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Club has outgrown us type of supporters.
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AFLW 2024 - Round 10 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
Autopsy Sydney Legacy in Grand Finals continues 10 goal loss to the Lions
- Thread starter Heeney2Franklin
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Club has outgrown us type of supporters.
Sadly i think you might be right
The club has supporters from 8 to 80 and in every state and it needs to cater to all of us to maintain its present and build its future. It takes a lot of thought and effort but it needs to be done. Some of the stuff I'm hearing about Vic memberships is dreadful if it's cheaper to rock up at the gate than buy a membership.
Marketing 1.01 teaches you that it costs 10 times more to gain a new member than to keep an existing one.
I bought my grandkids Swans pyjamas and they love them. A small investment in the club's future.
Tomorrow
Debutant
- Jul 6, 2023
- 85
- 137
- AFL Club
- Sydney
Pretty much sums up inner Sydney in the last 15 years. Money has gutted the suburbs of its character and spirit. It's all about the $ and the same philosophy runs the Swans. They won't listen until the numbers drop off.
I will never forget Richard Osborne kicking 10 one day for the swans to break their 26 game losing streak. A crowd of 4000 odd full of fn joy. The players showed heart and soul and that's all that was wanted. (Nobody can explain 24 GF when it comes to the fight on the day)
But hard to find that when you have a Clovelly mortgage.? I think 25 is going to pretty gutty but the BS will flow from upstairs.
I will never forget Richard Osborne kicking 10 one day for the swans to break their 26 game losing streak. A crowd of 4000 odd full of fn joy. The players showed heart and soul and that's all that was wanted. (Nobody can explain 24 GF when it comes to the fight on the day)
But hard to find that when you have a Clovelly mortgage.? I think 25 is going to pretty gutty but the BS will flow from upstairs.
- Apr 26, 2016
- 39,468
- 80,936
- AFL Club
- Sydney
- Moderator
- #2,255
LONG POST INCOMING
Reading some of the discussion about how fans have become spoilt by our club's success, I think there is probably an element of truth to that. But I also wonder if our club's success has made the club itself, and many within it, spoilt as well?
I think there's a certain amount of fortitude a team needs to have to win a flag. I think about Richmond in 2016, being pummelled by the media for their poor performances. I think about Melbourne and their decade-plus in the wilderness as a cellar dweller. I think about Brisbane's culture being under attack from all angles earlier this year due to the whole Las Vegas debacle. Those are hardships that force teams to look inwards and and ask hard questions, to draw lines in the sand, but that can also lead to a galvanised playing group. They're humbled, they're weathering a storm together, it's them against the entire footy world, etc. In each of these cases, flags followed.
Hardships can produce a level of fortitude and buy-in, organically, that talking points on a white board or one-on-one sessions with a sports psychologist simply can't.
We had that fortitude in 2005 & 2012, because both were on the back of prior hardships. In 2005, we were on a 72-year premiership drought. In 2012, more than half the side (13) were either rival clubs' discards, or players taken in the fourth round of the draft or later, individuals who clearly did not have things handed to them on a silver platter in their football journey.
By contrast, what hardships have this current team faced? They've all been part of a very successful club now, even if none have experienced the ultimate prize in footy. They're out of the media spotlight, so they don't even get scrutinised that much when they do have poor performances. And they would all know they're at a club that is strong and stable and will give them a red hot chance of playing finals every year. I can't help but wonder if this has created a culture of spoils & comfort. They have it so good and don't they know it. Especially if the increasing number of stories about some of our boys acting like peacocks off the field is any indication.
But I also believe this is why we struggle in grand finals. It's the one day of the year where all prior success and privilege and privacy mean nothing. The only thing that matters is whether you put up or shut up for the three hours you're out on the field, in front of the millions of people watching. You need to be able to call upon your fortitude on such occasions, not your comfort in how good you have it as an athlete. Take the match up between the Lions & the Swans, for example. Which team was going to have more fortitude - the team that was the talk of the footy world for their culture crisis but had managed to rally together and rebound to a GF? Or the team that mostly avoided media scrutiny and attention all year, other than to be talked up for how great they are?
