‘THIS IS NOT OUR FAULT. IT’S AFL TINDER’S FAULT’
DID you know that Greater Western Sydney has 98 Tasmanian members? Ninety-eight. That isn’t enough people to sell off an exclusive to members 100 club draw. It is embarrassing.
And can you imagine that number if its only Tasmanian contracted player, Tim Mohr, didn’t have a stereotypically large Tasmanian family where the entire farmyard of animals takes on individual membership of the family’s chosen team?
Add to this the fact there is a very good reason North Melbourne has had to sell its soul to the Gold Coast, Canberra, Sydney, Tasmania, Ballarat or any other AFL-hungry region that is craving the opportunity to balance a ball on its nose for King Gillon and his team of “spivs” who decide on which regions will be led to the gallows: their supporter base is unhealthily low, too low to remain sustainable as a Melbourne-only club and one that is now reliant on the desperation of an entire state to sell its footballing soul.
Ah yes, the saviours, our Tasmanian Government to the rescue.
But of course, the uneducated masses of the mainland — including the nickname AFL journos who believe their opinion to be bigger and more important than all of the game, fact, equality, respect, fairness and common decency — are blaming us, the passionate Tasmanian AFL community, for not yelling at the AFL “with our feet”.
Seven thousand people for a game between two of the three lowest memberships and supporter bases in the national competition, on a blustery and cold Hobart day, when one team has 98 local members and the other is a known sellout for survival through its inability to attract a crowd, well, that suggests to anyone not from Tasmania that we just don’t want it enough. We are no more than the badmintonplaying cousin of Shanghai, the Gold Coast and Blacktown.
Three months ago, Adam Cooney used that very quote — “people need to vote with their feet” — to describe his uneducated rage, that mirrors the broader AFL media voice, in response to the 1957 true bloods that watched North Melbourne and Melbourne in a regional JLT Cup clash at the Twin Ovals. I guess had Adam understood that while the Twin Ovals is an immaculate surface, it is not exactly known for its user comfortability regarding crowd coverage on a cold, sideways rain and windy type of day.
He’s also not factored in that had more than 3000 people turned up to that game, the flow of cars waiting to get back on to Summerleas Rd would still be 1000 deep; as even a grade cricket game sees the need for paid parking ushers to ease the congestion and mass confusion of the parking infrastructure on offer.
Hawthorn has been the king of stealing our Map dreams. The Hawks get the very cream of it and it has provided them the financial stability for long-term success.
Would they have their pokie revenue, be a membership leader or built sustained on-field success without the Tasmanian Government and its vote-hungry/Band-Aid-short-term-solution to killing our collective dream? Yet we continually allow Hawthorn to hold North Melbourne’s hand as they rape and pillage the Tasmanian public out of the very dream that created this merry-go-round of misery: That Map Dream, born from 20,000 sardines packed into North Hobart Oval to see our Map, and my man Darrin Pritchard, carve up the Vics on our patch.
Tasmania contributes $8 million-plus to the AFL, via two of its clubs, per year to ensure they are not just viable, but prosperous. Yet we can’t get an additional 1.1 million to create a suitable pathway structure — TSL, Mariners and VFL — that ensures the state, its talent and its proud history, is respected as a VFL/AFL heartland?
Any chance of Hawthorn and North Melbourne maybe chipping in? Pfffftt.
You see, that would mean Tasmania, the AFL and the two clubs were in a meaningful and trusting relationship; instead of our government answering their once monthly 4am call for a cuddle.
This is not your fault, Tasmanians. It’s just how Tinder has changed the game.
Any chance of Hawthorn and North Melbourne maybe chipping in? Pfffftt