Peter

Will make a great double with Carlos

I like a settled environment and so can relate to all those upset at the number of departures from the playing/coaching setup. However, we still have the majority of our 1st eleven from last year and hopefully quality signings will be made soon and settle everything down. Don't forget in our first season we signed a competitive squad from nothing and it had some class and experience (JA, Skoko, Sibon, Bolton, Thompson, Colosimo, Beauchamp, Sarkies, Terra etc.). Will miss Eli and hope his move goes well.

Why? I don't know anything about this player, so could you please provide more information?

I think it would be good, and better for continuous membership, to have a longer season with each team playing each other home and away twice. This way there are four derbys in Melbourne (no claim of unfair from the other lot) as well as in Sydney and Central Coast V Newcastle. Also the four NSW clubs should have good crowds when they play each other. This is surely better for TV as there should be higher crowds so it looks better, not to mention more income for clubs. Also the off season won't be as long. I don't think I'm alone in being ready for the next season to kick off about now. Do we have the longest off season in the world? More games over a longer period would be great in my opinion, perhaps with a summer break from Christmas to the end of January which would allow for members work/family holidays (I know I have brought up the holiday issue before) and also allow for overseas players/coaches to return home for a couple of weeks which might make our league more attractive to be involved in which could then increase memberships with a higher calibre of import.

Does anyone know if our talent scouts are at the Euro finals trying to snap up some of Europes finest players?

Any chance of us getting Gol Gol and Mike Mulvey in a two for one deal?

The "two Croatians" who have both played for AUSTRALIA and sound at least somewhat Aussie when you hear them speak. Any alienation should be gone when Western Sydney's playing roster is full. Already Chiperfield and Bridge (hardly Croatian) have been announced as possible/probable signings. Put a few Greek, Asian etc. names, based on merit of course, and I don't think Western Sydney will have any problems as an Australian club playing in the Australian league. Also Western Sydney have one more coach than we do, and good on them. p.s. I still have fond memorys of the NSL watching the likes of Morwell Falcons, Marconi, Olympic, West Adelaide, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney Croatia, Preston Macedonia etc.

And getting back to Ante and our coaching setup...............................

Except for hopefully making a profit if you can sell a player still under contract.

Let's hope we get a sense that the club is under control soon. At the moment, although there is still time before the next season starts, it appears that the club has been caught with it's pants down on both coaches and players. It will only take some appointments for supporters to perk up but it is all quiet at the moment with nothing announced. In this day of constant communication, it would be good for the club to issue "steady as she goes, everything's alright" press releases to: 1. Stop the gossip and 2. Assure supporters that the club is in safe hands. If the club is not issuing statements on it's business, you can be sure someone else (right or wrong) will.

This situation makes us look rather amateurish. Surely a professional football club has coaches it can use. How can we be caught so short? Now we have someone only staying because he has to rather than being enthusiastic about the job. Also the players know the person in charge is not staying and is in fact focusing on the job he has to do with a competing squad. This situation was forseeable and should not have been allowed to eventuate. Amateure league stuff! At least Ante has been professional throughout and I hope this move works out well for him.

I read it.

I rated Hoffman over Eli at the start of last season mainly because Eli seemed to blast a lot over the crossbar when in front of goal and Hoffman had form (good that was). As the season went on Eli really came on as a "go to" player both in front of goal and also out wide. His work rate picked up a lot which was a far cry from when he was doing his Sulk'n Bulken routine whenever things didn't go his way and he was tracking back and putting in tackles. Clubs however need to get the cash they can for players now as they leave without compensation when their contracts expire. So we should either take the money on offer or get Eli to sign a longer contract. Either way the club wins. Jason will hopefully step up along with Williams and perhaps a new striker and those from youth team (eg. Walker). We should still be alright up front, hopefully with JA as coach - lethal. Well, we can only hope.

Perhaps this is because our season runs over the summer and people have family get togethers, go fishing with friends etc. A lot of people are away over Christmas and January. Also mid-week games are no good for a lot of people with school and work commitments (remember the turn out against Newcastle in our first season when we only had around 2500 at the game?). People may be members and support the club but the fixturing of multiple home games followed by multiple away games also means that should people be away, they may miss three games in a row should a block of home fixtures be during holidays. Maybe a consistent home and away season ie. one home game followed by an away game giving a fortnight between games would encourage people to attend as most people I know like routine. Also I don't think I've ever used the word "people" so many times before.

We were going to buy a membership in our first season after attending a number of games as a casual supporter but didn't as we had to pay the full season ticket price even though there were only a few rounds to go. We then bought a family membership last year and plan to again from now on. I believe if memberships were sold at a rate that reflected the number of games left in the season we would sell a lot more as people come on board and then hopefully they will remain members into the future.

Fair point. I thought I implied results are important to draw new supporters. A scrappy win is better than a loss but the likes of Barca today are more enjoyable to watch than say Arsenal under George Grahame and both systems get results.

I have to agree with those suggesting results are more important than star players. Last season we took a number of people to games, let them use our passes when we were on holiday (shhhhhh) and utilised the free tickets for guests of members. When we were second on the ladder people wanted to come to games and people at work wanted to talk Melbourne Heart. That dropped off when the boys went away with the olympic team and Fred was injured and results turned south. We need a side that will play attractive football and finish it off in the final third of the pitch. Hopefully this season.

Ahhhhhhhhh. But wouldn't it be nice

Was anyone able to go to this thing?

Looks like Craig Goodwin might now play for India . http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-sport/jets-papas-to-coach-indian-youth-soccer-20120524-1z7b9.html

I'll take one spot, you take the other. Looks like the doors open and no-ones home, so might as well walk right in.

Thanks Tesla Peter

Try to stay positive. Things do seem a bit amateurish at MHFC though. Perhaps that's why we don't have any signings save Redmayne, coaches are (by all accounts) leaving and we don't have any news. Hopefully this will change soon. Off topic: The symbol on windows 7 in both the favorites and on the top bar for this web site is a blue box with a white V. Does anyone else have this offensive problem and can it be changed?

With all the rats jumping ship i'm wondering what is wrong with our club as it appears most people that are able to are heading for the exit. Hope to get some positive news soon on coaching, playing squad and management so that I can be convincing when I ask my wife for the membership money

I like Sarkies. He was a great role model for our children playing in the NYL without complaint and setting an example for the younger players. He also served the club doing PR at tramstops etc. Also a nice bloke at the open day. I think the injury the season before last knocked him around a fair bit but he looked good when he came in last season when we went through that poor patch and he scored and set up goals. As he was only injured for a few weeks last season (less than Fred and Simon) I thought he would have been good for a 1 year extension to see if he could crack the first team.