Post ASADA. The re emergence of Essendon

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
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I posed this topic on the Essendon BF forum so would be keen for the fans thoughts here as well.

The video on Bomber Tv of the Tim Watson interview of Sheeds was re freaking to me and Sheeds thinking reminded me of what’s been missing the last 10 or so years with Essendons thinking. It was refreshing to hear Sheeds talk about Essendon in a way that we used to. As market leaders, courageous, innovative, aiming to be the benchmark in membership again, rather than just breaking our own records, big matches at the G, stealing the MCG back from Collingwood… It was great!!! Where’s this Essendon thinking been?

Sheeds goes into some detail on what his vision for this club is. In short, he will be working hard to return the club to the bold, aggressive, ambitious and courageous club it once was and wants the fans to be repaid for the last 3 years of ‘hell’.

This brings us to post ASADA. Irrespective of the outcome, Sheeds implores the fans to stick by the club in it’s darkest hour.

How can we harness adversity and rebound as a stronger and more powerful club? How can we use the last 3 years as a steak in the ground and emerge a better club? How can we ensure the clubs stakeholders unite and strengthen their resolve? Sheedys bold vision (refer to video at about 13:00 onwards) to me is the sort of vision and aggressive targets that I think is what’s been missing from Essendon for 15 years.

A vision to be number 1 in the AFL again. Sheeds is aspiring to set the bar high once again at Essendon. Thank god he’s back!

How can the Essendon family respond, irrespective of the ASADA outcome? To me the Hawthorn post merger response provides an example. How will Essendon emerge?

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It’s not so much about how many turn up , it’s about being able to sell 60,000 memberships involving reserved seats, can’t do that at dorklands

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We will take our rightful spot on the throne the Kings of the afl.

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We have all been waiting for something to happen…this is it!!!

Fly high the mighty Bombers, whatever it tacos, we’ve got it in spades!!!

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Sheedy back is a coup. Simple!

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One element to remember in all of this is what role we played.

We didn’t sit back and wait for things to happen. We signed up, publicly protested, became amazingly informed and even poked fun.

When people say some clubs would have folded over this, they mean they would have lost the fans.

We deserve some special kind of recognition but may only ever get it from the club. But to me, that’s all the matters.

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Regardless of what has come our way we have never backed off. Ever. We are bigger, stronger, wealthier, than we have ever been. Our march is relentless, and all our goals will be achieved. The only ones who can bring this club down are us, the members, the fans, the supporters; and that will never happen. After all, we are Essendon. Viva le Bombres.

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It is instructive to compare the Australian Government with Essendon. Both have faced a crisis recently .
In the case of the Government, collapse of the Mining boom has left it with a structural deficit due to expenditure largesse.
in trying to redress this, they announced a series of cuts in the 2014 budget. Not only that they have failed to articulate a long term strategy that would allow them to convince Australia that now some belt tightening was necessary, they failed to consult and suffered serious setback in public confidence. They are not helped at all by the wooden slogan uttering face of the government.

In the case of Essendon Football club, during the crisis the club has not been able to communicate its response to the saga. At least in its public profile. We, as members and followers of the club know that within the club there is resilience and strength and a determination to concentrate on football, and ensuring the club is financially strong.

But at Essendon there has been an apparent absence of “leadership” in the visionary sense, its not the role of the coaches to have an overall vision for the club, its the board who are supposed to develop a vision, and the Chairman who is supposed to articulate it.

We need vision to take us forward and distract people from the saga. We have some excellent programs that the club has been developing, like the Indian initiative, the inclusive GLBT program, community outreach etc.but I have to say that if the board has a vision, they are not particularly good at communicating it.

Sheeds is not only a visionary, but he is a populist, a charismatic figure who knows when to be serious, knows when to be funny and knows when to be enigmatic. I am not saying he is perfect, but believe that whatever vision the club develops, he is the one best equipped to sell it to the Members , followers and the AFL. Paul Little, excellent back room deals man, but Sheeds is so far ahead of him in this area, slightly eccentric, and loved for it, but people are receptive to him, he doesnt read speeches, he appears to speak from the heart.

