It's not hard to see that as a community there's a fair bit of disenchantment with the club in here at the moment.

I've been wondering for a while whether it would make any difference if I wrote a 10,000 word (eloquent) diatribe and forwarded it to the club or some media outlet or whether there might be a better way to get the message to those with influence at the club that all is not well and that I (and others) am concerned with the direction the club I love is taking.

And then I thought about the fact that when I read the pages of Talking Carlton I agree and disagree with almost everyone who posts on here on a regular basis. We can't definitively agree on what's wrong with the club and we sure as he'll can't definitively agree on how to fix it.

Talking Carlton is a club.

The Carlton Football Club is an organisation.

So what to do...?

Here's my proposition...

Write one paragraph each on what you think contributes to any concerns you might have with the direction of our football club at the moment.

One post per person. No replies. As succinctly as you can explain in a paragraph what worries you about the direction of your club. Use a paragraph to explain why you think the club needs to listen to you.

If the thread throws up enough good responses maybe it'll be worth forwarding it to the board. If it doesn't then maybe we should shut the @#$%&! up.

There are no right or wrong answers. Tell us how you feel about YOUR club.

Here's mine...



The Carlton Football Club doesn't feel like a club to me anymore and if I'm honest it maybe never did. It feels like a collaboration of shared histories. It feels like a place I go to in order to reminisce about past glories but in doing so I always feel slightly sad at the fact that I have no sense of a common cause or direction. No future. I haven't been a member for about three years now. I wasn't a member until John Elliott was booted out. In the wash up of that event I felt a part of the "club" in a way that I never had before (despite being a member of the Cheer Squad aged 9 in 1979). Post 2002 there was a sense that the supporters may have had a chance to have some input into the club. That now seems bizarre. I want to be a part of my club. At the moment I'm not.



It's quite extraordinary that as a group we can create about 500 pages of feedback in a single thread about what we think should happen to a rival club due to their managerial indiscretions and yet our focus on our own club is a little more haphazard.

What worries you the most about the Carlton Football Club?

One paragraph each.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Buy a ferrari, mid life crisis over. All of you.

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Check out www.blueseum.org for all of your Carlton information needs.

I wonder if our current board could pay closer attention to your H L Mencken quote.

Apart from that, I think your idea has merit. I'm just too knackered to cobble together anything right now...a bit like our team's last quarter the other night...let me sleep on it...

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'People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.'
Soren Kierkegaard

When will we lead again?

Since I started following Carlton in the late '60's, I was always proud of how we innovated and seemed to be better thinkers than the other clubs. George Harris undoubtedly made mistakes, but he brought a culture of change and wasn't afraid to take risks. Clearly the recruitment of Barassi was the prime example, but we were also the first to have sponsors on our jumpers. Our club grew to the extent that we had the largest membership in the competition in the late '80's and we were recognised as a significant power, and resented for our success. It's been many years since I've felt we led the AFL in any area, and whilst I was pleased in with the appointment of Mick Malthouse, it was an example of how we look backwards in our thinking, not forwards.

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"The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, and the young know everything." Oscar Wilde

