SF33

While I am very excited about the new ownership, I think something that should be considered when comparing our situation to Manchester City's of ~5 years ago, is that soccer is still very much a second tier sport here. Despite all we hear about how Victory owns the city and that 'There's only one team in Melbourne...' blah...blah...blah...the fact remains that less than 1% of the residents of Greater Melbourne are members of either A-League team. Which would probably be a lot more similar to the New York side, with regards to the business plan etc. Unfortunately, we can't look to them for the precedent, as they won't start playing before we do. If Mansour had bought an AFL (couldn't happen, but anyway) or NRL team, his team would have to be more circumspect with sweeping changes. With Heart, I think it would be reasonable to suggest that they may figure that with the potential for growth of the club/brand over the next five years, any alienated ex-supporters that they lose due to said changes, they'll more than make up for with newly converted A-League supporters keen to get on board with a winner. I'm not saying that's what will happen, but I can't dismiss it. It's really great to see so much interest here from lifelong Manchester City supporters. It would be great to see if this continues as the weeks, months and years go by. I think from their perspective, the Heart is a fantastic purchase. Melbourne has a long and proud sporting history and Melburnians have always got on board and supported a successful professional sporting team, regardless of the code (including sports which Victorians traditionally don't play, i.e. rugby league with the Storm). We regularly get 6,000 to our games at the moment, but as soon as we start winning games, I'm sure that will get up to the 12-15k mark very quickly and if everything goes as planned, I'd imagine we'll have no problems drawing 20,000 on a regular basis. AAMI Park is a fantastic stadium, right in the sports precinct (which also contains Rod Laver and Hisense Arenas and the MCG) and has hosted several international games. The Storm's involvement has gone under the radar in the days since the announcement and that's understandable. But I'm really interested to see what sort of outward relationship the clubs forge. I think both clubs should get ambitious with membership offers and the like and cross promote the hell out of their brother club. I've never been to a Storm game and will definitely be keen to support them in 2014 by getting along to a few games. But if they offer a membership discount for Heart members, I might get on board to a larger degree. And to me, cross-promoting and scheduling complementary starting times for Heart/Stars (one of Melbourne's T20 teams, whose home ground is the MCG, for our overseas friends) seems like an absolute no-brainer to me, considering neither team regularly threatens to even half fill its relatively massive stadium. Get an extra few thousand bums on seats; who cares if they don't pay to get in? I'll be interested to see what happens with Westpac as a sponsor. They are clearly one of the biggest companies associated with an A-League team, they've been with us since the beginning, the logo looks good on a jersey (unlike, say, Webjet) and is red. I guess Westpac's status as a heavyweight in the corporate world means that if and when sponsors start bashing down our doors, they will probably be able to match any offer.

Probably a byproduct from many/most people who take an interest in the EPL not really having the same sort of bonds forged with any club as they do with one from their home city. To be honest, I find people who live and die with the fortunes of a team, have club-inspired licence plates etc., when they've never even set foot in the city, let alone attended a game, to be a bit strange. But each to their own. As a kid, I started out as a Liverpool supporter, but switched to City about 10-12 years ago, after I started watching their games with a family of City supporters. I still like them, but in recent times, I've preferred to get on board with battling teams and I'd probably consider myself a Sunderland supporter now (dad supports them, after spending a few decades as a Man U fan). Haven't decided which way I'll go next season, but there's a pretty good chance I'll go back to City, as like I said, I don't really feel a strong affiliation with any EPL club. If Sunderland gets relegated, it will make my decision much easier. As for the local climate, I'm sure the support for City would easily be the fastest growing of any European club. Any support we lose from existing members who can't stomach the Man C connection I think we will more than make up with others jumping on. And when the 10-15 year olds who are naturally gravitating towards City as their EPL club are old enough to buy A-League memberships, they'll probably get on board too.

I think a major increase of the salary cap would be a pretty shortsighted (and selfish, for that matter) suggestion and its complete removal would probably kill off the teams that aren't in major cities and ultimately make it extremely difficult for the other clubs to compete with the Sydney and Melbourne-based teams (since that is presumably where most foreign players would want to live and where most of the top quality local talent comes from). It's fantastic for the league (though admittedly, not great for our chances in the ACL) and an indication of that is that, despite our recent period of ineptitude, our club has probably only been truly uncompetitive in a handful of games over the past two years. In the short term, it's about having a competitive advantage over our opponents, and Victory specifically. You can't go out and outspend your rivals on every player, so there's got to be other incentives to sign with the Heart. And a lot of that comes down to having one of the best coaches, having the best facilities and being able to sell that your club is going to contend for silverware. So the ACL is a bit chicken/egg, in that sense. As for marquees, I think it's a bit of a balancing act. You can spend huge amounts on a big name European player, but you need to be very careful. Since he'll be making so much more than any other player in your team, you want to get a guy who will earn his money, by working harder than anyone else and producing when it matters. If he doesn't do that, and is just looking at making a few million and spending a few years taking it easy in the sun before retirement, it can lead to problems with the chemistry of the team in the change rooms.

