Puts football in perspective Freddy. All the best to you both for continued health.

the response “You’ve got to be joking” when I enquired about Life Membership.

I have been meaning to post for awhile now, so here goes.

As many of you now know, up to this year, I had been involved with the club for over 20 years. In that time I have seen the values & culture of our club deteriorate.

My question is what has this board and current club administration done for Carlton. Compared to our main rivals we have seen our membership in decline. The new facilities were not a club initiative. If it wasn’t for the Pratts & Mathiesons we would be in worse financial shape. What is our debt at the moment?

We need change, and replacing the coach is not enough. As far as I’m concerned we need a complete new board and massive change to certain individuals in both the club & football departments. I agree with the following quote from Tony Shaw in yesterday’s HUN about the board’s decision on Ratts – “It’s going to be based on some ego-driven board members who want to cover their backside by getting someone with a massive name into the club to cover their backside over the next three years.”

I have a lot of time for Sticks. He has always treated individuals equally. When he sat in the coaches box he would always stop in to the stats box and acknowledge us and give us a quick pep talk. The only other official that ever did that was Grant Williams. But for a President, in my opinion he makes a good Vice-President. We need somebody with business nous. We need board members with financial, marketing and sponsorship know-how. We need to build up our latent membership in the same way that Collingwood, Hawthorn, Essendon* & now Richmond have done.

I also have a lot of respect for Ratts. Years ago David Parkin told me out of all the players he coached, Ratts would make the best coach. He re-stated this publically recently. Last year it seemed Ratts was receiving better support, especially with the changes to the assistant coaches. I have no idea what has happened this year. He seems to have bad relationships with quite a few key people in the club. I have been a non-vocal Ratten supporter but, for the future success of the club, I don’t think he can continue. I know a lot of you bag posters like Synbad and DocSherrin, but a lot of the time they are closer to the truth than you give them credit for.

For a long time now we have been devoid of leadership. For years I have seen no evidence of succession planning, other than this year where it is obvious Marc Murphy is being groomed for the captaincy. Who’s being groomed as the future President, CEO, Football Manager or Coach?

I mentioned culture earlier. I suppose this comes back to my treatment earlier this year (yes, I’m still bitter). I would have thought if somebody had put in the amount of time I had over a long period, they deserved more than “Sorry we haven’t got a job for you this year” and the response “You’ve got to be joking” when I enquired about Life Membership. Reward & recognition is an important foundation to the culture in any organisation. We have a culture of arrogance, we’re still living in the past. WE NEED MASSIVE CHANGE.

Just a quick update on my wife. She’s had her Op, finished Chemo and is two weeks into her Radiation treatment. She remains as positive as she can and the prognosis is very good.

- Administration: We are rudderless and seemingly far behind other clubs.
- Fitness & strength conditioning: These injuries need to !@#$%& stop, not to mention our inability to produce players who can take a contested mark or not shit our pants against teams like the hawks. The management of our tall players is disgraceful. I'm sick of hearing "When we have a full team...blah blah blah", ENOUGH!
- Communications: We fell short of 50,000 members. Either the message isn't getting out properly, or we have a lot of apathetic supporters. Either way, it ain't good enough. As a member, I still hear more about other club's and their players than I do my own just from how they embrace the media and their supporters. Kudos for embracing social media (finally), but we're still a follower and not an innovator, and if Coutts is as slow as people say, he needs to go.
- Player attitudes: Our group are mentally weak, lazy, timid and get full of themselves too easily. In short, they're soft, and need to HTFU. Kokoda perhaps? Our leaders need to be more vocal, and LEAD. This starts from the top, where Juddy leads too much by actions and seemingly not enough by words. Nick Maxwell might be a hack player, but he's undoubtedly in charge. We need more arseholes and/or bogans (ie. Tatts) in this team.
- And FFS, whatever an independent review reveals, DO EVERYTHING THEY SAY! No more "we are Carlton, !@#$%& the rest".

The only thing this board has done for honorary officials is take away the little privileges we had. For what. A savings of a thousand or two. Culture pfft.

I would assume this was done by the admin, football manager or CEO. I am tempted to ask a question about this at the next AGM. I think somebody in management decided we should be more "professional" and stop using volunteers. The merit of this can be debated, what can not be debated is the treatment of somebody like you. Did similar things happen to other volunteers?

So do they use any volunteers now? or did they get rid of just some?

That sucks Freddy but to the missus.

I think that's a question that should be posed to Sticks at the AGM.

Best wishes to you and your wife Freddy, - Stay Positive!!!



Just a question for everybody:-


Mass Supporter Protest
We have over 45,000 members and I dare say 90% of them are un-happy with the club.
Would we organise a Mass Supporter Protest to take place outside Princess Park to show our frustration?

I'm not talking a violent one or anything like that! Just to show that we are Pissed Off with how this place is being run and has been run for over 10 years now! It's gotten beyond a joke.

Clearly the club is a rabble. I'm talking everybody. Freddy's post sums it up well and i've been feeling this come on for a while now.
Coach, President, CEO, Board, Coaching Staff, Players................. None of it is clicking.

There are a few people high up in this club that should be held responsible, however because of their 'ego's' and their 'position' in the club they point the finger elsewhere.

I fully believe that if Sticks and Swann continue to run this club we will continue to go backwards. I don't care who they bring in as coach because CLEARLY they are as much of the problem as anybody.


Imagine 10-15k people protesting outside Princess Park voicing their frustration at how their beloved Football team is being run!

Thanks Freddy. I bring this up if I can make the AGM this year. If I do, I will PM shortly before to "prepare" the question.

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