Let's be frank there are countless problems with the club. But for the sake of clarity I'm going to focus on just one point, with that point being personnel related (which is pretty important given you need good players to be a good team and win games). My point relates to the club's penchant for losing (letting go?) good players. Why on earth did we let Jacobs go? Surely we could have kept him, even if that was through offering him extra money. Sauce was playing very, very good football when we let him go. Instead we overrated Hampson and Kreuzer. How did we let Betts go? He might have asked for more money than we thought he was worth, but in today's FA era overpaying players will become more common. At the end of the day despite his small stature Eddie was a key forward and one who put his body on the line a hell of a lot more than Garlett whose short steps are fast becoming a bad habit - see last week's game vs Port. To a lesser extent how did we let Grigg go? By no means a star player but surely he would be a lot more valuable than Robinson who has become an expert at wildly throwing ball onto foot and kicking to the opposition. Grigg, like Sauce was playing good footy in the Ones at the time he was let go - so strange a club would let go of players who at the time were in their top 22. While his kicking is suspect and he is more blue collar than white, He can rack them up and is a big body with a decent tank and I suspect if he were at CFC right now he'd be getting a game ahead of turnover merchants like Robinson and one paced mids like Mclean. Why do we let good players go? Is it because we have a rule of not overpaying players and are too inflexible (stubborn) in sticking to this rule? Or, heaven forbid is it because the MC simply fail to see that x players are actually good footballers and should be retained? If I can see Jacobs, Betts, and are good players then surely the club can see this? Simple fact of the matter is all three would be in our top 22 right now, so to my eyes the club have been negligible in letting these players go. And let's not even start talking about how we overlooked Cotchin (I, like many I suspect , thought we should have taken Cotchin at the time, and yes I was at the State Championships and saw him burst out of packs Ablett like, while Kreuzer roamed the ground in an uninspiring fashion). WTF????

Not that this is the thread for this so I apologise in advance but this is just re-writing history. Cotchins National Champs were underwhelming at best. Kreuzer didn't dominate either but was better than Cotchin. I was at Casey fields when Cotchin was dragged and berated by the Coach for sulking because he was being tagged.

GWS, the most honest posting from many posters who rarely post, if ever,
is already there in the other thread.
Why not just compile it and send it in?
Otherwise, I guess I'll copy and paste mine from there to here.

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That’s not a political statement — it’s a harsh reality, and we must act,” she said. “He is a clear and present danger to the things that keep us strong and free. I support impeachment.”

The vast majority of the 50,000 odd membership have absolutely no say in who runs the club, how it's run and feel utterly useless watching on from outside the bubble.

Growing up football was everything for me and I loved the Carlton Football Club. Maybe I didn't know any better, but I idolised all the players and always believed we were going to win. I took it for granted we were the best team and club. We had no trouble attracting star players from interstate or other teams and the best people to our club. We were a club that was innovative, driven for success and not afraid to be ruthless and do what it took to stand out from the other teams. Since the 90's the only success we've had since was based off our last interstate raid before the draft. We've failed to adjust to the draft and modern day football. We've become a club who looks around at others and tries to replicate rather than differentiate. We've poached from Collingwood in an attempt to replicate their success, but we fail to understand or implement their commitment to supporters, our membership tally suffers because of it. I was an AFL Member with Carlton Club Support for 15 years. I came to learn this category of membership wasn't valued a few years ago when I inquired why I hadn't received a membership certificate the year we did that. After the 2012 season I decided I didn't want my money going to the AFL any longer so I cancelled my membership with the intention of purchasing a Carlton membership to the equivalent value. After terminating and paying out our coaches a year after extending them (when it was well known we were going to pursue Mick Malthouse as coach) I decided Carlton didn't need my money either and there would be better ways to spend it. We've become a mediocre club in everything we do. Its difficult to think of anything we do better than the other 17 teams. Our strategy and values aren't clear or defined. Rather than being a leader in our industry we plod along with the impression doing the bare minimum is good enough. An independent review of the club's operations is needed and all board positions opened up to rid the club of the complacency that currently exists.

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010

I think all of those 50000 support the CFC.
I think a small percentage know who the board is or what they do.
I think the majority are dissappointed in what has been achieved this century.
I think the majority dont know that the board is responsible for the outcome in some way.
I dont think the majority would know what they could do to help improve the club.
I think most believe thay are helping the club by being members.

What's the answer?

I'm disatisfied with our achievements this century.
I think the board has failed.
I think the recruitment department has failed.

I think we are only 3-4 players away from a top 4 team: Wines-Caddy in midfield and Boyd-Patton in the fowardline.
Can we recruit some players to fill the @#$%&! holes........NOW!!!

