ryan2000 wrote:
Just a question...................
Which presidency did the most damage?
Elliot's reign or the Collins / Smorgan years.
Personally, i think the later. Sure Elliot did some silly silly things, but he did about 100 x's more positive stuff for the club than Collins / Smorgan EVER did.
That's a complete no-brainer Ryan, AFAIC. I quote myself (!) from earlier in this thread...
Quote:
When Elliott took over as President, Carlton had just won 3 flags in 4 years. It had the highest membership in the competition. It had more money than any other club in the competition. It was the envy of the competition.
When Elliott was removed 19 years later, Carlton had just won the wooden spoon (and in the 19 years he was there, with a pretty good list most of the time, only two flags). It's membership had fallen dramatically, to rank behind Collingwood, Essendon*, Hawthorn and Geelong (and caught by St Kilda and Richmond, from memory) - not to mention most of the interstate clubs.
It had racked up a massive debt, to be the poorest club in the competition...yes, worse off than North and the Dogs. And it was about to be fined nearly $1m and stripped of multiple draft picks for repeated salary cap rorting ie cheating by the Board and Management, for which Elliott was responsible.
Now, I may not be the best businessman in this country, but it doesn't take a genius to work out that the Club had gone into massive decline over the time of Elliott's reign. Just as the rest of his life had fallen apart, so too was the Club under his control. If that was a business, answerable to shareholders, he, as leader of the business, would have been out on his arse years earlier. In fact, the writing was on the wall in the late 90s, just no one chose to read it.
So, whether or not Elliott should come back to the Club or not is now a matter of personal opinion. But NEVER, EVER let it be said that John Elliott was not ultimately responsible, as President of Carlton, for the disastrous state that the Club found itself in at the time of his removal.
The point being, Elliott drove the Club into the ground (as he did with he personal and business life, so it doesn't come as a surprise). He was singularly responsible, as President of the Club, for that decline. Had that decline not taken place, had there been a competent leader in place, none of this would have happened.
As Smorgon has shown, it's one thing to take over a successful organisation, and keep it successful. He has done this with the business that his father set up. It is another thing entirely to take over a strugling organisation and rebuild it. Smorgon clearly was not up to that task.
Yes, the Boards of Collins and Smorgon failed in their efforts, but the challenge they were confronted by was much more difficult than what Elliott faced. Elliott took a strong, successful and powerful organisation, and ruined it. Collins' and Smorgon's crimes were simply to have been unable to resurrect it.
There is no debate as to who was more culpable.