REVIVED THREAD: Olympic Park - The President's response

[foxy]

bewwwdiful. you are a true legend Ed.

one day before or after a game you MUST come to the Cricketers. just once. you'd LOVE it, trust me.

it feels soooo sweet knowing the club is in your hands.

[JLC]

Foxy i think you need to start preparing an extra special speech for this occassion. You da man

If need be we can get the game back 15-20 min so we can fit it all in

jlc

[silf85]

I do not have a question for you Ed, however I would just like to thankyou and the board for the work you have done over the last 4/5 years to make Collingwood successful again.
Looking very much forward to the next few years with the developments off the field and cannot wait for the flag to finally come home in the near future.

Thanks Ed.
GO PIES

[Natalie]

Eddie,

Thanx so much for your time in responding. OP will be a fantastic venue and yes like you said we have to go into the future. We are THE club and our players, coaches, staff etc at the pies must have the best facilities to continue to be the best. We will be the luckiest supporters around when the venue is completed - not to mention SC at the MCG, seats there etc.
Thank you also for your efforts and your (board, club) achievements to date. We are so lucky and privileged to have you as our president.
GO PIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pants42]

Eddie , Thank you firstly for the info and agree with the Foxy as well, with the move which is terrific for all involved, what will be the benefits financially wise ,will this generate more income for the Club and over the long term is their a debt associated with the move and if so is it managable ? Thanks once again for the info.

[joffa_the_man_in_gold]

I have seen plans with jenelle when we spoke with ed for the interview thing..its sensational and we will be the envy of every football club in Australia it will put us on the map throughout the world as far as ammenities and supporter comfort , thats is how good its going to be..The current admin led by eddie are very much aware how important this place will be for the supporter and i have no fears whatsoever that they have our interest at heart in making this place a wonderful success.

Ed i'd love to see a bit of vic park move with us i reckon we rip up the turf take it with us and plant it right outside the front entrance with 2 bronze statues of bob rose and our beloved legendary jock mchale all this is expense and i appreciate that but i reckon if we can delevop a wonderful vic park feeling it will indeed feel like home..

As a symbolic gesture i reckon it would be fantastic to have a procession up hoddle st and maybe call it something like 'the spirit moves on' from victoria park to olympic park.

Ed keep up the great work mate
cheers

[MargOZ]

Thanks for the reply Eddie, it's fantastic that you make the effort to both listen and respond to supporters - and as I'm a huge fan of Nicks Bulletin Board it's also great to see you posting here.

As much as we all love Vic Park, at the end of the day football has changed and the Club and supporters need to change or be left behind - in fact, it's even more impressive that we are the one's being proactive and actually instigating change to suit us rather than sitting back and simply reacting to what other parties want us to do. I'm desperately going to miss Vic Park but good on the Club, Ed and the Board for stepping up and making the tough decisions that will ensure a long-term, successful future for our mighty Club. I can't wait to see what OP has to offer - and it's exciting stuff actually having the opportunity to see it growing before our eyes.

It's great to hear that there will be a choice of areas to accommodate all members and that the kids haven't been forgotten. I'm a huge fan of Club Nights so I certainly hope they stay on the agenda (with Molly hosting of course!).

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already but is there a set date that OP will be operational? Will training and Club Nights remain at Vic Park at least early in the season or will there be a complete move during pre-season?

Will members and public be able to use any of the fitness/health facilities or will they be solely for the Club and players?

Will there be an official farewell to Vic Park and subsequent official celebration on arrival at OP?

And on a final note, as a member who travels from Bendigo every weekend to see our boys play - any chance of the Club opening a hotel near OP with special rates for members????? Thought it was worth a try!

Thanks Ed & GO PIES!
Marg

[Rowdy26]

Firstly I’d just like to apologize for the length of the following post. Its just that I know it will get read here, and cant simply be dismissed and chucked out. Thank you Ed for taking the time out once again to come here and enlighten us to the happenings at the club, it is greatly appreciated. I would just like to know what is happening regarding the investigation / action being taken, in regards to a fairer distribution of grand final tickets to competing club members.

