Les Murray on Melbourne Heart

[HEARTinator]

I think the clubs strivings to work with the community and the larger football community is actually the very thing that sets us apart from the "big" club that is Melbourne Victory, because let's face it, they are big and we will never get to that size. So to me being the community club much like a North Melbourne and Western Bulldogs in the AFL is perfect.

The club already does the work, it just needs to get better at showing off this aspect of the club and entrench it in the way that people talk about the club. I have noticed that the youtube videos have dropped off this year which is a perfect way to show some of the work that the club is doing in the community. Just assure that it is done in a non exploitative and tokenistic manner.

Being someone that worked closely in the sports sector, Melbourne Victory did nothing and still probably do nothing in reaching out to the community such as schools and so on. The best, and this was before Heart were around, was Melbourne Storm and look at how their support base has grown, despite being cheats.

The Bulldogs (the AFL club I once was a member but now the HAL is all that I need) and North Melbourne are on life-support systems, propped up by the AFL. Remember the Bulldogs-Fitzroy proposed merger in 1989? They hardly have fans and Victory is fast becoming bigger than some of these AFL clubs. If you want a lifetime of misery and low supporter numbers then keep thinking SMALL. HeartFC need to have ambition as big as any HAL club or it will consign itself to being irrelevant.