To the board of the St kilda Football Club

[GrumpyOne]

I must admit I have uncovered the whole history to the situation.

It was a curse first enacted by the combined efforts of one John Wren and one Frank Mannix, concerning the deflowering of a certain young relative of Wren's whilst at a soiree where certain members of the St Kilda Football Club were in attendence.

At the time , one of the pair was a budding polititian and business mogul, and the other Catholic Primate of Melbourne. It is still difficult to tell which was which.

They both made sacred oath on a spare bit of ground behind St Patricks that no St Kilda captain shall lift the premiership cup unless dressed as a Collingwood Player.

The news when it got out was horrific, but the protagonists refused to budge.

Several semi-devious efforts were made to short-circuit the curse, encluding the recruitment of Collingwood Gun Of The Time, Jack ""Cracker"" Knight as Captain-Coach in the 30s, but to no avail.

It took the lightening ingenuity of a tasmanian in 1966 to snatch the jumper of a naieve Ballarat boy, Des Tuddenham, to ensure the curse was overcome, albeit temporarily.

Within the confines of the now overegulated AFL. ""legal"" steps have been taken to ensure the Saints second premiership, despite the curse. Hence the use of ""clash"" jumpers that closely resemble Collingwood gear.

[Spinner]

THE CLASH JUMPER ISSUE

Traditional front, black back (sleeves + trim) for home, traditional front, white back (sleeves + trim) for away. It's perfect, it's simple, it's obvious, it's St Kilda.

I am in TOTAL agreement.
Alwaysaway needs to stand up for the StKilda Football Club.
Stand up for the members.
Stand up for the jumper.

Agree 100% also.

The rules are there - Higher finisher wears home jumper.


Why the people at the club arn't smart enough to play inside these rules to our best advantage surprises me. Invert the existing jumper with a white back and done. No need for crosses in the middle. No need to extend the middle panel.

[Leo.J]

I'm all for keeping the jumper as traditional as possible, but I think what your proposing is not within the guidelines.

A whole footy jumper = 100%.

The back =50%
The front = 50%

So if the back is white that is 50%.

And in the Filths case 50% of the front of their jumper is white, which is 25% of the whole jumper.

50% + 25% = 75%.

In our case we have only 33.3% of the front of our as white, which is 16.7 of the entire jumper.

50% + 16.7 = Not enough white to please the AFL

[Leo.J]

Sorry if thats been mentioned before.

[saintspremiers]

what the Fcuk is that?

It's the Freo away strip with a hint of black and red!

[barks4eva]

I'm all for keeping the jumper as traditional as possible, but I think what your proposing is not within the guidelines.

A whole footy jumper = 100%.

The back =50%
The front = 50%

So if the back is white that is 50%.

And in the Filths case 50% of the front of their jumper is white, which is 25% of the whole jumper.

50% + 25% = 75%.

In our case we have only 33.3% of the front of our as white, which is 16.7 of the entire jumper.

50% + 16.7 = Not enough white to please the AFL

By your reckoning Collingwood's jumper only adds up to a total of 50% not 75% as the back of their jumper also has vertical stripes!

So the AFL dictate to us over some imaginary figure of 8.3% pulled out of thin air?

The facts are that our home jumper with a white back clashes with no other club and surely that is the only criteria that needs to be assessed!

Our home jumper with a white back has more white than Collingwood's jumper that has been approved!

Our board need to be proactive and open communication channels with the AFL to resolve this issue!

Would Eddie McGuire allow this to happen to Collingwood, of course not!

If the clash jumper does NOT clash, then surely that is all that is required!

[bigred]

Bet your bottom dollar that if we end up in the GF against Collingwood again, we will be wearing the clash strip. Even if we win ten more games through the season. Guaranteed.

You can make light of the topic all you like, but as a club we have been whoring out the guernsey for far, far too long.

The OP is pretty much on the money here.

The A.F.L consider us to be a jumper bitch, plain and simple. We just go along with whatever they ask because it is easier than getting the Filth or Essendon to change anything.

We should be happy with that?

[barks4eva]

Actually GW did say it, but it was with tongue firmly in cheek and taken as such by RL and 99% of the crowd in attendance

I'd be surprised if one percent took him seriously!

Of course it was said in jest and he was being jocular!

It does however highlight a meek board that allow themselves to be bent over, have not sought to resolve this issue by setting up a meeting to put forward the desired jumper for our brand, emphasising the fact that this jumper in fact does not clash with any other club!

What would Eddie McGuire do?

He would not take it like a lame duck!

