SA Footy

North turnaround stuns Demetriou

June 02, 2008 AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou says North Melbourne's off-field transformation in the past seven months has defied his expectations.

The Kangaroos unveiled plans for a $15m redevelopment of their Arden St base, including new training facilities as well a multicultural education base – the Life and Learning Centre.

Demetriou said the club's ability to garner support to ensure the redevelopment went ahead was one of several signs of their growing off-field strength.

It contrasts with their position last November, when James Brayshaw took over as chairman and the club voted not to relocate to the Gold Coast, despite fears they faced extinction in Melbourne.

"This football club, from the moment that it announced that it wanted to stay in Melbourne, has kicked many, many goals – 30,000 members is an incredible achievement given we didn't ever think we'd see the day that the North Melbourne Football Club would have that level of membership," Demetriou said.

"They've been able to cut costs out of their business and introduce efficiencies.

"They've signed up corporate partners and sponsorships, they're now talking about their redevelopment back on track ... they've done an outstanding job."

Kangaroos chief executive Eugene Arocca said an improved home base was critical to the club cementing their future in Melbourne.

"Every club that's succeeded in Victoria in recent years has been based around a strong new facility – Hawthorn with Waverley, Collingwood with the Lexus Centre, Carlton's now getting their facility in order," Arocca said.

it is going to be interesting to see how many members re sign up next year. most supporterd did it this year because the kangas needed it.

Knockers ? Going to start with the imaginative name for the education base - "The Life and Learning Centre"

Seriously, it is a great sign for the club to be able to announce this, and important for the club and supporters especially that are not privy to inside information regarding the future of a club..they now can see that the decision to saty in Victoria has even further merit

Congratulations on an amazing achievement so far - I had not thought it possible.
I agree with "the joker" that it has to be continued next year - good luck.

It's one thing to rally a membership spike on the back of extinction talk by the club. People sign up their kids, their pets, etc. But people won't do that year after year so the challenge is to maintain it - and to do that they need to keep their on-field results strong and do all the right things off the field, as they seem to be doing.

Good luck to them really, the TV deals will lock in 16-18 teams so I don't think the club is going anywhere TBH. I still think one day they will regret not moving to the GC but what they'll never know will never hurt them now.

One of the best things they did IMO was to revert back to their actual name. So much better to talk about North Melbourne.

One tip to Brayshaw - improve your credibility by getting off the Footy Show even Eddie Everywhere now admits there was more of a conflict than he admitted to himself at the time.

Good work so far.....but now the challenge is to maintain it....

OK, so they've cleared the 30 k. Next thing is 40 k.

The bigger clubs in Melbourne use the 40 k as the minimum, and will be aiming for the 50 k line.

If North hold those members and build on it next season and beyond they'll survive. If they can't
maintain the 30 k line, then like any other club who fail to reach it, they'll fail...

Not sure what other memberships figures are like, but surely Melbourne would be in dire straights ?

40,000 Hawthorn
40,000 Carlton
39,000 Collingwood (2007)
36,000 Geelong
33,918 Port
30,436 St Kilda
30,315 Richmond
27,136 Western Bulldogs
27,000 Melbourne

?????? Others

NM's total would have them 6th best of Victorian clubs, but hardly ahead of anyone with a strong memebrship history recently

might like to check the Bullies figure again Brod

Dutchy wrote:might like to check the Bullies figure again Brod

Yeah..that is total members..(why highlight that figure - ashamed of the real one)...27, 136

Where are the knockers now?

Is a picture appropriate here?

Booney wrote:Where are the knockers now?

Is a picture appropriate here?

I thought this was about FC's photo...

the joker wrote:it is going to be interesting to see how many members re sign up next year. most supporterd did it this year because the kangas needed it.

That's a fair point, but the Kangas will still be better off than they were. I recall when the Hawks fans were trying to avoid merger in 1996. The membership shot from about 10,000 to over 30,000 almost overnight. Like the Kangas, we have people signing on for the one season just to keep Hawthorn afloat.

The membership dropped marginally the next couple of seasons but has steadily improved since then. No reason why the Kangas can't do the same.

shattered i thought i was going to see pictures when i read the headline

Booney wrote:Where are the knockers now?

Is a picture appropriate here?

Yep