Blueboy74 wrote:
Exactly and just as an example here is Collingwood's membership over the last 10+ years.
1999 32,358 16th
2000 28,932 15th
2001 31,455 9th
2002 32,549 2nd
2003 40,445 2nd
2004 41,128 13th
2005 38,612 15th
2006 38,038 7th
2007 38,587 4th
2008 42,498 6th
2009 45,972 4th
2010 57,617 1st
2011 71,271 2nd
Stagnant for 4 years, make grand final suddenly goes up by 8k
Stagnant again for 5 years, make prelim final, look a Premiership threat throughout year goes up by 12k
Win flag, all year look like going back to back, goes up by 14k
Notice a trend?
Doesn't matter how many hats you give out, babies you kiss, or how nice your website looks - win and they will come.
If we can hit 50k by the 2012 cutoff, we'll have all most doubled our membership base from the 28k in 2006 in just 5-6 years without even yet making a Prelim so someone must be doing something right...
Unfortunately it appears some people from the club use the same logic.
Yes Collingwood jumped 12,000 in 2009 but at the half way mark of the season, they were 6 and 5 and in fact, they sat behind Carlton on the ladder.
Memberships close June 30, not late in the season when the made their run. From memory, St Kilda and Geelong were both miles ahead of any other team and both were undefeated by this stage as well.
To suggest Collingwoods membership surge is purely due to success sells them well short. They're successful due to the fact they embrace their supporters.
They have a mentality of togetherness and unity. In fact, their membership slogans intentionally reflect that philosophy.
It's time we smelt the roses and aimed high ourselves instead of making poor excuses and underselling the superiority of our opposition.
There's plenty to learn from many of our opponents. Being too proud or too arrogant to understand that will see us stay well off the pace.