know in their shoes we'd lambast anyone who said that to us!

Moral of the story is that more people that "follow" the Saints need to actually support the club finacially in some way:


Either by becoming a member......or if not that, then at least by attending the occassional game, or more games, so that the attendance of our matches goes up.

Increased memberships and/ or increase attendances means more $$$ directly....but it also means that potential Sponsors will be more interested in us.....both in more sponsors...but also in higher level sponsorships.


Fans need to not just sit back and leave it to FF ....

[BAM! (shhhh)]

A Prediction:
The Roos will look good through '08. Members will come out of the woodwork, members of other clubs will buy 2nd memberships, and due to the publicity, sponsors will fall over themselves to sign 2-3 year deals. Brayshaw will be lauded as Eddie mark II, and the Roos will appear to be moving into a new era... independance by 2011 will seem not only realistic but probable.

Thanks to Fitzroy, we know the AFL is serious, that they will move a team out of Melbourne, and Vic pride will come to the fore.

Through 2009 and 2010 that support will wane. As the AFL continues to persue the Gold Coast, if it appears viable, the AFL will be more reluctant to fund teams in Melbourne, and people will realise it could easily be them instead of North. extra memberships will slide, the message will got old and the sponsors won't be quite so excited, and the original problem will rear it's ugly head - the Roos don't have enough supporters, and can't draw a crowd. Even this year, when they finished top 4, Roos crowds were woeful.

The AFL will grant a 17th license on the Gold Coast. The team will be terrible, and little more than a novelty. They will struggle.

As the Roos also struggle after a brief surge (which eases the AFL burden and makes it easier to fund this new team) merger talks will start. It may even briefly bring people out of the woodwork again. Eventually though, it will simply make too much sense to follow the Brisbane-Fitzroy model. We will have 16 teams, and the Kangaroos will be in Qld.

I've thought this since the Roos to GC talk first started... just about every paid up attending member of the 'Roos I've talked to has been resigned - they'd rather see the club survive then fail in Melbourne, it's not their ideal, but it's head over heart stuff. This move is made from the heart, and is fundamentally dangerous, as if the GC team has either financial or playing success, there's no guarentee a merger favours the roos any more than it did the Lions.

Vic pride is all well and good, but in 10 years, this move by the 'Roos will be regarded as folly and hubris (JB is not Eddie, the Roos are not Collingwood), and make no difference to the eventual makeup of the AFL.

[BAM! (shhhh)]

talk is cheap..when its not St Kilda its easy for people to say off-handedly "oh stuff them let em relocate who really cares"..but we all know in their shoes we'd lambast anyone who said that to us!

Moral of the story is that more people that "follow" the Saints need to actually support the club finacially in some way:


Either by becoming a member......or if not that, then at least by attending the occassional game, or more games, so that the attendance of our matches goes up.

Increased memberships and/ or increase attendances means more $$$ directly....but it also means that potential Sponsors will be more interested in us.....both in more sponsors...but also in higher level sponsorships.


Fans need to not just sit back and leave it to FF ....

Correct - the moral of this story is not letting it get to that point in the first place. Make the club strong now, and not at the 11th hour.

I actually think attendance and watching on TV is the key... these days it's the TV dollar and audience that's going to be the most valuable. Give the stations ratings, and you're the game that the sponsors will want, and the money will flow.

For the next tier of supporters (the members, those who really identify closely with their club), always keep the old Butterss credo in mind and TALK UP YOUR TEAM. Make people interested. Be they fans or otherwise... a Saints fan may end up becoming a member, a Dons fan may tune into more Saints games.

Biggest problem for North is this is an old issue coming to a head... in the AFL (as opposed to VFL) world, there are too many teams in Melbourne (as rabid for AFL as this town is) creating massive market inneficiency. It's not going to be long term (meaning 25, 50, 100 years) viable unless teams have whole patches of Melbourne (i.e. Saints: southeastern suburbs, Western Bulldogs)... the only way they survive as I see it is if someone else ends up in worse straights over the next few years, because the successful teams are simply getting more so, and will not subsidise the rest indefinately.

For now and the immediate future, we look safe... but Saints fans should certainly keep in mind that especially if we're spending towards a premiership, it's less than a decade since North won... forget training at Moorabbin, if we want our grandchildren to be watching the Saints play home games in Melbourne, we as supporters need to support.

