A Huge Read, But Do Yourself A Favour.....

[Black_White]

You must read this.
I know it's big but it explains the last 3 years of CFC and how we have been saved from being a "Fitzroy" and exiting the competition.
Grab yourself a Scotch, o.k., a beer for you lower class guys (joke) and sit back, read and enjoy.


THIS is the inside story of the most important three years in Collingwood's proud history.

The defining moment

EDDIE McGuire has the journalist's habit of using rich colours to paint a picture. So when he says he feared Collingwood could have become the next Fitzroy by 2010, you take a contemplative step back. But when his partner-in-revival at the Magpies, Greg Swann, an accountant by profession and the administrator employed to run Fitzroy in its dying days, concurs, reality strikes.

"Yeah, he's right. It could have been the case the way it was heading," Swann says.

When Swann finally succumbed to McGuire's lure to join Collingwood as its chief executive in late 1999, it took him only a few months to discover the awful truth. Collingwood was a hollow shell of a once-strong, vibrant club, rapidly losing pride, dignity and, most importantly, money. It was close to $1.7 million in debt and in desperate need of help.

An example of the desperation was Swann's proposal to the new board for an unashamed public appeal for funds. "It got chucked out pretty quickly," he says, noting the Collingwood mentality couldn't come to terms with the idea of a tin rattle.

But the Magpies weren't too proud to seek charity from another source. They invited AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson and the then football operations chief Ian Collins to Victoria Park for a meeting. The official reason was "to explain the club's financial situation".

But Swann is now less euphemistic. "We pretty much went in with a begging bowl," he says.

However, perfunctory handshakes were the only things exchanged. According to McGuire, the men from the firm refused to entertain the idea of even minor assistance. But he now sees it in a positive light.

"It was the best thing that ever happened to Collingwood," he said.

"We laid all our cards on the table because we knew we were stuffed. They gave us nothing. From that moment on it was us against everybody else."

Not long after, the AFL suggested to Collingwood it might "sell" a home game to Sydney to help its finances. Even today, it's best not to mention this deal to McGuire, for the sake of his blood pressure.

"They tried to put the boot into me and force me to do a deal that would have been disastrous for Collingwood," he says. "They wanted us to take four-fifths of sweet FA.

"They tried to give it to me in the worst possible way. They really put the pressure on. I was very green and probably floundering as a president. They tried to be my pal. They tried to bend me over. And when Swannie and I spoke to them, we dropped our tweeds and they gave it to us.

"Jacko rang me up on the phone. He said, 'That's why Collingwood is rooted. What's wrong with you? Be a leader'. He was really giving it to me. But I said no."

Swann claims the deal would have earned the club less than $100,000, a pittance when set against the $300,000 Melbourne gets for taking a home game to Brisbane. "I remember reading the deal and saying to Ed, 'We can't sign this. It's just a disaster'.

"Andrew Demetriou, who had just come into the job at the AFL, rang to ask why I wouldn't sign. I went in and showed him the deal. He read it and said, 'No wonder you won't sign'. He called Wayne into the office and said, 'Have you actually seen the deal that everyone has been pushing down their throat? It's no good'. It just all fell away from there."

McGuire believes it was all part of a softening-up process.

"I soon realised what was going on. I think they tried to get me in their pocket," he said. "But all it did was give me the mad stare. I went full on into a fury for two years. If you weren't for Collingwood, you were against it."

Swann calls it a defining moment. "No question about it. It's like on the footy field. Sometimes your worst moment is your defining moment."

Back in the Dark Ages

A COLLINGWOOD supporter in his mid-30s got up from his seat in the last quarter and expressed his disillusionment at another thrashing from Carlton in the way he knew best. "Get f-----, Collingwood," he yelled before turning on his heel and heading for the exit.

McGuire observed this from his radio commentary box. "I felt exactly the same as he did," he said.

"I could feel the despondency. We always used to have bragging rights. The biggest crowds, most premierships and most members. Now we had things like the Viatel and soccer club disasters. Every election was a s---fight. You felt excluded. There were so many factions in the place.

"And, meanwhile, the other clubs were going past us in a hurry."

