So you would like Richmond and St Kilda's premiership record since the 1980s I take it?

_________________
|♥♥♥♥♥♥| http://www.blueseum.org |♥♥♥♥♥♥|

Denis overestimated where we were...
The board in general did want as many wins as possible... because they were worried if we didnt win we would be more broke.

However, Denis believed when he got here we were top 4. I suppose we were top 4 kind of sort of before he got here and we had a spate of injuries.
Denis also believed that you can do a Malthouses Collingwood and make finals with a shit team...
I had a chat with Elshaugh once and told him we dont have enough class.
and we needed to draft more.

He said.. we are ok for players and its up to the players to take us there... and that no team has won a premiership with early picks.. pointed to Norths year in year out finals record... blah blah...

No clue...

Now Denis had to use the lack of playing talent to keep Trouts job for him by blaming the playing group.

We have been a club without a clue for a long time...lost in a haze of former glory and a different era.. unable to see and to use the system for what it was.. and relying on pointers from a different eras towards success..

As BVs signature says.. "Who lost the @#$%&! rudder???"
Unless we find it and catch up with the times were gone for a long long long long time...

And the responsibilty lies in all levels of this footy club.

At every level we have people more worried about self preservation and selsfishness whether theyre aware of it or not.
Denis is part of a huge problem.

_________________
Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I refuse to sign the petition. Denis isn't the reason for our poor form.

_________________
Karma

Loyal & Proud

My proposal is about taking financial constraints away from the club in making a decision about the issue. It should be about what is best for the club and not about not removing Pagan because its going to us too much.

As I have said investing $1,000,000 in the club for this will have greater long term benefits for the club than retiring $1,000,000 debt from the "Carlton Heroes Stand" Project.

_________________
"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

In 2004 and 2005 Collo was consistent in his stance.
At club functions he reiterated his views.
He also informed sponsors and corporate partners that youth was the boards priority.

How is financial stability achieved by recycling players?
Sponsors and members want to see a future, not a holding pattern.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Going for a clean out at the end of 03 and recruiting a bunch of recycled players would not have happened without discussions with the Board.

The "blame" for doing this lies with all layers of the club. And if we just could stop rewriting history for a second and think back to August / September 03. There was great impetus on stopping the "bleeding". Using an article from April 03 before the "smashings" started as proof is just BS.

BTW which fiunctions BV and exactly when?

Funny how I remember Collo praising Pagan at the B&F in 04 for having made the team competitive again.

My post was only tongue in cheek AGRO

_________________
If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

I know but I haven't been on all day and I just wanted to bring the idea to the top of the leader board again.

_________________
"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

And what have you provided Mikkey?
Thats right, Jack Shit.

You said there is evidence the board put pressure on Pagan to recycle.
WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE MIKKEY???

As Tommi says "You got nuthin"

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Sponsors and members are fickle when they don't understand an industry.

Why would he be re-signed if he went against what the board and he agreed on?

Sponsors and members want to see something solid.. not airy fairy and alot of belly fluff...

thats what we have been giving them.

We have had no faith in the rank and file .. and that same nothing message has been given to sponsors .. and were paying for it.

Its not that hard to turn things around... just abit of imagination and grow some balls.

Yes i knew wed be last this year... thats not what im moaning about.
Im moaning the fact that we have been using the gently gently approach ... and weve been paralysed by fear,

Dont know what you have to fear when youre last like us.. but we found away to fear being losers when we are already there.

this club must learn to think like a club thats at the bottom and trying to get up than pretending were a club at the top still.

You act according to your immediate circumstances.

folling the supporters and pretending something isnt happening just doesnt wash for ever.

_________________
Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

The only thing you are able to do is mis-representing other posters. I said "there is some evidence that the Board put pressure on Pagan for short term solutions due to the financial state of the Club" which as I explained originates from being around the club and talking with some people "inside" at the time . This was a qualified claim (do you understand this or is your head too far up you backside?).

It does not take responsibility for the recruiting in 03 away from the football department, but it emphasises that there was a general feeling that the situation post the North game was unacceptable and the bleeding had to be stopped. And were people critisising the recruiting in 03?

Now BV - which functions and which dates did Collo go on about youth policy (as you claim) or in any way display his displeasure with the recruiting late 03 - at the time or in 04? Not before season 05 questions were raised.