[satchmo]

Bet your bottom dollar that if we end up in the GF against Collingwood again, we will be wearing the clash strip. Even if we win ten more games through the season. Guaranteed.

You can make light of the topic all you like, but as a club we have been whoring out the guernsey for far, far too long.

The OP is pretty much on the money here.

The A.F.L consider us to be a jumper bitch, plain and simple. We just go along with whatever they ask because it is easier than getting the Filth or Essendon to change anything.

We should be happy with that?

ka..ching

[Enrico_Misso]

Actually GW did say it, but it was with tongue firmly in cheek and taken as such by RL and 99% of the crowd in attendance

I'd be surprised if one percent took him seriously!

Of course it was said in jest and he was being jocular!

It was his Peter Garrett moment.
"A short jocular conversation".

[Life Long Saint]

I'm all for keeping the jumper as traditional as possible, but I think what your proposing is not within the guidelines.

A whole footy jumper = 100%.

The back =50%
The front = 50%

So if the back is white that is 50%.

And in the Filths case 50% of the front of their jumper is white, which is 25% of the whole jumper.

50% + 25% = 75%.

In our case we have only 33.3% of the front of our as white, which is 16.7 of the entire jumper.

50% + 16.7 = Not enough white to please the AFL

By your reckoning Collingwood's jumper only adds up to a total of 50% not 75% as the back of their jumper also has vertical stripes!

So the AFL dictate to us over some imaginary figure of 8.3% pulled out of thin air?

The facts are that our home jumper with a white back clashes with no other club and surely that is the only criteria that needs to be assessed!

Our home jumper with a white back has more white than Collingwood's jumper that has been approved!

Our board need to be proactive and open communication channels with the AFL to resolve this issue!

Would Eddie McGuire allow this to happen to Collingwood, of course not!

If the clash jumper does NOT clash, then surely that is all that is required!

Leo, how do your calculations stack up if the jumper is a long-sleeve? That would add the %white if the sleeves were white.

Barks, you are trying to apply common sense to a situation that Adrian Anderson and his merry band of lawyers have come up with...Because only a lawyer would come up with a % figure on the amount of contrast in a jumper.

FWIW, If we went to our 80's style jumper that clearly had a wider section of white than today's model and made our back white then we should be fine. So a compromise perhaps?

[Enrico_Misso]

Could we wear our existing home jumper,
but ramp up the white with white helmets, gloves, stockings, lippy and boots?

[dcstkfc]

Bet your bottom dollar that if we end up in the GF against Collingwood again, we will be wearing the clash strip. Even if we win ten more games through the season. Guaranteed.

You can make light of the topic all you like, but as a club we have been whoring out the guernsey for far, far too long.

The OP is pretty much on the money here.

The A.F.L consider us to be a jumper bitch, plain and simple. We just go along with whatever they ask because it is easier than getting the Filth or Essendon to change anything.

We should be happy with that?

I cannot begin to tell you how pissed off I'm getting about this. Can we and the AFL grow some expletive balls. Let's make a serious media issue out of Round 3. Someone make some phone calls to someone at the papers, and get people talking about Essendon raping us!

[Mr Magic]

I don't believe there was ever a problem in clashing with the new/old Collingwood jumper until they (the Filth) added that big red Emirates logo to their jumper.
That's what makes it clash with ours, IMO.
Make them change that to another colour and there is no clash between our home jumper and their away jumper.

As for other jumper clashes - I think we should have a multitude of 'clash' jumpers to meet the needs of playing against specific teams.

The marketing possibilities (and resultant revenue for us) are enormous.

[bigred]

The marketing possibilities (and resultant revenue for us) are enormous

Not really.

How many of this years preseason guernseys do you think they sold through the NAB Cup? Fifty? One hundred would be an extremely generous estimate. So whats that worth? Maybe $11000 total revenue? I daresay that the margin on a short run of maybe 1000 jumpers would still be pretty slim.

The hot crossed bun jumper from the late nineties was probably the main revenue raiser for us, since then, perhaps the Heritage style sold quite a few, but realistically that would be about it.

Is it really worth it?

Who designs and signs off on these jumpers anyway?

[Bernard Shakey]

I must admit I have uncovered the whole history to the situation.

It was a curse first enacted by the combined efforts of one John Wren and one Frank Mannix, concerning the deflowering of a certain young relative of Wren's whilst at a soiree where certain members of the St Kilda Football Club were in attendence.

At the time , one of the pair was a budding polititian and business mogul, and the other Catholic Primate of Melbourne. It is still difficult to tell which was which.