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Game Of Footy

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Our record interstate has improved 10 fold in the last ten years. If and when this ASADA nonsense is out of the way, we should win be able to at least win one final.

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For the next 10 years the AFL will be doing their damnest to make sure we never get near one.

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The reality is that most clubs have periods of on field success followed by much longer periods of comparative lack of success. Recognizing this, a football club must draw from its “future fund” over the bad years. Its only because Essendon is one of the great (4) clubs of the AFL that we are as strong as we are today after 12 years of premiership failure and then 3 years of Saga. What that means is that we have to concentrate on both on field success and developing the club through vision, programmes, good marketing and what I hesitatingly term “brand” development.

So yes Doza and Deckham. The actual game is totally, vitally important, but we have to have long term vision and planning.
Not saying the club hasn’t done this brilliantly. Check out the TVS, but whats next and who is best to sell it. I think we have made good decisions with Sheeds and the coaching team we have out there.

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Quoted Post

Not saying the club hasn't done this brilliantly. Check out the TVS, but whats next and who is best to sell it. I think we have made good decisions with Sheeds and the coaching team we have out there.

No doubt that’s the other thing that’s improved. Still remember when the biggest advancement to our traning facilities was the club selling raffle tickets to raise money for plunge pools at Windy Hill. Thankfully the newer board had balls to spend and borrow money (which is almost paid off) for the TVS. Could never have happened while you know who was there. At least he can scrooge all he likes now at melbourne and drive them into the ground.

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Quoted Post

Quoted Post
Not saying the club hasn't done this brilliantly. Check out the TVS, but whats next and who is best to sell it. I think we have made good decisions with Sheeds and the coaching team we have out there.

No doubt that’s the other thing that’s improved. Still remember when the biggest advancement to our traning facilities was the club selling raffle tickets to raise money for plunge pools at Windy Hill. Thankfully the newer board had balls to spend and borrow money (which is almost paid off) for the TVS. Could never have happened while you know who was there. At least he can scrooge all he likes now at melbourne and drive them into the ground.

It was also quite funny how many people guy up in arms about borrowing money.

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Yeah. One board candidate even ran with ‘only spending money we have’ this year.

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Quoted Post

I posed this topic on the Essendon BF forum so would be keen for the fans thoughts here as well.

The video on Bomber Tv of the Tim Watson interview of Sheeds was re freaking to me and Sheeds thinking reminded me of what’s been missing the last 10 or so years with Essendons thinking. It was refreshing to hear Sheeds talk about Essendon in a way that we used to. As market leaders, courageous, innovative, aiming to be the benchmark in membership again, rather than just breaking our own records, big matches at the G, stealing the MCG back from Collingwood… It was great!!! Where’s this Essendon thinking been?

Sheeds goes into some detail on what his vision for this club is. In short, he will be working hard to return the club to the bold, aggressive, ambitious and courageous club it once was and wants the fans to be repaid for the last 3 years of ‘hell’.

This brings us to post ASADA. Irrespective of the outcome, Sheeds implores the fans to stick by the club in it’s darkest hour.

How can we harness adversity and rebound as a stronger and more powerful club? How can we use the last 3 years as a steak in the ground and emerge a better club? How can we ensure the clubs stakeholders unite and strengthen their resolve? Sheedys bold vision (refer to video at about 13:00 onwards) to me is the sort of vision and aggressive targets that I think is what’s been missing from Essendon for 15 years.

A vision to be number 1 in the AFL again. Sheeds is aspiring to set the bar high once again at Essendon. Thank god he’s back!

How can the Essendon family respond, irrespective of the ASADA outcome? To me the Hawthorn post merger response provides an example. How will Essendon emerge?

You might have just as well put this in the Sheedy thread, sheedy sheedy sheedy.

OH and the bolded bit, tis funny cos people neglect this aspect that Sheedy himself was a very big contributor to the downfall in said areas. Peter Jackson cops alot of flack around here for the decline cos of his “penny pinching”, but so many seem to forget not to many were innovating onfield or off around the club. Granted he wasn’t the only one and it pretty much took the recruitment of Thompson to get any ball rolling.

