Yeah, but Dawes has performed in a premiership-winning team. Watts has struggled in a crap side, but he'll come good.
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Reasons for Melbourne's decline since 1964
- Thread starter Stats Man
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Yeah, but Dawes has performed in a premiership-winning team. Watts has struggled in a crap side, but he'll come good.
Falchoon
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Very sensible thinking. The problem is that the AFL has, effectively, had the same policy more or less ever since the VFL formed.
What it wants to do with Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney is essentially the same thing it has tried to do with:
- the eastern suburbs of Melbourne twice:
- St. Kilda when it admitted them in 1897 despite being a mediocre VFA club. The Saints did not win a game until 1900 and not more than one in a season until 1903. Even after that, the club struggled from lack of wealthy supporters and was never rich enough to be competitive
- Hawthorn, admitted in 1925 simply because it was outside the recruiting zones of other clubs. Hawthorn was however in a region where patronage necessary for competitiveness was totally absent and the club’s ineptitude from 1925 to 1953 is virtually unrivalled in top-level sport: it won only 111 and drew three of 522 games!
- In the 1940s, revenue sharing was introduced to help Hawthorn and St. Kilda. Without it, these patron-less clubs would never have survived the 1950s
- Sydney and Brisbane before Super League expanded the Australian Rules support base:
- in both cases, Australian Rules has never been a popular code
- with rugby league crowds recovering after troughing out in 1982 and 1983 the Swans and Bears - in cities where the league’s rigid control over ticket prices meant attempts at private ownership were doomed to failure - could not compete even for such SANFL players as Andrew and Darren Jarman
- supporting unviable clubs as it has done with North Melbourne and Footscray (via country zoning and aid) for the better part of 75 years
- trying to expand the league and make it less competitive by spreading a restricted talent pool
forwardflanker
Cancelled
I blame rich stingy supporters who don't pay their membership and probably don't pay taxes either.
Factually incorrect re: hawthorn
Games were overcrowded, the problem was the location, glenferrie oval was too small to accommodate large crowds
The club has always been self-sufficient, many members paying big to support the club (dr. Ferguson for example, used to pay the players himself)
The admission of hawthorn over prahan was due to politics, nothing more, nothing less
That is very different from what one reads from Ross Booth in his articles on the VFL's history. It makes one question what the cause of Hawthorn's amazingly bad record in its first 29 seasons in the league really was??
Bad on-field record came down to zoning
At the time hawthorn was very limitted in where they could recruit from
The gradual increase came as a result of the brilliant work of Roy Cazaly
His pull at VFL house was able to secure the club some very talent rich zones
As for the politics comment
Prahan was very powerful (they still are)
They had a lot of enemies at several clubs, most notably essendon
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There used to be a website called World Football Rankings which is now gone. It had statistics on all football codes and they had a ranking of top football cities in the world. Melbourne was ranked at number one in total attendance and number one in per capita. London was number two, New York was third and Sydney came in fourth. This was before Collingwood and Hawthorn pushed their membership numbers right up, so I'm guessing Melbourne would still be number one. It was a great website - it also had a ranking of all football clubs by attendance. It was obviously dominated by NFL sides but Collingwood was up there and most of the AFL clubs were in the top 100 world wide.
Norm Smith Curse http://www.curse.com.au/curse-articles/2007/7/20/norm-smith-the-curse-of-the-demons/my knowledge of everything that has happened isn't flash so for those who aren't in the loop, what has contributed to melbourne's fall since they dominated the competition in the 50s and 60s?
some questions.....
1) if melbourne were so successful in the 50s and 60s..where was the influx of support of kids in the state who grew up in that era??
2) traditionally (1890s-1960s) where did they get their support from? what was their area?
3) why the chronic instability? jim stynes aside, it seems like they have not had anyone to glue them together..
4) forecast a few years forward from now and say by 205-2016, melbourne are in the finals and who knows (just hypothetical so don't shout it down!!!) maybe even becoming one of the best teams to watch in the comp and one genuinely on the rise with a few eye catching stars - what sort of crowds can we expect??
5) the previous q leads to this q - are fans set to drop off from the fiasco that has been 2012 for the demons? i mean, richmond and saints in particular have had their decades of broken dreams and genuine lack of success but at least they have teased with hope.. tbh i feel for demons fans because right now... where is the legitimate hope? not neeld's fault either.
6) the merger.. the hawks seem to have bandied together since the 1996 proposed merger and become a big club that has stability written all over it (although they flunked in 2004).. melb on the other hand seem to have been a year to year proposition since.. daniher got them to the 00 GF i know but where was the response from melbourne's fans in 97? or if there was one (im comparing it to the hawks proud passionate and paid up drive that had a big effect apparently) what was it like?
what do you think?? and what can be added to the discussion??
cheers and good luck dees!
RedLegs#5
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Just reading the title of this thread (I won't be reading the context) I was reminded why these days bigfooty is a crap site during the season and an even more pathetic site during the off. What happened...what happened?