I do not agree with Sugarcane. Grigg was and is below average...receiver.
Jacobs would have been cheaper than the other 3 and a good idea to retain in retrospect....and choosing (not keeping) Jacobs over the other 3 rucks would have allowed us to use the money spent on Kreuzer and Warnock on a KPF and Midfielder.
Betts' knee will determine whether we did the right thing or not.

I'm disatisfied with the lies from the Board...how many flags before 2020????
The window opened when we asked if the public knew what the Blues were cooking.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

In the Final I attended his class and ability was clear as day, and I left the ground under no illusion that if I were recruiting manager I would pick him. He went number two for a reason and history will almost surely show we picked the wrong guy.

Good idea GWS
Could someone transpose my post from the other post I think I articulated my issues
I think this material should be sent to the club with a message that we are expecting to see some improvement and response from the club arising out of these messages
Has anyone for example sought to have a dialogue with Swann on any of this and perhaps we send it to him and say it represents the views of whatever number of people who are in here
I doubt we will get one and if we don't next step is to say if they ignore us we propose to stand a candidate at the election for the board at the end of the year -should get the wind up them I reckon

the club don't care about us

members are thought of as a necessary inconvenience

no amount of signatures, paragraphs, letters etc etc will make an ounce of difference

the place is so poorly run from the shop to the 'membership' dept to the CEO to the president - its all second rate stuff

entrenched in mediocrity

the play toy of the rich handful

i see no light at the end of tunnel

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Carlton go out of there way to engage supporters when they play in Perth.

I'm mostly dissatisfied with the players though

i see no pride, fight, desire, will, intelligence or work ethic to improve as a unit

so whilst they don't give a shit about the team , i don't see why i should

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

hardly

but nice of them 'to go out of there way'

that statement right there speaks volumes

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

and damn you

its out of THEIR way

made me copy your error

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

yes, I'll do it frank.

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That’s not a political statement — it’s a harsh reality, and we must act,” she said. “He is a clear and present danger to the things that keep us strong and free. I support impeachment.”

From Frank Dardew:

Can I say I'm generally one of the most positive posters going around but must admit I was really disappointed with the effort on Sunday night - we waited 6 months for that effort after seeing a worse effort at ANZ stadium 6 months or so in a final - 24 points up before half time and yet just let it slip away to be beaten by 33 - pathetic - but we really have been treading water for about 20 years

I know we have canvassed the reasons

A board full of rich people thinking that the club is their play thing
Knee jerk reactions to coaching position both in terms of appointment and dismissal and no transparent approach or appropriate procedure for these important decisions
No real strategic and coherent business or financial plan to take us back to being a power
Executive management positions no renewal and the calibre of people in those positions - how do you account for Ian Coutts being in the position he was for SO many years
Pandering to rich supporters -hello Geoffrey Edelstein to the detriment of the ordinary supporter
Failure to have programs that seek to engage younger people to support Carlton
Failure to spread message /brand Australia wide
Developing young players -we are terrible -I don't subscribe to we don't recruit well - we absolutely don't develop players for the modern game and haven't for a significant period of time v

Easy to identify problems what are the solutions ? Happy to hear any

Have to say after Sunday night does anyone think it is not going to be one of those long seasons -Id take that if and only if we improved some of these other things so eventually we get out of this hole

Last 20 years performance doesn't fill me with much optimism
Also don't know about anyone else but haven't felt so uninspired about a round 2 game ever - really concerned about a belting on Thursday night

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That’s not a political statement — it’s a harsh reality, and we must act,” she said. “He is a clear and present danger to the things that keep us strong and free. I support impeachment.”

Mediocrity

me·di·oc·ri·ty
[mee-dee-ok-ri-tee]
noun, plural me·di·oc·ri·ties.
1. the state or quality of being mediocre.
2. mediocre ability or accomplishment.
3. a mediocre person.
Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English mediocrite < Middle French mediocrite < Latin mediocritāt- (stem of mediocritās ) a middle state, moderation. See mediocre, -ity

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“I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” ― Richard Feynman