How Essendon re emerges after Asada. Become a club to be feared onfield which will hopefully lead to obviously success on it.

Very few sides fear us. I pointed out last year that we have a very bad loss ratio against the top sides ( Geelong it’s like 1 out of the last 11 odd games, Sydney it may be like one or two wins in a similar period. Hawthorn 3 wins since the line in the sand game in 04, Collingwood altho not a top team it’s now i think 5 out of the last 18 games against them)

The club as a whole IMO simply isn’t ruthless enough across the board. You’ve got to change a mentality and culture tha’ts crept in recently of one of arrogance without substance. But as i’ve also said not sure how you do that cos similar if not the same mistakes have been made now across 4 different coaching groups (I include Thompson as a 4th)

At the end of the day, the only way you re emerge with with an resemblence of what Essendon was, is to start winning premierships again.
Otherwise we just become a parody of so many around here, who love to bag other clubs for their non relevance while we too sit there being the same.
Case in point CArlton re emerged after their salary cap stuff, they’ve done more than we have been able to achieve in recent history, yet so many around here still love to mock how little they’ve actually really done, esp since buying Judd.

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How can we harness adversity and rebound as a stronger and more powerful club? How can we use the last 3 years as a steak in the ground and emerge a better club? How can we ensure the clubs stakeholders unite and strengthen their resolve? Sheedys bold vision (refer to video at about 13:00 onwards) to me is the sort of vision and aggressive targets that I think is what’s been missing from Essendon for 15 years.

I prefer mine cooked, and on a plate.
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Quoted Post

Quoted Post
Not saying the club hasn't done this brilliantly. Check out the TVS, but whats next and who is best to sell it. I think we have made good decisions with Sheeds and the coaching team we have out there.

No doubt that’s the other thing that’s improved. Still remember when the biggest advancement to our traning facilities was the club selling raffle tickets to raise money for plunge pools at Windy Hill. Thankfully the newer board had balls to spend and borrow money (which is almost paid off) for the TVS. Could never have happened while you know who was there. At least he can scrooge all he likes now at melbourne and drive them into the ground.

I think Little deserves a lot of credit, and the people who have left or been shown the door from Robson and board members down seem all to have been positive moves, with competent, committed replacements. A good example of his skill in this area, was by not compromising with the appointment of a CEO, and giving XC time to be ready for the role, rather than hiring someone who wasn’t, as Little put it, “an Essendon person” (who had an insiders view and appreciation of what Essendon had been through, compared to a Ron Gauci, who was installed at Melbourne Storm after their crisis).

Little, like the best leaders, seems also to be aware of his own deficiencies and bringing in the likes of Sheedy to help navigate the post ASADA Essendon vision and promotion. If he is grooming Lindsay Tanner to replace himself, that to me seems a great move also, this is a man who has recently been at the top of and understands government, finances, consultative leadership, comes across well in the media as thoughtful, respectful and respected and even has a background in OH&S law.

I think Little has been key to setting us up post ASADA, I think we will also be seen as best practice from a governance point of view with all the organisational reforms that have been brought in also.

Hird, I believe, is a key to our football future, but I think, what is really key is, we are a club that is proud of itself, its people and its history. Hird and Sheedy epitomise this, and Little has respected this and built on it with good management skills and vision (with a hiccough around the Crichton time).

The AFL picked us out to take the hit for the AFL, for its overall drug issues, because they knew we could survive it. That is probably the only bit they got right. Now they have to face the consequences on and off the field. It may not be immediate, but Karma is a ■■■■■.

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Quoted Post

Quoted Post

How can we harness adversity and rebound as a stronger and more powerful club? How can we use the last 3 years as a steak in the ground and emerge a better club? How can we ensure the clubs stakeholders unite and strengthen their resolve? Sheedys bold vision (refer to video at about 13:00 onwards) to me is the sort of vision and aggressive targets that I think is what’s been missing from Essendon for 15 years.

I prefer mine cooked, and on a plate.

And served cold.

And cut up in a Thai beef salad.