They both made sacred oath on a spare bit of ground behind St Patricks that no St Kilda captain shall lift the premiership cup unless dressed as a Collingwood Player.

The news when it got out was horrific, but the protagonists refused to budge.

Several semi-devious efforts were made to short-circuit the curse, encluding the recruitment of Collingwood Gun Of The Time, Jack ""Cracker"" Knight as Captain-Coach in the 30s, but to no avail.

It took the lightening ingenuity of a tasmanian in 1966 to snatch the jumper of a naieve Ballarat boy, Des Tuddenham, to ensure the curse was overcome, albeit temporarily.

Within the confines of the now overegulated AFL. ""legal"" steps have been taken to ensure the Saints second premiership, despite the curse. Hence the use of ""clash"" jumpers that closely resemble Collingwood gear.

Just for accuracy it was Daniel Mannix.

[Mr X from the West]

I'm totally with Barks on this, always have been. Makes so much sense to do as he suggests.

Keep pushin' Barks!

[thequarry]

what the Fcuk is that?

It's the Freo away strip with a hint of black and red!

Lenny's wearing that in a promo image for tomorrow's launch of the Saints' 2011 TV commercial...as far as I can tell, unless the front is mirrored on the back we're looking at even more white than we're used to...

[thequarry]

From the 2011 membership commercial:

[Sainternist]

The was a thread the other week about the new clash jersey. I think HSVKing posted a prototype graphic of it and it didn't look so bad. But this looks even worse than year's from a photographic perspective.

what the Fcuk is that?

Apparently ISC are making these, but it looks more like a French Connection United Kingdom (FCUK) design

[HSVKing]

what the Fcuk is that?

$$$$$

[Sainternist]

Another thing, you'd think they'd design something which actually looks aesthetically pleasing to the fans so they can make a few sales from it, right?

I recall soccer clubs in the UK having their supporters vote online in choosing from a number of designs for a new strip they would be wearing for a forthcoming season. Perhaps we should adopt a similar system?

[thequarry]

I recall soccer clubs in the UK having their supporters vote online in choosing from a number of designs for a new strip they would be wearing for a forthcoming season. Perhaps we should adopt a similar system?

The Saints did that at the end of 2006, which gave us the apron jumper, although the alternative wasn't much different (but in my opinion far superior).

I don't see why they couldn't have the white cross thinner, so the red and black are somewhere closer to the home jumper dimensions - we could get away with the "75% white" rule easily (PR deflection technique)...i.e. there doesn't HAVE to be so much white in this one.

[barks4eva]

The board should arrange a meeting with the AFL and make a number of points very strongly!

Emphasise the fact that we are now a big club likely to have 45,000 members this year!

Show the jumper already stitched, HOME jumper with white back, white sleeves, trim and collar and present it to them!

Tell them OUR BRAND is important to us and as part of this we implore you/the AFL to allow us to have an away jumper which is the HOME jumper with a white back to more adequately reflect this!

Make the point strongly that this jumper does not in fact clash with any other club so there is no logical reason why there should be any objection to it!

In the event that we play off in another GRAND FINAL we want our club represented on the world stage in something as close to the HOME JUMPER as possible in the event we are the away team!

Demetriou or Anderson or whichever laterally challenged idiot who pulled some figure out of thin air and created some simplistic guideline that a club must have 75% of the lightest colour in their jumper as their away jumper is absolute buffoonery in the extreme!

If a club has 67.33% of it's jumper white ( 8.33% short of the quota ) and it does NOT clash with any other club, then what is the deal with it being held to ransom over some imaginary figure pulled out of thin air to satisfy some moronic guideline implemented by Demetriou or Anderson, seriously FAIR DINKUM, this is an absolute disgrace!

Half the competition is running around in white jumpers every weekend, ok I'm exaggerating, but you get my drift!

So the board should show some balls, get proactive push for this strongly and if this proposal is still rejected, let me know and I'll organise a follow up meeting with Demetriou where I will bring Chopper Read along to help with the negotiations!

FAIR DINKUM!

Enough is enough, if we make a Grand Final this year I want the players running on in a jumper that at least has the traditional panels in equal size and dimension on the front!

The board need to act now!

!!!!!!!!

[avid]

Yes,
If you go with 66.66% white you get no clash and a REAL St Kilda jumper

If you go for 83.33% you get no clash and that stupid looking thing that Lenny's wearing further up this thread.

Somebody at AFL House please inject some common sense and insight into this!