There is a lot of things I will do to Andrew Demetrispew - but thanking him is not one of them - but the verb I do have in mind ends in "ing".

We have absolutely no reason to thank the AFL for anything.

Thank the members, who in our darkest times drove the club to record levels of membership.

Thank the members who ousted a board who were old, stale, and were caught in the salary cap net.

Thank the members who didn't accept Smorgon's doomsday chronicale "We are the next Fitzroy" headlines. And voted him out.

Thank the coterie groups who dug in hard and helped when the club was given a direction by a leader.

Thank that leader, Richard Pratt. There's a whole thread on that.

To Greg Swann who got the club back to a position of financial strength with more of a vision than simply taking money from Pratt and accepting donations.

Thank the member-elected board for removing the stale old coaching methods of a pigheaded 1990s coach. Someone who wouldn't drag a gameplan into the 21st century, and who couldn't get the players to believe in him.

And thank the players. Many weren't up to it. They still wore the navy blue jumper. They still gave us moments of joy in hours of darkness.

But the club is bigger than any of these individuals. The club went from one scoffed at by Jason Akermanis when deciding which victorian club to return to ("anyone but carlton"), into one chosen by Chris Judd as his only option.

And not one skerrick of thanks for that goes to the flowering AFL