Is the Collingwood Football Club realistically doing anything to address the huge shortfall in tickets available to club members to attend the grand final? I realize this is a tricky issue but it is one that bites at the bone, particularly to those supporting members who attend games rain, hail or shine every week only to be denied the chance to attend that one day that really matters. I believe there is a workable solution that would see many thousands more club members being able to see their team compete on the big day, however it involves taking action by the clubs, something that clubs probably aren’t generally prepared to take. It is often said, which has been reiterated at Collingwood, that a person’s financial status will not determine whether they can or cannot see their club play. At the moment this is untrue. Presently, unless you are fortunate enough to be able to purchase a higher class membership, then you have virtually zero chance of seeing your team compete during that final week of September.

People may say its an honour to support the club and that you shouldn’t complain if you cant see them play once a year and it’s a privilege to even see them at all. Well it is an honor and a privilege and I would totally understand, if, I knew that every possible step had been taken by the clubs and the AFL to ensure that the true fans had been catered for as best as possible first. At the moment I simply do not believe this is the case and am yet to hear otherwise.

Obviously there is a limit to the number of seats available at the MCG. You can only assign tickets to seats available and some people will miss out. I am aware of this. However when there are potentially ways to accommodate another 20,000 odd competing club members, I don’t think the using lack of seats is an acceptable excuse for members missing out.

I don’t know what each club does with its allotted grand final tickets. Until clubs give us an accurate breakdown of this then we can only assume. Although I can imagine each club makes a tidy profit out of them, for whatever purposes they decide to use them. I doubt they give them away to 1500 tireless workers at the club. I imagine a fair amount would be sold off as part of special breakfast packages, allotted to sponsors who financially assist the club (unlike members?), and maybe some go to club legends or current coaching staff / board / players.

It is the promise of these tickets to sponsors and the selling them off as part of expensive packages that I imagine is occurring (although I do not know for certain) which really bugs me. Sure I know, clubs have to make money, you have to keep sponsors happy or they won’t sign with you. Theoretically these tickets don’t belong to the clubs and I am not talking about the clubs that are actually playing in the grand final – I have no problems with the participating teams receiving an extra 1500 tickets. The AFL gives these tickets to non-participating clubs in good faith. They should be used accordingly. To profit at the expense of the less wealthy, yet still loyal and paid up member isn’t good operating in my opinion.

For starters, if a club is not competing on the last weekend in September why should their sponsors still be able to attend when members of the actual club competing cant? Why can a wealthy businessperson who has maybe attended 2 games in the season be able to buy an expensive grand-final breakfast package (simply because they have the money) allowing them admittance to a game they’d otherwise have very little interest in if it were being played on any normal weekend during the season.

To me it seems simple, it should be illegal for all non-participating clubs allocated grand final tickets from the AFL to use these for any type of financial gain.

This way clubs would have to be upfront with everybody about them. They can’t promise them to sponsors unless they make the grandfinal. They can’t sell them to high rolling business people. If the AFL were to bring in this rule then clubs couldn’t complain that they’d lose sponsorship out of it because the sponsors would know from the very start that they couldn’t get tickets unless the club they were sponsoring actually made the big game.

If clubs were genuinely concerned about their members, and were endeavoring to explore every possible option to allow as many of their members the chance to be part of the final weekend in September when their club made it then this is one area that needs serious investigation.

According to documents posted on the AFL web-site, all clubs are allotted 1500 tickets to the grand final. If this number was reduced to 50 to 100 tickets maximum (apart from competing clubs who could maintain their 1500) then this would automatically free up about 20,000 additional seats that could be used for members. This is nearly double the amount of tickets to that which is currently allocated for existing club members. 44,000 members tickets as opposed to 24,000 is a huge increase. This is even before any other method of grand final ticket distribution by the AFL has even been investigated. Admittedly members will still miss out, however, it would be much more comforting knowing that yes, the club has honestly tried its darndest to cater to its entire membership base without excluding anyone due to their financial status in society. Who’s to say that one child or one less fortunate person’s $200 is not equal to a wealthy businesspersons $800. Especially when the child or less fortunate person has shown their true heart and support by weekly cheering on the club year after year in good times and bad.

Eddie, please, can you let us know what is happening in regards to this issue. I am not posting this here in order to stir up trouble. I am posting it here because it is an issue of genuine concern and an issue that affects supporters of all clubs. I know that some people will read this here and wont simply dismiss it and throw it away. I have raised this issue before and have offered a solution as above (however workable it may or may not be) but still nothing has been heard. Thank you to those for taking the time to read over the above post. Please feel free to comment. Cheers.

[Proud Pies]

hear hear Rowdy26, and from someone who was fortunate enough to attend last years finals and grand final, what you've said is so true and does need investigating. It's the grass roots supporter that keeps all the clubs afloat.

Eddie, thanks for taking the time to respond to us here on Nicks. It's appreciated, we know that you have an extremely busy schedule, what with running Channel Eddie, cutting up footage of melee's and behind play activities, I know I certainly appreciate you taking the time to come here to answer everyone's queries

Just as an aside Eddie, you upset my mother at the Cocktail Party, you promised her an autograph and she's so distressed you left before she could get it...but it's ok, i'm sure 'old timers' has taken care of her memory (hope she doesn't read this, or i'm in BIG trouble!)

[Lorelei]

Sorry I had two sentences in one --- I'm not speaking on behalf of Joffa, but I never replied to your original thread because I was only alerted to it today by seeing Ed's post. I hadn't paid any attention to it before that.

.... not that one has to justify why one posts....

[HotPies90]

Just like everyone else, I'm blown away by the fact that the President of our football club, and the busiest man in Australia (the world?) is taking time out to respond to the concerns of us, the supporters. I really doubt that there would be any other presidents of big clubs around the world, who would do what Eddie is doing.

I don't really have a question for Eddie, just a slight suggestion to the absolutely spot-on concerns of Rowdy26. The financial realities of current-day AFL football probably mean that clubs would never give away their extremely financially valuable 1500 tickets. My suggestion is simple: reward those members who go to all the games (except for interstate games obviously). Currently tickets are allocated fairly randomly to all members. Instead, first give tickets to those who have attended every game, then those tix left over can be given to those who've only missed one game and so on.

I don't think it would be that hard to do either. Simply put a computer chip in each membership card, that counts each time it is being scanned to enter a venue.

Obviously this would have to be refined somewhat. But surely this would be the fairest system and it would reward the most passionate fans, the ones who barrack with passion week-in, week-out, rain, hail or shine! (though being Melbourne, I'm guessing its mostly rain)

[Joel]

[London Dave]

Problem solved Joel, surgically implant the chip into members!

[Ed from WA]

I heard you on 6PR with paul murray a week or so ago and it was said you two went to lunch the next day.

Did you convert him to magpieism?or at least change his view of us?

Ive been working on him for a few years now by email but not getting very far.

We are much maligned over here in the west,us magpies.

[RitchieColeRocks]

Missing the chance to watch the club you love so dearly play in a Grand Final is unbelievably disapoiting, and as I to missed last year I empithise with everyone.
But the club did all they can do, and as much as I hate, as much as I loathe the fact there is such a thing as corprate ticketing there is, and there is nothing we can do.
I remember last year, a mate of mine his friends father got like 15 corprate tickets, and they barracked for god knows what club and barely followed football at all, but he just took all his mates for the free grog and food that would be supplied, and had NO intention of watching the game.
I commensed to yell at the person I was so upset.

But, Such is Life.

Last year I was tempted to by them off scalpers, but I coudln't do it, in the greater part because it was going to be money I had set aside for Uni, and a car, but also because I couldn't bring myself to give that sought of money to the heartless people that asked them prices.