Because while North appears to be next, they won't be the last.

[HarveysDeciple]

pffft... this is rich

the kangaroos supporters have neglected and not given a cr@p about that club since the 70s and r now jumping on the bandwagon... this will last 2 years tops until they implode into the rabble that they are

sort of agree with this.

I understand fully their passionate fight to stay in Melbourne, and they, like everyone have a good core group of fans (admittedly smaller) who always buy memberships and always show up, and they are probably the members who were waving the flags last night.

But at some point they need to let the head control the situation.

Your heart will always tell you that you want your club to stay, but will they still be alive in 10 years time if they do, can they confidentally say that.
It may be a crap situation, but sometimes you need to face reality.

[meher baba]

The bit I still don't understand in all of this is the obsession with having a team on the Gold Coast.

Both the AFL and the NRL have tried to establish teams there previously, and both ultimately failed (the Bears moving to Brissie and merging with the Lions, and the old Gold Coast RL team just folding altogether).

Now the NRL is back there again, with massive assistance from the Qld Government (which, if they hadn't been forthcoming, would probably have seen the new team set up on the Central Coast of NSW instead).

For some reason I don't entirely understand, the AFL now wants to have another go. Sure, the Gold Coast is chock full of relocated Victorians, South Australians and Tasmanians, but they are mainly old folk and rusted on to supporting the clubs they have followed all their lives. Most of them aren't going to suddenly turn out to cheer for the Kangaroos (indeed, most of them probably prefer to watch AFL on a home entertainment system under the air-con), let alone a Gold Coast team with no tradition and which probably finishes on the bottom of the table for the first few years.

As far as I can see, it's all about Demetriou trying to find a future for a club that is dear to his heart. He's on the right track: there is no future for North Melbourne in Melbourne. They have been one of the more successful teams over the past few decades, but they have been able to attract relatively few additional fans to supplement their tiny core of long-term supporters.

They are deluded if they think that anything they can do now can change this: it's a long-term problem.

[st_Trav_ofWA]

A Prediction:
The Roos will look good through '08. Members will come out of the woodwork, members of other clubs will buy 2nd memberships, and due to the publicity, sponsors will fall over themselves to sign 2-3 year deals. Brayshaw will be lauded as Eddie mark II, and the Roos will appear to be moving into a new era... independance by 2011 will seem not only realistic but probable.

Thanks to Fitzroy, we know the AFL is serious, that they will move a team out of Melbourne, and Vic pride will come to the fore.

Through 2009 and 2010 that support will wane. As the AFL continues to persue the Gold Coast, if it appears viable, the AFL will be more reluctant to fund teams in Melbourne, and people will realise it could easily be them instead of North. extra memberships will slide, the message will got old and the sponsors won't be quite so excited, and the original problem will rear it's ugly head - the Roos don't have enough supporters, and can't draw a crowd. Even this year, when they finished top 4, Roos crowds were woeful.

The AFL will grant a 17th license on the Gold Coast. The team will be terrible, and little more than a novelty. They will struggle.

As the Roos also struggle after a brief surge (which eases the AFL burden and makes it easier to fund this new team) merger talks will start. It may even briefly bring people out of the woodwork again. Eventually though, it will simply make too much sense to follow the Brisbane-Fitzroy model. We will have 16 teams, and the Kangaroos will be in Qld.

I've thought this since the Roos to GC talk first started... just about every paid up attending member of the 'Roos I've talked to has been resigned - they'd rather see the club survive then fail in Melbourne, it's not their ideal, but it's head over heart stuff. This move is made from the heart, and is fundamentally dangerous, as if the GC team has either financial or playing success, there's no guarentee a merger favours the roos any more than it did the Lions.

Vic pride is all well and good, but in 10 years, this move by the 'Roos will be regarded as folly and hubris (JB is not Eddie, the Roos are not Collingwood), and make no difference to the eventual makeup of the AFL.

ill add to that the AFL will realise that having a team on the gc is no good if they suck so they will help them out and allow them to draft concessions and even try to encorage the "hometown" boys in Roo , gilbo ect to return to the GC the afl will even grant them a sallary cap relife package and they will then have a plumb draw as the get given a ride to the GF to which the afl will love as thepublicity of the GC Roos will be booming