McGuire, who had been helping the club behind the scenes, says he approached the president, Kevin Rose, in 1998.

"I said, 'It's really drastic. We need to do something'. He said, 'Who do you reckon could do it?'. I said, 'I've searched around but I think it's got to be me'. He agreed. I went and saw (board member) Peter Hammond and away we went."

McGuire then approached the full committee, with his plan for a revamped board compromising four new members (Alex Waisilitz, Brad Cooper, Ian McMullin and himself) and three from the incumbent board (Rose, Jack Kennedy and Hammond).

"When three guys agreed straight away, it was as if everyone realised the time had come. They had tried their best and they were exhausted. The place had fallen apart around them."

Once elected, on his 34th birthday, McGuire began poking his nose into every nook and cranny.

"Each coterie was running its own fiefdom. There was no cohesion, no business plan. No one had budgets," he said. "That's what happens when you have volunteers. As much as I appreciate what they do, I'd rather pay them. And then if they are no good you can sack them.

"I went into it in the first year believing everyone was rorting the place, just so I could be proved wrong. I was pretty hard-nosed. I wasn't there to make friends and I didn't.

"Some areas had cash bars, and then there were the ticket allocations. They'd ring up person X because they'd always been looked after under the old mates' act. The first year I was there, everyone was lining up for their finals tickets, and who knows where they were going?

"Everyone pays at Collingwood now. I pay for my lunch, my wife's lunch. When I fly interstate, I pay for the ticket. When one of the coteries complained they received access to only two (finals) tickets and had to pay for them, I said, 'Yeah, so do I'. That's silenced them. There's no skulduggery."

Swann said: "We had two full-time property stewards when we needed only one. And we had one full-time person in sponsorship. So we had twice as many people carting around the jumpers as we did working on close to the most vital area in the club. The focus was just so wrong."

The micro-reform extended to the washing of those jumpers. "We used to send out all the jumpers to be dry-cleaned. Through a sponsor, we got two heavy-duty washing machines and did it ourselves," Swann said.

"There was nothing earth-shattering about it all but we managed to cut $750,000 out of the place by querying things."

As Swann went through the books line by line and kept finding new financial holes, the full extent of the problem hit him between the eyes.

"The club was immersed in a culture of 'That's the way we've always done it. And that's way we'll continue to do it'. But the rest of the competition, and sport and business in general, had moved on," he said.

The renaissance begins

NO MATTER how minor a problem might seem, when there are any rumblings at Collingwood, they go all the way to the top.

It's why McGuire found himself laying down the law to the cheer squad a few weeks ago and threatening to take over as leader.

"Until last year it was factionalised," he explained. "They had the official, the unofficial, the grog squad and some other mob. They hated each other and would cat-call at each other during games. We sorted it out last year, but about three weeks ago it started to come apart again through egos.

"I called them all in and said, 'I want you to know I run this place. Other than the players the cheer squad is our most visible sign on match days. We want it to work. If you want to muck up you are out and I'll ban you from coming to the game.

"I'll put somebody in to run it or I'll stand down there and be the cheer-squad leader until we get it right'."

McGuire says he also made it an objective to try to change the relationship with the coterie groups and the past players' association, well-known areas for disharmony in the past.

"We've been able to sort out the coteries and have them play a positive role," he says. "Now that we have turned the club into a modern sports-based business, the cheques from the coteries are no longer make or break.

"We want the past players to use their money to have good times. Now they have a life members' dinner. It's fantastic.

"I think the past players used to feel the club owed them more than it could deliver and the club didn't understand or give them enough kudos. Everyone felt bitter. What I've found is that everyone really just wants a cuddle."

As McGuire cuddles and tickles egos around the club and continues to help lift the profile and bottom line, which will reach record levels this year, coach Mick Malthouse gets on with running the core business.

He's doing so, at an exhilarating pace, as the team which has undergone massive transformation -- 32 players turned over in three seasons -- establishes itself as a certain finals contender for the first time in eight seasons.

"We needed a coach who could sustain three years at the bottom of the ladder because I knew our list was beyond ordinary," McGuire said. "I believed I could take most of the blows for a couple of years. But I needed to get a coach who had enough runs on the board and confidence not to be shattered by the spotlight that's always on Collingwood."

