With some light at the end of the tunnel, following our worst period in our history, I was trying to pinpoint the moment it all went wrong for us, naturally it is always a series of events and decisions, however, was there a point where you think it all went south? Or even when you realised it was all turning to shite.
E.g was it the decision to appoint Britts, or trade for Mckernan, or round one 2002 against the Saints or even further back was it the fools gold of the 1999 Grand Final appearance . Also those more acquainted with the finances when did they all turn to crap, was it the Legends Stand or even earlier the Elliot Stand or another decision?
I just wondered as I was living overseas in 2000 and 2001, and basically I left we were in the Grand Final returned to see a wooden spoon, draft penalties and an insolvent football club all in two years. They say those who don't learn from history live to repeat it, and thought a post mortem would be interesting now most of the persons have been replaced and a lot of the emotion has subsided; and it cheaper than therapy.

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Green Shooter

gee, thats a good question.... you could mount a case that trade period/draft 1995 weren't all that useful.

I think some smart cookies around here have intimated that even the culture of the club circa 1995 was not sustainable after the retirements of key players, and the snowball started rolling then

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Love Cricket? Love me

When Kouta did his knee in 2000.
When the pricing on reserved seats in the Legends stand were released

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There's so much I could say...

The McKernan trade.

A piece of me died that day.

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

A piece of me died every trade period after 1994..... 1997 and 1998 were good in theory, but crap in practice.

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Love Cricket? Love me

The Livo, wiggins, sporn draft of 2000 - we've been paying for it ever since.

Black Friday also meant we couldn't start recovering from these mistakes for another couple of years.

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In WADA we trust

I remember thinking 2001 was going to be a dud season, and of course, was pleasantly surprised. In the end though, it just made 2002 even worse. But I think the seeds were sewn a lot earlier as Tyrants suggested. Our failure to use the draft, even a little bit, is as much to blame for our predicament as our poor financial health. If we couldn't see that before, let alone after, trading for O'Reilly and Mansfield, then it was no surprise we went for McKernan.

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Our problems stem from a series of bad judgement and shocking admin;

Finances - When Elliot did a deal with the AFL to use OO as a boutique oval for Mebourne behind the G and Waverley, only to have the Cocklands project start 3 years later.

- and the local councils decision not to allow lights and parking for that developement

Player recuiting - Mansfield, O'reily tip of the iceberg

Admin - Decision not to call the bluff of Alison the arsehole manager with key players salaries which led to cap penalties.

The AFL - Failure to have adequate rules in place to punish administrators rather than supporters for breaches of salary cap and the financial severity of black friday.

When Judas jumped ship to chase the dollar.

Agree about the 2000 draft as well. If any one of those players had turned out half decent we'd be in better shape than we currently are.

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If you'd given me the choice of going out and beating four men and smashing a goal in from thirty yards against Liverpool
or going to bed with Miss World, it would have been a difficult choice. Luckily, I had both. - George Best

The Hamill walkout was another incident where I thought we'd jumped the shark.

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

oh and any one of Matty Allan's contract renegotiations

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

For me one of the big decision's was the Legend's Stand.

It was wrong to me for a couple of main reasons:

1) that end of the ground was standing room for a reason, the sun is in your eyes for most of the game, if a stand was to be built there it needed to be tall and steep so the crowd was looking down onto the action rather than short and flat where you still had the sun in your eyes. People don't mind paying to get in cheap and stand with sun in their eyes, but people are more reluctant to pay extra to sit with the sun in their eyes. To me this decision reeked of a group of people deciding to build a stand where they personally have never watched a game from.

2) The legends stand changed the length of Princes Park so that it became the same length as the MCG. So in other words we gave away 100 years of having a ground that was different and played some small part in making it more difficult for other teams to play there.

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what we're saying is pretty much "Everything Elliott"

and David Parkin, god love him, as a fair bit to respond to as well with this. Player culture, recruiting.... we'll never know how much of that spread from above him, but surely he has to be touched with that brush.

Pretty much 80% of the 90s

the Legends stand was a bit of Shark jumper as well.

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Love Cricket? Love me

Totally agree on this one

This was an absolute tragedy. Kouta was clearly THE BEST player in the competition and in the prior 13 odd games he destriyed all comers. The game he played against North was just awesome. What sh#ts me the most was that Essendon* despite being on top of the ladder were absolutely crapping themselves about facing and by game time we were actually favourites.

The simple fact is that if Kouta had not gone down we would have now be sitting on (at least) 17 premierships and we would not have to listen to all the rubbish about the Bummers 2000 side being the best ever.

I am sure a 100% fit Kouta would have carried Carlton team through the change of the guard and so we would not have plummeted to the depths of the past few seasons.




Agree, financially the club became stuffed when the club (Jack ) went ahead with the construction of the Legends stand after the original design was changed down to the capacity to 30,000. The concept was supportable when it was based on a 40- 50,000 stadium but at 30,000 there was no way it could support itself. Elliott's ego has created a giant millstone which we are still a few years from recovering from.

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Carlton - Nothing's changed
I still love you, oh, I still love you
Only slightly, only slightly less
Than I used to, my love

When Richie & Ralph Malph joined the army.

OR

Not rebuilding after the 96 season tapered off badly. It meant that the 95 team was not good enough to go back to back, yet blokes like Madden & Hanna were kept on coz they were great clubmen.

Then we got stuck into the whole "topping up" trading mindset........

Let's hope that we can jump back from 06! :

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From little things, big things grow - Paul Kelly (The singer, not the Swan)

"The McGuane year"

Yep... that was a bad one

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Love Cricket? Love me

Everything listed contributed to our quagmire and outlines how we been on the bad side of fortune and mismanagement for quite some time. Perhaps the best way to fathom the amount of bad luck we've had is to list the good luck.

Nick Stevens for nothing: i remember taking my then girlfriend to a Port Adelaide game at OO just after easter in 2003. Stevens absolutely carved us up, 36 possies or something and about a 40 point loss. I said to her after the game, geez we could use a bloke like that. Magic.

Vin Waite had a son.

Brad Fisher as a draft hail mary

that's about all the good luck we've had.

When the draft and salary cap came in... Never took it seriously and we are paying the price for it. The old checkbook mentality wouldn't die.

Murphy rejecting Brisbane

Collingwood picking Dale Thomas

North wanting McKernan back

Someone wanting Beaumont

Someone wanting Camporeale

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Love Cricket? Love me

1995 onwards...no thought about list management and other clubs especially Essendon* were starting to spank us off the field with better customer service and better financial management...they had taken marketing to the next level and we were still treating the rank and field like crap while looking after the corporate dollar...trouble is when you win thats fine the corporates jump on the bandwagon, when you lose they jump off and you are left with the faithfull membership who the club had mistreated ....numbers dwindled, Elliott fiddled while Rome(optus) burned) and the mongols from the north(Brisbane) became the yardstick...
Usually your onfield performance is a reflection of what is happening off the field and we were no longer the best in the business off the field...and still have a long way to catch up...
Jeff Kennetts comments may appear far fetched about cutting the Vic teams back in numbers but we need to take heed and make sure we are not candidates and get back to being one of the best in the business.....even though teams like Essendon* are not winning flags they are still smacking us in money terms and Adelaides wealth is scary.....wouldnt normally agree with Kennett but he may be right....

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen