Thought of the Day: Attendance isnt that exciting

Being a Melbourne Demons fan is a rather mixed blessing. There are very few expectations to actually win, which means that one has the pleasure of simply enjoying watching a game of football, rather than agonising over defeat or missed goals.

This culture of attendance has had mixed impacts on the club, during the 90's the management became a little too lackadaisical and almost killed it off completely through a merger. There was then a period of consideration, in which the club decided it did want to survive, but wasn't sure in what capacity.

It was during this time that Melbourne went through five club Presidents and six CEO's (7 if you don't count Cameron Schwab twice), before past champion Jim Stynes took over and set a course for club stability and growth, though with very little in the way of expectations for on-field success.

The recent tragic passing of Jim has coincided with the club again celebrating the culture of attendance through broadcasting its mediocrity to anyone listening.

This began with Don McLardy, the new President (best make that 6 Presidents) declaring that Melbourne wants to be one of the Top 5 clubs, not in the league, but in Victoria. What better way to strike fear into your opponents than by saying you want to be a bigger club than North Melbourne. And this was advertised as an ambition!

Most recently though, has been the very public announcement of Energy Watch as the major sponsor of the club, followed by the even more publicised ditching of Energy Watch as the major sponsor.

The appointment of Energy Watch was surprising to start with, as the company was already under investigation from the ACCC and the other contender for being the major sponsor was the Bank of Melbourne.

I'm not sure who was in charge of choosing a dodgy energy-referral website over one of the most established banks in Australia, but it was clearly not someone who wanted to change the 'attendance' reputation, but more shout it to the skies.

I suppose the lesson here is that whenever the club has gotten a little excited about itself, things have gone badly. If one is to be a club that provides a comfortable and enjoyable brand of football to be watched, one should promote itself accordingly.