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Sounds like a good website. I found this wikipedia page but nowhere near as detailed as what your saying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attendance_figures_at_domestic_professional_sports_leagues
Bigfooty has too many people who only read headlines, dont read the context, and then whinge.
forwardflanker
Cancelled
Even if it's a bad culture it's still a culture. Just like the tin man will never have a heart, manufactured clubs like the West Coast will never have the shared history and identity that real football clubs are built around. I'd rather barrack for one of the competition weaklings like North or Footscray than a club whose only existence is predicated only on the desire of Victoria to grow a national competition.
Vardy
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1965 was a significant year for us. Ron Barassi, our captain and hero, left to join Carlton before the start of the season. Our master coach Norm Smith was sacked over internal politics, re-instated a few days later, but it left a foul smell at the club and our on-field performances never recovered. And we finally had to share our home ground after nearly a century, as Richmond started playing matches at the MCG. Combine these three events with an ageing list that had just won it's sixth premiership from ten seasons, and we had lost of aura of invincibility.
That's how the decline began. There were of course many other factors which contributed to our decline over the next few decades.
- The game became more commercialised throughout the 60's and 70's, which led to an increase in professionalism as clubs were spending more money, particularly to sign players. As we were officially a part of the conservative MCC, whom weren't willing to splash the funds like other clubs, we began to fall behind. This led to a formal split in the early 80's, where the club was left to stand on it's own two feet (as part of an agreement with the MCC, I believe they allowed us to rent the Junction Oval for a somewhat cheaper fee over a long-term contract?).
- Traditionally, we were a club that grew up in a stadium. Every other club had a suburb/s as their breeding ground. We had the MCG. We didn't have a social club. Most of our supporters came from the inner-Eastern suburbs, also the domains of Hawthorn and Richmond. Going into the 1960's, Richmond had just 5 premierships (their last was mid-WWII) and Hawthorn none. From 1961 to 1991, both those clubs combined for an incredible 14 premierships, almost one every second year! Meanwhile, we failed to make the finals from 1965 to 1986 and collected a handful of wooden spoons to boot. No doubt this period had a terribly negative effect on our support. If you were a kid growing up in the Eastern suburbs in the 1950's and 60's, used to seeing Melbourne win flags, then your kids would have grown up seeing Melbourne fail every year while neighbouring teams like Hawthorn and Richmond won flags at will.
- Zoning. I don't know all the ins and outs of this, but Vic country zoning was introduced in the 1960's and ended in the mid 80's. The VFL allocated the zones for each club, so if you copped a poorer zone, then there wasn't much you could do except try to buy players from interstate. This article from Wikipedia gives a run-down of zoning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning_(Australian_rules_football)
As it states, from 1967 to 1983, just four clubs shared all 17 premierships, which would have to be the least competitive era in VFL/AFL history.
- That brings us to the late 80's, where we finally started to get our shit together on-field (from 1987 to 2006 we made the finals in 12/20 seasons) but we still had the tendency to produce shocking seasons and there was just never any on-field stability. Off-field I believe we were stable financially up until the 1996 failed merger, but that then tore the club apart. Politics, factions, lack of leadership, disechanted supporters...it didn't take long before it affected our bank balances, and before you know it, we're relying on Diamond Joe Gutnick (who we then booted) and the AFL's handouts to survive.
A lot has happened in the last ten years which most are probably more familiar with, so I won't expand any further.
That's how the decline began. There were of course many other factors which contributed to our decline over the next few decades.
- The game became more commercialised throughout the 60's and 70's, which led to an increase in professionalism as clubs were spending more money, particularly to sign players. As we were officially a part of the conservative MCC, whom weren't willing to splash the funds like other clubs, we began to fall behind. This led to a formal split in the early 80's, where the club was left to stand on it's own two feet (as part of an agreement with the MCC, I believe they allowed us to rent the Junction Oval for a somewhat cheaper fee over a long-term contract?).
- Traditionally, we were a club that grew up in a stadium. Every other club had a suburb/s as their breeding ground. We had the MCG. We didn't have a social club. Most of our supporters came from the inner-Eastern suburbs, also the domains of Hawthorn and Richmond. Going into the 1960's, Richmond had just 5 premierships (their last was mid-WWII) and Hawthorn none. From 1961 to 1991, both those clubs combined for an incredible 14 premierships, almost one every second year! Meanwhile, we failed to make the finals from 1965 to 1986 and collected a handful of wooden spoons to boot. No doubt this period had a terribly negative effect on our support. If you were a kid growing up in the Eastern suburbs in the 1950's and 60's, used to seeing Melbourne win flags, then your kids would have grown up seeing Melbourne fail every year while neighbouring teams like Hawthorn and Richmond won flags at will.
- Zoning. I don't know all the ins and outs of this, but Vic country zoning was introduced in the 1960's and ended in the mid 80's. The VFL allocated the zones for each club, so if you copped a poorer zone, then there wasn't much you could do except try to buy players from interstate. This article from Wikipedia gives a run-down of zoning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning_(Australian_rules_football)
As it states, from 1967 to 1983, just four clubs shared all 17 premierships, which would have to be the least competitive era in VFL/AFL history.
