A Demon year

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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