Ahhh its come to this At this stage we now look no different to the Tigers and i thought how pathetic they looked in fighting wanting to Vote out Casey and cause massive disrution to the whole Team well now its the Blues who look Pathetic... there are better ways and if the Club slides further downhill then things will happen regardless but to sign some stupid petition 6 rounds into the year is just the fuel the media needs to split and kick this club to its knees.

If people want to blame Pagan for him coaching till 2008 perhaps the board is the one to focus on. They could have said we will review Pagans Contract in the last year and if he wasnt performing would have a been a simple matter to work on a transition until the year finishes.

All i heard in preseason is play some of the kids lets be competetive and lets not get smashed by 10 goals every week well from what i have seen we have been smashed in one half yer poor effort but more so the coach i blame lack of on field leadership to not being able to rally the Kids and enable us to stem the tide.
I have thought some moves where good by DP and all so i have questioned moves he has made ... same could be said on many other teams. I have been critical on the Assistant side ... with skills ... but i guess we should have made a song and dance when they got re-appointed or more so the Board should have said we want some of our Blues like Ratten or Dean to be on the Coaching team.

End of the day Cammo can start singing the Tigers of Old ... as that seems to be how this club is heading. If you want to make your feelings known ... email / phone the club... Maybe talk to the board they are the ones ultimately responsible and have got this club in the mess its in back in 2002 but thats the past..

All we can do is support the Club ... Yes the Club ... we need to cheer the team and go in force ... but hey seems like more people are hell bent of supplying ammo to frcture the club wide open.

Anyway if DP performances keep going in the same direction the Media will bring enough pressure into the club.. Why should the supporters add to that and show how much of rabble we have become..

Dont believe in petitions like this ... and liable to take my wrath on anyone silly enough to put one in front of me ....I have my thoughts on DP more so on the asistants and even more so of the lack of Leadership... and even more so the Friggin board. but one thing i wont do is contribute to making the blues a bigger embarissment than what the tigers showed us 2 years ago.

Sponsors and members are fickle?

We've had our highest membership numbers since we've been on the bottom.
Sponsors have stuck with the club.

What about the industry dont they understand?

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Yeah its the supporters/members fault...

Nothing to do with the indecisive messages sent out....

And corporates are just dumb... they just dont get where to invest money.. should invest in clubs that have no clear plan.. on and off the park...

_________________
Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

BV - I made no unsubstantiated claims. I said there were some evidence (and explained that this was based on conversations – and you can choose to believe it or not) that at the time there was pressure (from the Board) on the football department to achieve quick improvements.
I explained what I based this on. You claimed an article from season start in April 03 (long before things went horrible wrong) was proof this is incorrect.

So you continue to misrepresent and always try to degrade posters who you do not agree with.

So again, at which times and at which meetings did Collo make the statements you referred to?

The other way of looking at the retreads issue was that in 02 pagan completely lost the senior playing group - the ONLY reason why we needed to get johnson, bowyer, etc was because pagan couldnt handle the players - do you seriously think we would have been worse off now if we had retained hulme, freeborn, plunkett etc for the extra yr or 2 whilst 'younger' players developed? We would have had a lot greater stability within the list.

Also on the comment about selecting players of good character - what a joke - IF character was so important why did we recruit angwin, norman, croad, mott? You can say that character is a recruitment policy when the coach has obviously turned a blind eye for 'special' cases.

On 18yos and the amount of time you keep them - no one has an issue with cutting a kid if he doesnt show anything. It happens all the time - the only difference between a rookie and senior list position is the extra yr. The 4-6 yr time frame is irrelevant. Though if you want to talk about time to develop - I'd rather have watched a skinny 18yo ruckman develop on our list the past 3 yrs than deluca and the like.

Firstly, I don't there's anyone's suggesting the board have been innocent bystanders over the last 4 years. In fact, in any institution that is having the problems Carlton is experiencing, the first place you have to look for solutions is the president and the board - the buck stops there.