- That brings us to the late 80's, where we finally started to get our shit together on-field (from 1987 to 2006 we made the finals in 12/20 seasons) but we still had the tendency to produce shocking seasons and there was just never any on-field stability. Off-field I believe we were stable financially up until the 1996 failed merger, but that then tore the club apart. Politics, factions, lack of leadership, disechanted supporters...it didn't take long before it affected our bank balances, and before you know it, we're relying on Diamond Joe Gutnick (who we then booted) and the AFL's handouts to survive.
A lot has happened in the last ten years which most are probably more familiar with, so I won't expand any further.
finders
Norm Smith Medallist
Pretty good precis. I think the rot set in when they sacked one of the all time great coaches in Norm Smith and its been all downhill ever since.
- Banned
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As has already mentioned, Melbourne imploded in 1965 and took two decades to recover from it.
They were competitive from 1987-2006, making the finals 12 times in that period.
I remember Carlton's last game at Optus Oval back in 2005 against Melbourne, where the Demons led by 7 goals at 3/4 time.
Carlton stormed home, kicking 6.6 to Melbourne's 0.3 in the final quarter.
Although Melbourne ended up winning by three goals, Neale Daniher didn't even let the players sing the song, he was that disgusted with the team's final quarter effort.
When you compare the above scenario to the events of Dean Bailey's tenure, it really shows how much the Bailey era has set Melbourne back.
Melbourne are still yet to beat any Victorian based team since 2007 with the notable exceptions of Richmond and Essendon.
They were competitive from 1987-2006, making the finals 12 times in that period.
I remember Carlton's last game at Optus Oval back in 2005 against Melbourne, where the Demons led by 7 goals at 3/4 time.
Carlton stormed home, kicking 6.6 to Melbourne's 0.3 in the final quarter.
Although Melbourne ended up winning by three goals, Neale Daniher didn't even let the players sing the song, he was that disgusted with the team's final quarter effort.
When you compare the above scenario to the events of Dean Bailey's tenure, it really shows how much the Bailey era has set Melbourne back.
Melbourne are still yet to beat any Victorian based team since 2007 with the notable exceptions of Richmond and Essendon.
Balance
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Well, saved me a lot of typing. One thing I would like to add to that list: peter schwab, and that's going with the traditions of factions.
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attendance X average ticket price = usable statistic
average ticket price is calculated inclusive of membership attendance at a "price per game" rate.
Don't forget some clubs are actually letting people in for 20 or 21 dollars. Some memberships actually work out to less than 20 per game. SERIOUSLY!
By the time you allocate for security, cleaning etc you are almost letting people in for nothing. Counting people who have paid $21.50 or less in the attendance is like saying that people on the dole are gainfully employed.
outright attendance is completely meaningless. If outright attendance was important then Woolworths supermarkets would be Australia's favourite sport, closely followed by Coles and the Catholic Church.
Maybe Hawthorn did have problems with their metropolitan zone, but even by the 1930s country recruiting was already significant and unless Booth is completely mistaken Hawthorn simply could not compete for top country players with clubs like Carlton and Richmond.
On another level, it was clear that even in the 1960s, Hawthorn could not compete financially with the “big five” of Carlton, Richmond, Collingwood, Essendon and Geelong. Melbourne may have been better able to compete for country players whose recruitment had become big business, but if Vardy is right then they were not very good at doing that - though the Demons did recruit quite a bit from interstate (e.g. Peter Marquis) in the 1950s.
Interesting point. The trouble is that in conservative outer suburbs where the support base of Melbourne (for one a friend of mine in Melton supports them) and other lower-attendance clubsmay lie, optimum ticket prices tend to be extremely low because people in these suburb are not willing to pay high prices for high quality infrastructure. They would rather watch from standing room only at a much lower price.
Ned_Flanders
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This is a good point - I know a number of people who only go standing room still to this day, and refuse to buy a reserved seat for this very reason.
It’s nice to see that some others agree with things I have long suspected but never had verified. The fact that the support base of clubs like Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs lies in these ultraconservative outer suburbs makes it, under Docklands, very difficult for them to try to attract new followers. These clubs are seldom on prime-time television, either, when such people may have time to watch.
If the AFL were less regulated in its stadium contracts and clubs had freedom where they played and how much they charged for admission by the general public, it would certainly benefit such clubs since who knows what attendances could be attracted without seating regulations to a stadium like Waverley was? If clubs could minimise costs compared to Docklands they might attract people who cannot or do not wish to attend the excessively commercialised stadiums of today.
Adelaide’s AFL clubs have the same problem, especially since recent years (as shown by the abolition of the federal seat of Bonython) have seen rapid declines in the population of the industrial suburbs upon which the Power’s support was based, whilst the growing southern suburbs of Adelaide are politically and culturally just like outer-suburban Melbourne.
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