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A Demon year
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by BILL LEGGE
THERE are shit years and there are shithouse
years.
1996 was an example of the former. This futile season, mercifully
concluded on Sunday at Football
Mini-Arena and Experimental Turf Annihilation Facility (F-META-F Stadium), is one
of the latter.
1996 wasn't great. Pounded all year, we just managed to draw with
Fremantle one all. We finished in the Deep South, but didn't merge with Hawthorn.
To the student of football history, the merger episode was a rich source of
irony.
It almost compensated for the on-field performance. A century of V/AFL
football ended as it had started - in a farcical public celebration of venality,
incompetence, greed and bloody-minded stupidity.
In 1996 Melbourne were so bad
that they couldn't even merge. Melbourne's badly disguised takeover bid for
Hawthorn was in keeping with a century of tradition. The ill-conceived project
provoked outrage among the communities of both clubs.
The proxies carried the
vote at the Melbourne general meeting - to the dismay of the live members, but
the proposal was furiously rejected by Hawthorn members at their general meeting.
Caught between the rock of humiliation, and the hard place of public derision,
the takers over were taken over. A scratch ticket won a majority on the board,
and the presidency, in the elections that followed the merger debacle.
The
nemesis of the Melbourne board was a very wealthy person professing a reawakened
youthful passion for the Dees, a desire to be elected president and an urge spend
pots of money.
This incoming president was new to footy. Much was made about the
curious antecedents of the new incumbent and their presumed lack of experience in
the art of stuffing up a football club. Others remarked that this was not the
first Melbourne president with a public profile. Some skills however, such as
signing a cheque, don't need much experience.
In any event, 1996 finished with
the purveyors of merger in unaccustomed circumstances. For the first time in over
100 years, control over one of the MCC's most reliable cash cows had passed from
the hands of those born to wield it. The survivors of the 1996 election were
relegated to a kind of mute opposition, forced to sip wormwood from the cup of
their own brewing. To some the shock was worse than Gough Whitlam.
As I remarked,
it was almost made up for a miserable season. The new administration set about
ushering in a golden age. In the years following 1996 Melbourne finished last,
third, 14th and a much heralded second. They had three coaches, two CEOs, a
Brownlow and self-igniting salary cap penalty.
The president frequently made
colourful headlines and television appearances. There were well-publicised
excursions into national (and international) politics, not to mention jousts with
the AFL commissioners.
There was also the regular coverage in the financial
pages. 2001 to be the year where progress was consolidated. Making the 2000 grand
final was supposed to set a benchmark. Melbourne started the 2001 season as a
genuine contender. By round nine it was a laughing-stock.
The tenuous arrangement
in place since 1996 between the old guard and the new came apart in an eruption
of bile. Faced with the likelihood of defeat and oblivion at the next elections,
and given fresh hope by the bleak news in the financial pages, the rump of the
merge rites went onto the offensive.
Incensed by a perceived lack of absolute
loyalty by the board, the president resigned.
By the time cooler heads had
prevailed upon the combatants to restrain their vituperation the damage was done
and the season down the gurgler.
To be sure the combatants insisted that the
football staff were professionals and hence not going to let a little thing like
self-immolation by the board effect their on-field performance. However, there is
an awful lot of difference between privately suspecting your management of being
dickheads, and seeing them incontrovertibly demonstrate the fact on national
television. It does impact your productivity.
Injuries and loss of form to one
side, we were in the hunt until the board imploded, after that unseemly spectacle
we were stuffed. 2001 has been a year wasted for reasons of envy, paranoia, spite
and arrogance.
In 1996 we lost to Hawthorn by a point in the last round in one of
the best games I have seen in years. This year we fell over the line against
Footscray in a dead rubber to finish a pathetic 11th. Now we face an election
between two equally unspeakable tickets and the prospect of a divided and hostile
board in 2002.
This has been a shithouse year.
When asked, "What do you think of
a former president of the Melbourne Football Club?" My answer is, "What do you
think of Ariel Sharon?" (I don't know who Ariel Sharon barracks for - I can't help
thinking it's probably Essendon. I have a fond conviction that Bibi Nethanyahu
barracks for Geelong)
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