But with the regards to the playing group, that buck has the pass thru Denis' hands and that's what this debate is all about. In fairness to Denis, I would say he has followed Collo's requests as outlined in BV's quote above pretty well - he has not exchanged any well-placed draft picks for highly-priced players. French, hardly high-priced, is the only one we gave away half-decent picks for and from memory one of them at least was in dispute re Black Friday. Steven we got for nothing in terms of drafts. True Denis did get a number of lesser, experienced last-chance Charlies (plus a few problem children) to bulk up the team (and as Chicken says, to replace the players who Denis had alienated) but I don't think these type of players were included in Collo's request. Yes, it could be argued that these choices did not help us go forward but given we don't know what the alternatives would have been, it is somewhat of a moot arguement (the exception is Laurie the Locker who had a very negative effect on the playing group - in fact it was the playing group who got rid of him in the end).

However, Collo's request does not mean that Denis and the board did not want/expect a substantial move up the ladder. Denis himself was very confident:

"Have a look at the people who missed games last year - Kouta 19, Darren Hulme 19, Matty Allan 18, Glenn Manton 13, Brett Ratten 10, Lance Whitnall eight - and have a look at the young boys given opportunities as a result. How invaluable are the 18 games Simon Wiggins played, the 17 of Luke Livingston, 11 for Bret Thornton, or the games played by Trent Sporn, Blake Campbell and Justin Davies? It's a pretty handy mix alone, before Denis Pagan got there."

This is a Denis Pagan quote prior to the 2003 season (love Den's use of the royal Denis Pagan, a glimpse into the ego of the man). This statement indicates Denis' aspirations for that year - not re-building but business as usual with the big plus of Denis himself. The recruitment of a high risk, high maintenance player like Laurie underlines this objective. Yes, there's no evidence to say that the board didn't agree with Denis' approach but remember, Denis was a high profile coach and as with coaches of his stature there would have been a lot of delegation/free hand in the way Denis set out his objectives and went about achieving them. As for the board pressuring Denis to move up the ladder, I would very much doubt that Denis needed any pressure in this area, in fact, I would say that their objectives were mutual.

I don't know how the relationship between the board and Denis has unravelled over the past few years. There were some objections early because Denis was basically an Elliot appointment but they may have been mostly financial. Certainly, Collo's rushed re-signing of Denis in '04 would have been undersigned by the board and indicates strong support (altho, in light of everything that had happened in '03, this was a surprising move). In '05, the board's actions re the gross mismanagement of Lappin and Campo's contracts; the sign-Fev/trade-Fev fiasco; and the Whitnall saga would have had negative effects on the playing group and Pagan's ability to get the best out of them. Collo's constant harping about our "Z-graders" would not have helped either (altho one could argue it allowed Denis to squirm free of any dangerous hooks).

The question is, what are the board's and Denis' objectives this year? Certainly, the board have brought much more pressure to bear on Pagan and he does not seem to have the free hand he had in the early days. Collo admonished by asking him to "let the boys enjoy their footy" (or something like that); he has (probably) been told to change his game plan; he has been to tone down the autocratic dictator stuff; and he has been told to initiate a youth policy (whatever that means). So it would seem that the board is beginning to recognise the cracks in Denis' approach to the game. Where that leaves the club, the board, Denis, the players and the supporters is anyone's guess.

If I were a cynic, I would say the plan is to lose but not by much and to get our hands on some good picks. I don't have a great problem with that as long as I see some real player development happening. My problem is, is that while I see Pagan as quite apt for the losing part of the plan, I'm not so confident of his ability in the development bit.

I don't agree with this petition thing - silly and counter-productive - but I am in favour of Pagan being gone at least by the end of the year. This is based on Pagan since day one and not on half a game of footy.

I reckon sponsors would love a young, energetic club with many good looking young men.... If we'd taken a hardline youth policy, we could have pimped out the list to the Lygon St set.

Incidentally, we've strayed from the petition... and Im still unclear as to what the concern is... why do people think its a bad idea?

Are we having a go at Cammo for starting a petition, or for believing Pagan should be sacked?

Is it a media thing?

Thanks for the non-Answer Jarusa... keeper of all points

_________________
Love Cricket? Love me

I think people are having a go at him for starting a petition about it.
God knows there are several posters on here, several respected posters, who believe Pagan isn't the right man for the job.

_________________
Writer for SuperCoach Paige www.scpaige.com.au
Twitter - @johnfeeney24