HitTheBoundary wrote:Con Gorozidis wrote:Absolutely awesome post. Museum, cafe etc would be just tremendous. And using the examples you used is showing you undertand what a global football marketplace we now find ourselves in. At Seaford we will eventually perish if we stay there. I am almost certain of that.
Agreed. All of that would be great.
But where will it go? CricVic plans to have all of those things in their facility, so where would we be able to put it?
Here is a photo of their envisaged facility.
Once again, I am not against the move, I'm merely playing devils advocate in the hope that the Saints push for a total deal, not just a left over dogs breakfast.
I totally agree and I also harbour a minor fear that we'll be marginalised, as we were at Colonial Stadium. Hopefully Finnis, Summers and contributors like Fox are smart enough to see the big picture like us and negotiate with the evil cricket bigwigs, who will be secretly planning to use and abuse our club, and actually make the Saints Centre happen. I certainly think it would be a critical element of returning to that area.
Plugger raises some interesting points and while they are not all good ones, it does help to have a few discerning voices out there to give the more optimistic of us a reality check. Even so, I'd like to take issue on some of those points here:
plugger66 wrote:Still cant see why people will join our club because we are training in St Kilda.
Already explained in length, earlier in thread. You still can't see it? You know that expression "Out of Sight, Out of Mind"? You may think that that is the Seaford Saints motto, but this proposal is kind of like the other side of that expression - In Sight, In Mind. Not as poetic, but you get the point, I hope.
plugger66 wrote:Arent kids usually the new members
Usually? Perhaps, perhaps not. People decide to follow football/a club for different reasons. I'd need to see stats, but I first became a member when I was 27. Am I the only person who became a fan in adulthood? Doubtful. There's certainly enough potential for less committed fans of football to develop an allegiance for their local club and anyway...
plugger66 wrote:and dont most kids live further out from St Kilda.
Really? Again, I'd like to see stats on that. My guess is that there's quite a few young families in the area, particularly in the neighbouring burbs like Elwood, Brighton, etc. Both statements are certainly up for question, based on a total lack of evidence, and their simplistic nature.
plugger66 wrote:Yep our profile will rise but if we arent winning we arent getting new members.
I've already agreed with you on that, but that is true with or without the move. You also elsewhere questioned whether the facilities would match the fantastic set up that the Linen House Centre enjoys. I doubt
very much that tgey wouldn't be as good as at our current home, (hopefully you're just playing devil's advocate, cos I can't believe that you sincerely consider that realistic), especially with elite Cricket folks also involved; the only sticky issue might be access to those facilities, ie having to share with said cricket bods. I'm sure it will be fine though, I'd say that sorting that out would be a priority for the club.
plugger66 wrote:Whats to say we dont lose many new members from the Seaford area. Hopefully we make many more dollars off sponsorship of the new training area but I cant see the membership changing much at all because of the training area.
Yes, and that increased sponsorship will enable us to become more competitive, which will also help to increase membership. I could keep on banging away about how membership could change because of the training area, but if you can't see it, you can't see it. Hopefully people at the club can see it. Correct me if I'm wrong but won't St Kilda will still be the closest AFL club to the Seaford area barring Geelong? So maybe people down there will still identify with us rather than the northern Melbourne clubs.
plugger66 wrote:My soul is with Moorabbin but not because we trained there but because thats where I saw us play in my younger days. The St Kilda area means jack to me as far as the saints are concerned. Hope it means more to new supporters and ones that have thrown there support away.
I think that it's instructive that even supposed a hard-nosed realist like Plugger mentions his 'soul' connected with the place he saw his boyhood idols play. We are not going to get that back unfortunately, but the next best thing is watching training sessions, scratch matches and such that Punt Road oval and Princes Park enjoy. I think a lot of people get a thrill out of watching their clubs new players and stars prepare during the week, plus all the events and clinics. Again, I think it's fantastic that we may possibly give the children of the all South Yarra inner suburbs that soul connection again. The northern suburbs have got most of the other 9 Melbourne clubs representing them, so horray for us.
Plugger, most St Kilda fans still alive would probably agree with you about Moorabbin, but this move is really as much about the future than the past, and obviously there is a big historical link to St Kilda and the Junction. Having said this, another poster suggested statues of Saints greats spotted around the St Kilda landmarks, but this idea makes me uneasy, because most of those players had little to do with the suburb and share Plugger's ties to Moorabbin. I agree with Con that this link should not be a fake, poorly orchestrated move as our club has been guilty of making historically, and just suddenly pretending that we have been there all along is to do a grave injustice to our history and our proud link with Moorabbin.
I believe we should acknowledge our gypsy heritage, our rag-tag history and our survivalist nature, not deny it. Those statues would be better off in Moorabbin, but perhaps we may think about a 'Babyface' Jack Billings or Jimmy 'the Shimmy' Webster statue in the St Kilda locale in years to come, certainly players like Dave McNamara and Roy Cazaly and such would be more appropriate for the moment. We started off at St Kilda, we moved to pastures new, evolved, then tried moving again, it didn't work out, now we're returning to our historical homeland.
Maybe it won't work out, at the very worst it will be another chapter in the fascinating story of one of the world's more interesting sporting clubs. We really don't have anything to lose, except very possibly some fantastic real estate and memberships near Frankston. It won't solve all our problems; we still have one of the world's shittiest stadium deals as a giant millstone on our back and we're still the record wooden spoon holder by some margin, but let's hope that the right people in the right positions can get this one right and set the club up with a better tomorrow.
Despite the trepidation this issue merits, you have got to admit, all this talk of moving is intoxicating! I'm going to rename this thread HOPEIUM!