That would be a ballsy move by them, considering a) the numbers we have currently got; and b ) the performances of the team (which, while they have improved, still look likely to earn us the bottom spot on the ladder and odds-on for a second consecutive bottom-two finish). Should we make the improvement that most are expecting next season, 2015/16 will probably be another story. Leave the prices the same for next season, to get the now-expected excellent numbers of retention and new sign-ups (given the team's struggles), reward their faith by producing next year and then jack up the prices a bit for the 2015/16 season, would have been the course to travel, I would have thought.

Very well put. You only have to look on Facebook and a few message boards to see the fear in the Victory supporters already. Getting the standard 'ladder position', 'crowd numbers/members' potshots in now, because they can see as well as anyone that those sentiments are likely to be no longer relevant to our club in the very near future. So they're reduced to talking about our club losing any semblance of its previous identity, an identity that they've steadfastly maintained that the club has never had. It's an absolute game-changer and no-one is more aware of that than Victory supporters.

I like 'Heart'. Unlike most of the other A-League teams, it's not an obvious ripoff of a European club (perhaps Hearts was an inspiration, but it's not a particularly obvious one to the casual soccer supporter), or a boring/obvious nothing name like 'Victory' or 'Glory'. At the time, it could have been seen as being an extension of the club's vision of what it was going to represent. Unfortunately, it's become an embarrassment and ironic, due to the failures on the park. And it's almost certainly going to be gone within a few months. I still think the reasoning behind it at the time was sound and I like it so much more than a ripoff of a club that's been around for 100+ years. We're not 100+ years old and to try to manufacture that history instead of doing our own thing will usually just look contrived and tacky (though, credit where it's due, WSW went in that direction and absolutely nailed it - the logo that is, 'Wanderers'...not so much). And I can't imagine many things more cringeworthy than going with a foreign language team's name, that doesn't make a lot of sense in an English-speaking country (Real Melbourne, Melbourne Dynamo, even FC Melbourne). It's a forgone conclusion now that we will be Melbourne City FC, but I would have been happy for us to continue to do our own thing. I think the logo could be improved, but the interlocking 'MH' and the shape is quite clever. Maybe, as others have suggested, it just needs to have a round border. And the only issue I see with the red and white stripes is more a league-wide issue, that there's probably too many striped teams going around. Not enough of a reason for us to change, IMO.

Good point. I haven't been making much effort to wear the colours this season, but will definitely be wearing a red shirt for each remaining home game.

He'll be all for it, if we promise to make it 50+ storeys high.

Hmmm...May's not great timing then. Oh well...

Understand. And it's also easier for the media to swing past for puff pieces during the week. But then it's a question of whether you have to sacrifice distance for size. Of course if we can build exactly what we want within 5km of the CBD, we should do it. How much land do people think would be needed? Could a dormant AFL training HQ (Glenferrie, Moorabbin) be converted or wouldn't they be big enough?

Accessible for whom though? If the logistics of the current set-up are an issue for our players and coaches (similar to the whispers of discontent that is often heard from St Kilda players, regarding the move from Moorabbin to Seaford), then I agree, it's something that the club should seriously consider. Ask our experienced players and our stars about it and listen to them. Is it a major issue for potential recruits, compared to where Victory gets to train (the location, not the facilities). But if the players and coaches don't have an issue with making the trip for training, I don't think it necessarily has to be located centrally.

Would have preferred for the match to be in August, rather than when 80%+ of City's first team will be in full World Cup preparation mode. Of course I'll be there regardless. I'm very close friends with a family of City supporters and adopted them as my team in the early 00s. Once they became a powerhouse, I sort of dropped off them a little bit, as I prefer to support an underdog in the EPL, but I've always had a soft spot for MCFC. When do Heart memberships go on sale for the following season? They'd be missing a trick if they didn't try to tie in sign ups with a discount for this game (and discounted games/joint memberships for Heart/Storm as well, but that's another matter). Our membership numbers would skyrocket if a few of these cross promotions were explored, combined with the momentum of City's involvement with the club in general.

Anywhere in the Greater Melbourne region is fine with me. The important part is that the facilities are second to none in the competition.