He found his man in Malthouse, who headed home after 10 seasons at West Coast.

"It wasn't a case of 'Come on, Mick, we'll go and buy every player in Australia and win a flag in a year's time'. I think it was the vision I had for rebuilding the club, through the Olympic Park move and other things that sold him on the job," McGuire said.

The key to the transformation has been in the people. With McGuire, Swann and Malthouse, some say the Magpies now have their own great triumvirate. But it's deeper than that. They have turned over 70 per cent of the staff, which has allowed them to attack critical areas of sponsorship and membership and finally bring the club into the age of enlightenment.

"If you look at the place now, the people here have been stamped by Greg, Mick and I. They do things our way. We'll cop it if it starts going pear-shaped. It's our fault from here," said McGuire, with all the satisfaction and confidence of a president who has overseen a staggering turnaround from a $1.7 million deficit in early 2000 to a projected profit this year of $1.3 million.

Now for the cream

NOTHING escapes the McGuire gaze it seems these days.

He was so upset with the quality of the cream on the scones, and the main course, at the presidential dinner before the club's home game against the Swans that he complained personally to the caterer.

"I'm not going to be served up crap. We have certain standards at Collingwood," he said. "The cream and the meat were a disgrace. But the message got through. Next time there was a beautiful piece of eye fillet and the cream was spot-on.

"The caterer had a bad night and reacted. I rang them personally to say thanks."

It's certainly the detail that now pleases the Magpies' board; detail that shows the planned move of its base to Olympic Park will, apart from naming-rights sponsorships and advertising, net the club an extra $500,000 every year; that its burgeoning merchandising department has jumped more than 300 per cent this year to $300,000-$400,000; and that its membership is soaring to net takings of $3.6 million this year.

And then there's the $2 million coming from the sale of Waverley.

Swann and McGuire put together a three-year plan in 2000 under three headings. The first year was "Right The Sinking Ship", the second year "Awake The Sleeping Giant", and the third year "Become the AFL's Most Hated/Respected Team".

Swann said: "We've pretty much fulfilled those things (off the field) and we are now in the process of resetting where we think we will be down the track. We are behind Essendon financially by three years or so. But I reckon we are catching up pretty quickly.

"I reckon within another couple of years we should be bullet-proof."

As for McGuire, he senses his major goal is getting closer as well. "All I want to do is bring the magic back to Collingwood," he says.

And to, think, less than three years ago, they discussed having a tin rattle to save the place.


Thats it guys! Great stuff, yes?


-Craig

P.S. This article appeared in the H/S 11/07/2002

[stik35]

Thanks Craig.
I heard about the article today but went to 3 shops to get the paper and all sold out.
Just goes to show what dire straits the Club were in a few years ago.
Thank god for Eddie, the new regime and the new direction we are headed in.
We will be the most Loved/Hated Club again.

[Dgen]

Brilliant!

'caveat pica pica'

[Kristin5]

The article simply backs up and justifies what I've been saying to my family and friends for the last few years - Eddie may annoy the crap out of other teams supporters, but he has been an absolute godsend for Collingwood (I hadn't realised just how right I was though, until I read this article).

"I'm sure people see me as a screaming redhead with a big pair of boobs, but I like to think I've got things to say." Geri Halliwell, former member of the Spice Girls

[Clemo]

Black_white,
Thanks for posting the article. Great stuff !
By the way - how did you get it to Nick's ?

_____________________
Collingwood Forever !
clemo@magpies.net
http://www.dodo.net.au/~clemo

[clokeforever34]

IM METALLY STUFFED AFTER ALL THAT!!!! but it was brilliant!!!!

[Black_White]

Clemo, I typed it............

Anyone who's been in the Virtual Outer knows thats a lie!


Seriously, I just went to the HeraldSun website, clicked on "football", found the article headline (sometimes you have to click on the journo's name to see his work) and then went to the full article.
Hold your mouse key down to "highlight" all the text. Right click to open a command box, click on "copy". Come to Nicks, open a new topic, write my little bit of an opener, then right click again. command box, click paste. Done!

Ah how technology is shaping our lives.

-Craig