martinjy.com — Martin Young’s blog

Keep the North Melbourne Football Club in North Melbourne

There’s been plenty of debate recently about whether the North Melbourne footy club should relocate to the Gold Coast. I’m not going to attempt to summarise all the arguments for and against the move, but from where I’m sitting it looks like a simple money vs passion issue. You can read about the issue here, but essentially the two opinions are:

1. The club should relocate for financial reasons.
2. The financial reasons are surmountable, and club should stay because the club is North Melbourne.

I was a North member in the early to mid 90s and used to love taking the train to the ‘G, driving out to Waverley, even risking life and limb at the Western Oval and Victoria Park. Certainly I was lucky to be watching when Carey, Schwass, Laidley, Rock, Allison, McKernan, Roberts, Stevens et al. were running around, but I enjoyed watching the buggers from the other teams too … Dunstall, Lockett, Jarman, Ablett etc. More accurately, I just enjoyed watching footy and respected the rivalry and tradition between clubs. Any pre-1994 North person knows that the Hawks had the wood over us for years. In ‘95 Carlton beat us in the prelim and I’ve hated them ever since. The North/Richmond games always had an amazing atmosphere. You get the idea.

All that goes out the window if North become the Gold Coast Kangaroos. Who remembers Fitzroy now? A few die-hards, that’s it.

I don’t often get caught up in emotional “causes”, but I see shareholder value vs customer service decisions going the financial route all the time in my corporate life and that pisses me off. This is the same thing, in my opinion.

So. I’m just one man and these days I prefer surfing to footy, but I’m coming out of the woodwork and committing here and now to five years of membership IF they stay in Melbourne, purely to stick it to the AFL and to chalk one up for passion over money. The club IS North Melbourne and should stay that way.