Thorburn’s failure was that he didn’t celebrate his appointment by having 10% off at the Bombershop.
Rookie mistake
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Please stop opining.
Dear Members,
It’s great to be writing to you on the eve of our AFL season – it’s finally here!
The start of a season is an exciting time for any football club, and for me personally, I have sensed the excitement of many of the Bomber faithful in recent months at our open training sessions, Family Day and other member and supporter events.
The build up to our AFL season has felt long at times and all roads now lead to the MCG tomorrow afternoon as our AFL team kicks off its 2024 campaign against old rivals Hawthorn.
Our players and staff have worked incredibly hard over the pre-season to try and maximise the opportunity to improve and prepare for the marathon that is an AFL season. The footy gods have been mostly kind to us over the pre-season, as we take a healthy squad into round one. We will continue to support Kaine Baldwin and Jaiden Hunter as they recover from their longer-term injuries.
In recent months, we’ve spoken about a sense of urgency within the playing group. There’s no doubt in my mind that there is a keen excitement and focus to improve, and importantly, this focus and drive has been led by our senior players. The leadership and energy of Zach Merrett, Andy McGrath and our other senior players, has been clear to see and will hold us in good stead as we continue to build towards the success we are all craving.
On Saturday we will honour and celebrate the 40-year anniversary of our 1984 and 1985 Premiership teams. Led by Senior Coach Kevin Sheedy, Essendon champions like Terry Daniher, Tim Watson, Simon Madden Paul Vander Haar, Mark Harvey and Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson, this team is recognised as one of the great Essendon sides. From 1.00pm, all available past-players will be celebrated in a motorcade around the MCG with the Premiership cups.
We urge all Bomber fans to ‘Stand Your Ground’ at the MCG this Saturday, which is a theme that emerged during the 1984 season after we suffered a devastating loss against Hawthorn in the 1983 Grand Final. To cement this game as an annual round one blockbuster, we need the Bomber faithful to turnout in strong force as we aim break the home and away record of 78,294 between these two iconic clubs.
We’d also like to thank all our loyal members who have signed up this season. We are currently sitting on 67,531 members, which is well ahead of the same time last year and pleasingly we are on track to break our pre round one membership record.
The club successfully held its first Bomberthon Member Blitz last week. All staff and players were on the phones throughout the day connecting with as many of you as possible. By 6pm, we had called 4,467 members and our players themselves had spoken to over 1,000 members.
Afterall, we are a member-based club and being able to talk directly with you is an important connection initiative for us. I personally heard many great stories and enjoyed the experience of hearing feedback from the people I spoke with.
We will continue to focus on building even greater connection with our Bomber Community and initiatives like Members Fest, Snap & Sign Sessions and our enhanced First Class digital offering will drive the connection with our members and supporters.
The commitment of our players to the Essendon Football Club and its amazing members and supporters, serves to enhance the culture we are trying to build and drive. In the last few weeks, it has been exciting to announce the important re-signings of Kyle Langford, Jordan Ridley and Elijah Tsatas. The stability we are building around our core playing group is critical to the team’s long-term success. As Brad has mentioned recently, we are aiming to develop a strong and committed group of players who will hopefully play a lot of football together in the coming years as we build our way back up the ladder and towards our goal of sustained success.
Team and club commitment extends to our AFLW program. This week we have had some incredibly exciting announcements with 16 of our AFLW players re-committing to the Club - led by Co-Captain Bonnie Toogood, Maddy Prespakis, Sophie Van De Heuvel and Steph Wales, who each signed-on for at least four more years. We’re excited about all our re-signings and the foundations we continue to build for our AFLW team. Whilst the AFLW squad remains in their off-season period, it’s wonderful to see so many of the players regularly at the club as they strive to improve each day. This hard work and commitment will pay them back during the expanded 2024 AFLW season which will officially commence in the final week of August.
Finally, I’d sincerely like to thank all our members for your loyalty and commitment to our club – it’s not something we take lightly. We are committed as a club to working hard and giving our very best to deliver the success we are all craving for our great club.
Let’s stand together, let’s stand loud and Stand Your Ground at the MCG against the Hawks tomorrow afternoon.
Go Bombers!
Craig Vozzo
Chief Executive Officer
Essendon Football Club
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Too many words Craig! Someone will cherry pick a sentence and get outraged, ignoring the overall tone of the message!
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Franco Vozzo with a message to the essadon faithful.
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Better?
Hi All,
Hope all is well.
Game Saturday. Some good signings. Happy days.
Cheers,
Craig
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Yes!
“ Stand Your Ground” Is an odd communications choice. Makes me think yes the club has been standing still for far too long.
Not one mention of being greatful for anything or anyone. Pity the sense of urgency he is taking about isn’t reflected by the coach or vice capitan.
Dear valued sucker client member
Love
Craig
PS. 10% off at the Bomber Shop for the next 10,000 member signups
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I preferred driving purposeful innovation
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Does Craig Vozzo even exist on planet earth? Who is he? Is he real?
Do we even have a CEO?
“I speak to a lot of Essendon people regularly who are (frankly) sick of us talking about what we’re going to do, and they want to see action and delivery, so that’s our focus."
Still waiting for that action and that delivery.
(I can’t find a Vozzo thread for some reason so I bumped this one haha)
I actually don’t care who is CEO, or President or who is on the Board.
I want coaches and players who give a fark and try harder than they are showing. We have watched two weeks in a row where our opponents kicked 7 or more goals in a row while our players stood around watching.
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A lot of care on my part about who’s steering this ship- Barham.
The Pres is the one who essentially hassled Scott to apply for the job, and we all know that’s who he wanted after the Clarko fail.
Scott the coach can’t get his players to win games they should be winning.
At this point he’s a failure,
Which means the Pres is a failure.
The guy at the top of the pyramid.
might be interesting if we ■■■■ barham off and get someone like hird in. he definatley has the business acumen, and I think the time for Hird to ever coach again at Essendon has probably passed, so why not get him in a senior management role to guide the club in a better direction, and to rattle some cages
Mates with DUDORO. No thanks.
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Lol
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is there anyone else that doesn’t always look like they have a hangover available ?
Meanwhile, Dodoro continues to be employed in the Club, must have a few mates there.