David Barham - Our new Board Overlord

Great to hear we’re getting our investment in football up to where the good clubs have had it for years.

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After Andrew Thorburn. He ran that external review, didn’t he?

After failing to get Clarkson.

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Now you’re being resultist.

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Fact is that 2 years down the track we haven’t advanced at all. In fact you could easily argue we’ve gone backwards. It’s laughable really…….

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I think we’ve advanced in terms of re establishing foundations of a strong footy club.

I think you don’t really appreciate the direct link between a poor culture and poorly setup footy department on wins and losses. Refer to the Demons.

Essendon is two years into a major transformation. Top to bottom.

On field consistency and results ultimately could take 5 years to realise itself. Results can’t be instant. It’s not realistic.

In the nicest possible way, it’s about sucking it up and reluctantly accepting results likely won’t materialise in the near future, even with a much stronger organisation that we are 24 months on.

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How about this :joy:

“At Essendon, we understand the frustration that comes with waiting for tangible on-field success. While we’ve spoken about rebuilding the foundations of the club and restructuring key areas, the reality is that the results haven’t yet materialised in the way we’d hoped.

It’s clear there’s still significant work to do. A strong culture and a well-structured football department are essential for sustained success, as we’ve seen with clubs like Melbourne. Right now, we’re not where we need to be, but acknowledging these challenges is the first step to addressing them properly.

The focus must remain on ensuring this rebuild is real and lasting—not just talk. Progress will require clear strategies, accountability, and the patience to stick with the process, even when it feels tough. Essendon supporters deserve more, and the entire club is committed to delivering it—no excuses.”

Nice statement. But is the “no excuses” at the end intended as irony? Because all that precedes it is an excuse for where we are now.

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It’s a nice way of saying we’ve been ■■■■■ but we’re working on it……

Where did you find that?!

Chat GPT!!

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Thank you

So now Chat GPT is gaming us.

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Will it ever happen? We are a long way behind to become a top 4 team if that is the aim.

“Us” is just random anonymous message posters. What’s the difference……?

In the next 200 years, I’d say so.

Possibly in 2026 onwards. Or if we’re fortunate, possibly sooner.

Maybe the difference is in the “intelligence” descriptor.

You asked for 3, I’ll give you a few more.

  1. My attitude in life is to play to win. My goal has always been to return our Club to Premiership glory, win flags. I’ve been a part of our past success, I know how good it feels to win at the MCG in September.
  2. I ask you to judge me on the last 2 years. I stood for the external review - I thought anything else was marking our own homework. Not acceptable.
  3. I wanted to hear from members, players, admin, past players what they thought we needed to get our Club moving forward again. Improve, be elite.
  4. My decisions cost me relationships, caused sleepless nights, took away a lot of time from my family during my out of business hours. But I pressed ahead because I felt my job was to put the members and our club first. I never want to die wondering about the full potential of our club.
  5. I believed it was the right thing to do and I still do.
  6. We all want instant success. Fact is, the AFL set us up for equalization. We need to get back on equal footing to get ahead.
  7. We selected AFL experience at leadership level (CEO, Coach), appointed Andrew Welsh to our board as Football Governance Director (tough player, footy smarts, successful businessman), we’ve invested over $500k into player development and our high performance training facility. Just resurfaced the MCG training oval, installed saunas, renovated the pool just to mention a few.

I appreciate you wanting to hear from me, to hear your concerns and frustrations. As a fellow passionate member I understand. I want to assure you that I too want nothing but on-field success for our Club.

This season was a rollercoaster of emotions. We saw some thrilling wins (Fremantle! I cried when I saw Merrett burst out of the centre - desperate to win and we did) and outstanding individual performances. We saw players grow and develop, and glimpses of brilliance that leave us wanting more. Then we faced disappointment, including tough losses some by the narrowest of margins. We still have a lot of work to do.

I’m working hard for us. I’m not a past player - we’ve had some of the best EFC football brains on our board in the last decade - Heffernan, Madden, Wellman, Sheedy, Rioli. That said, we have an awesome one on our board right now, as Football Governance Director, Andrew Welsh. Directors don’t play, they don’t coach. They govern through the CEO. Past players won’t make us win flags. Strategic planning, careful decision making and investment do that.

Unity and stability help too. Our players want stability - stay the course we’re on.

My question to you/Blitz. If we make change at board level now, what will change?

I’m on a plane, about to land. I’ll be back when I have some more time on my hands. Go Bombers!

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LOL, how did that turn out?

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Maybe new people might have some idea on how we can start actually winning more games than we lose.

No matter how you put it, the club’s performance over the last twenty years has been nothing short of embarrassing.

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Maybe nothing, maybe something. Id risk the unknown of change before I let the board cretins who have been there for the past decade allow us to blindly meander down the path of mediocrity any longer. But thats a decision for members to make.