Spot on. Let's face it, Even if Manchester City did want to make the primary kit sky blue, they're certainly not dumb enough to shove it down the throats of the people who have stuck with the club through the past two seasons, less than a week after acquiring MH. The 'Melbourne City' thing is a bit different, as registrations have to be made and the like, so a bit of simple investigating reveals things like that. I actually still think 'Heart' is a good name; it's just the onfield performances that have made it sound a bit stupid. So I wouldn't be devastated if that went. The colours are another matter altogether. So, as I see it, Lynch's articles can be based on one of two scenarios: 1. Someone (whether it was Lynch himself or someone else) asked Gallop a leading question at the press conference about the league's attitude towards a hypothetical rebranding of the club. And Gallop (whose opinion on these sort of matters, at the end of the day, really doesn't count for much) answers the only way he can, with the non-committal 'We'd be open to that.' Cue article talking about 'Speculation is rife...' and the like. When, in reality, Gallop played a straight bat and his response doesn't mean anything, regarding the direction the club will take. 2. Someone from inside the club's administration (or possibly Manchester City, though I doubt it) contacted Lynch as the club is discussing what changes could potentially happen to the colours next year. So Lynch runs the article, they see the response from supporters and they act accordingly. I think all the red and white designs in this thread look fantastic; I just don't really see the need to depart from the red and white stripes. I would be fine with a City away strip and then either a competition winner third kit, the Feyenoord one, the sash...whatever. Hopefully we get Nike on board as well, so we can say goodbye to the ridiculously oversized Kappa logos. To be totally honest, I feel strongly that red and white stripes should always be the home kit, but others probably feel more strongly than me. If we started wearing blue at home matches, I'd be disappointed, but it's probably not a deal breaker for me. Hopefully it doesn't come to that.

Several people, who are presumably 'my fellow members', have expressed similar sentiments on this very board. You'll notice that I did not say 'every Heart member' when mentioning my reaction to SM's tweets, because clearly, his actions didn't take the gloss off anything for others. Which is fine. Scott Munn, on the other hand, does '...represent me and every other supporter...' because he is the Heart's CEO. What else have you got...?

Not the 'worst', by any stretch. But up there with the 'dumbest'/'most unnecessary'? Without a doubt. And as for 'dumbest'/'most unnecessary' from someone in as senior a position at a sporting organisation as the CEO/Chairman/President in a public forum? Well, I can't think of anything that even comes close, off the top of my head.

The 160-character crowd may disagree, but 250 words isn't exactly a 'lengthy letter'.

It literally took me about five minutes to write, if that. And yes, I think it is worth letting him know that it makes him look like a pissant CEO of a pissant club. That he is directly embarrassing me to be associated with him, as the Heart CEO. Yep worthwhile, as far as I'm concerned. I've been a member of countless sporting clubs for the past 10-15 years and I've never felt the need to take such action in the past. I wonder what the fallout would have been if Harry Kewell had done the same, which seems to be pretty much what Simon Colosimo was getting at with his response.

Except, of course, I represent only myself, while Scott Munn is running the show at (and is therefore the figurehead of) a professional sporting club. So there's that...

Too bad I'm over my quota of 'likes' for the day, because I couldn't agree more with this. Just sent this email to the club; wonder if I'll get a response. Dear Scott Munn, Thank you very much for managing to take the gloss off the only bit of true joy the club you're supposed to be running has given me and my fellow members in nearly 11 months in less than 24 hours, by trying to start an infantile spat on Twitter with a Victory supporter. If one of our players did something similar, I would expect you to be publicly condemning the behaviour, not engaging in it yourself. You're supposed to be the CEO. Can you imagine someone like Gary Pert, or Brian Cook doing something similar? Yet, here you are, the CEO of a club that is three games and 15 goals clear in last place, acting like an immature smart alec, presumably because the club managed to avoid outright ownership of the all-time league record for on-field incompetence. You represent me and every other supporter and I am absolutely staggered that you are not above this. I've been a member for two years and my decision to sign on for a third will depend solely on whether the club can rise above the utter laughing stock it has become in that time. Let's just say that your actions don't help. The times that I've walked out of AAMI Park happy over the past 18 months are probably outnumbered 1-5 to the times I've walked out wondering why I bother wasting my time and money. I could go on, but really it comes down to four words: pull your head in.

The problem with that theory: Do you reckon he would have done it if we'd lost on Friday night? No way known...

Maybe. GC's reaction certainly didn't give the impression either that it was a couple of mates engaging in a bit of tongue-in-cheek banter, or that it was a more reasonable square up for something that GC had said about SM/MH previously.

I actually had to look up who George Calombaris was. The recipient isn't really the issue, more that it's completely unprofessional for any CEO to do something like that, let alone the CEO of the worst team in the league. One win in 11 months for the team he runs and he thinks he has the right to spout off. What an absolute knob.

Great to finally get that win. Hope it instills some belief in the players. As far as I'm concerned, it's never been a question of talent in the squad. But, I hope they got all of the celbrations out of their system last night and they were right back on the job today. They simply can't afford to come back from Adelaide empty handed.

Yeah, this reeks of a 'back to reality' game for the Heart. I'd be happy with a draw and given that we've struggled to keep it out of our net as much as putting it in the other team's over the past 12 months, I'm not really fussed if it's 0-0.