This is not to say that I want us to have some culture crisis at our club, or to have to endure a decade of mediocrity, or only play guys who have come from the rookie draft or were discarded from another club. I just think we need to stop leaning into our success over the years and thinking that it means anything, or has any bearing on the present. We need to stop thinking that because we are outside of the footy bubble that we are above it. And we need to take our shortcomings, such as our GF beltings now, and use them to galvanise the playing group, instead of shying away from them or dismissing them as one-offs in otherwise-great eras of success.
Long story short - we need to get our heads out of our arses and embrace the uncomfortable parts of footy.
Reading some of the discussion about how fans have become spoilt by our club's success, I think there is probably an element of truth to that. But I also wonder if our club's success has made the club itself, and many within it, spoilt as well?
I think there's a certain amount of fortitude a team needs to have to win a flag. I think about Richmond in 2016, being pummelled by the media for their poor performances. I think about Melbourne and their decade-plus in the wilderness as a cellar dweller. I think about Brisbane's culture being under attack from all angles earlier this year due to the whole Las Vegas debacle. Those are hardships that force teams to look inwards and and ask hard questions, to draw lines in the sand, but that can also lead to a galvanised playing group. They're humbled, they're weathering a storm together, it's them against the entire footy world, etc. In each of these cases, flags followed.
Hardships can produce a level of fortitude and buy-in, organically, that talking points on a white board or one-on-one sessions with a sports psychologist simply can't.
We had that fortitude in 2005 & 2012, because both were on the back of prior hardships. In 2005, we were on a 72-year premiership drought. In 2012, more than half the side (13) were either rival clubs' discards, or players taken in the fourth round of the draft or later, individuals who clearly did not have things handed to them on a silver platter in their football journey.
By contrast, what hardships have this current team faced? They've all been part of a very successful club now, even if none have experienced the ultimate prize in footy. They're out of the media spotlight, so they don't even get scrutinised that much when they do have poor performances. And they would all know they're at a club that is strong and stable and will give them a red hot chance of playing finals every year. I can't help but wonder if this has created a culture of spoils & comfort. They have it so good and don't they know it. Especially if the increasing number of stories about some of our boys acting like peacocks off the field is any indication.
But I also believe this is why we struggle in grand finals. It's the one day of the year where all prior success and privilege and privacy mean nothing. The only thing that matters is whether you put up or shut up for the three hours you're out on the field, in front of the millions of people watching. You need to be able to call upon your fortitude on such occasions, not your comfort in how good you have it as an athlete. Take the match up between the Lions & the Swans, for example. Which team was going to have more fortitude - the team that was the talk of the footy world for their culture crisis but had managed to rally together and rebound to a GF? Or the team that mostly avoided media scrutiny and attention all year, other than to be talked up for how great they are?
This is not to say that I want us to have some culture crisis at our club, or to have to endure a decade of mediocrity, or only play guys who have come from the rookie draft or were discarded from another club. I just think we need to stop leaning into our success over the years and thinking that it means anything, or has any bearing on the present. We need to stop thinking that because we are outside of the footy bubble that we are above it. And we need to take our shortcomings, such as our GF beltings now, and use them to galvanise the playing group, instead of shying away from them or dismissing them as one-offs in otherwise-great eras of success.
Long story short - we need to get our heads out of our arses and embrace the uncomfortable parts of footy.
McGowan3
Debutant
Thoughtful post by Caesar. State of the art facilities and smug utterances from the likes of Pridham, Harley and Spencer don't help. We used to revel in being the underdog. Now we are seen as privileged. Doesn't suit us.
- Thread starter
- #2,257
Smug and get embarrassed in Grand Finals its like a weird cocktail mix
