By Seven Hours Behind
The timing could not have been better. The first Grand Final replay since the national expansion; the game's best player off to the Gold Coast; Hird to coach Essendon; and Thompson to walk away from Geelong. From a national coverage perspective the fifth big story of the week will almost slide in between these events and go hardly unnoticed. Except in WA. One can tell the decision to change the logo, jumper and perhaps the song next year has generated a lot of anger amongst supporters. I for one have no attachment - social, professional or otherwise - to the club so rest assured this blog has no agenda. I accept many will still feel upset and continue to oppose the changes. But regardless of the cosmetic aspects of the white stripes, the 'D' in the logo or the loss of the anchor from the jumper, I do believe two things: (1) the changes are grounded in some sensible facts; and (2) over time we will come to love this jumper just as much as the last one.
As always, there are a few home truths from the past worth mentioning. In 1994, the colour purple was chosen because a US marketing study revealed it was the highest selling colour in US sporting teams and the most under-utilised in Australian sport. Fact. We are a marketing experiment from the beginning. It mightn't sound nice but it's the truth. Purple has come to be a core part of the club - I wouldn't change it for anything - but we have to be clear what our roots are and why we have them. The need for a new colour came from the highly divisive dynamic between South and East Fremantle in the foundation years: both laid claim to be the preeminent Fremantle football tradition and both were a little uncooperative in forging something linked to - but separate from - their own histories. The club administration - under direction from the WAFC - followed the West Coast model of being a 'WA club', afraid that fans in Esperance or Broome couldn't engage. In hindsight this meant the spiritual link to Fremantle was shunned to our long term detriment. The 1885 Fremantle jersey is almost the only symbol of Fremantle football before the great split in the early 1900s: to say a more concrete tie back to this jumper is denying our club's recent history misses the point that we needed that connection to history and rejected it the first time around.
Then there is the anchor itself. Don't get me wrong, I will miss it too. But I won't miss our win-loss record wearing it. When people get outraged at the Gold Coast concessions - a stack of first-round picks, access to uncontracted players and a slightly larger salary cap - never forget Fremantle had an almost identical leg-up. From the pick of the litter we assembled a list of 44 players and offered the following efforts in the first eight years:
1995: 8 Wins - 14 Losses
1996: 7 Wins - 15 Losses
1997: 10 Wins - 12 Losses
1998: 7 Wins - 15 Losses
1999: 5 Wins - 15 Losses
2000: 8 Wins - 14 Losses
2001: 2 Wins - 20 Losses
2002: 9 Wins - 13 Losses
We can get all nostalgic at BBQ's about the gazelle-like stride of Clinton Wolf, John Hutton's helmet, Phil Gilbert's goat-beard or Craig Callaghan's buzz-cut, but they're the facts. For those of us who attended the football regularly in those years before we played finals in 2003, there wasn't much to cheer about. We also have to remember that sportspeople are creatures of habit, superstition and omens. To end the Boston Red Sox's 86-year drought, wealthy supporters would take valuable memorabilia and burn it on rafts in Boston's Charles River at the start of every season. Seriously. Crucially players on the current roster would attend; anything to end the curse they'd say. I wouldn't suggest the anchor was a curse but when this late-2008 review was initiated the atmosphere was different. 'CC' had left, another coach failed and another bottom-four finish beckoned with a new coach. The premiership window had shut. This called for a root and branch look at what makes the Fremantle Football Club.
It's never nice when something you care about is changed and you feel like you didn't have a say. The truth is supporters had the chance, and a lot did. 2900 members took part in the survey. If you were a paid up member, didn't participate and are now cursing the club's decision, you don't need to hear my response to that. If you aren't a paid up member then you need to be if you want to contribute to the financial stability of the club and have as much of a say as possible. Also, if the club were smart - and they're being paid to be - they would have directed the focus of their review to not just members but 'fringe' supporters, second tier fans who are clearly passionate but not committing for whatever reason. Granted there are issues with the stadium size but the object of the club financially is to get more supporters and more money out of them. That's the business of sport.
And the economics are worth considering. If anything research around the world shows people who don't go to the games shell out more funds for merchandise than the die-hards: people only have limited disposable income allocated for such things and supporters who can't always attend the game buy more to feel a part of the experience. When it comes to that extra scarf or hat, the member thinks 'well I'm sitting in the ground, that is proof of my support enough'. Administrators are sensitive to member concerns and should be - they after all cough up the cash and fill the ground that keep the club going - but a 25,000-30,000 membership core has now been established. Premiers or wooden spoon, they're the members who'll pay up regardless now because they're worried of losing their seat in the ground.
The club is solvent: Rick Hart, Cameron Schwab and the rest of the administration should be congratulated for turning us around from a lot of debt on our books in the late 1990s. Steve Harris and Steve Rosich (and anyone else critical to it) should also be applauded for finally ending the bizarre situation where a jeans company owned the rights to the club's moniker. It was ridiculous, went on far too long and says a lot about the foresight of the original club's marketing representatives that due diligence was not done in 1994.
The job now for Harris and Rosich is to not only grow the base but be ready to get the total member number to 70,000 by 2020 in periods of 'band-wagon' success when WA gets a new stadium and can fill it with this many. It might sound a big number but clubs like Collingwood, Adelaide and Hawthorn are aiming for and on track to achieve it. We are about to enter that upswing when the club can get the most support, and clearly they are hearing through different surveys and research that changes to the image would bring in those extra numbers. You might say 'why do we have to change for bandwagon people?' Fair question, and that's the way supporters should always think. But 10,000 extra fans and the money they bring in is the difference between a bonding and fitness camp at Rottnest Island and altitude endurance training in Arizona. That's the difference. That's the way an administrator thinks and why they're always different creatures.
Most important of all - and it will be largely overlooked by supporters and the media - is the player's tacit agreement to the change. There will be discrete support in public (for fear of putting the fan-base offside) but make no mistake the players will have been well and truly consulted. It is a revealing statement about the player mentality and the desire to change from a culture where mediocrity is acceptable to a premiership culture. Changing the strip, logo and song would shift the atmosphere in the club and remind the young players coming through a ritual flogging is no longer tolerated. Success is the only measurement that counts in the next fifteen years; survival and solvency was the barometer for the last fifteen.
I'm sure the club staff and administration don't exist in a bubble. They would all know countless supporters in their social circles. They chat to them about different things when they come in to pay their membership, mingle after an open training session or buy some merchandise in the club shop. They know these changes will go down like a lead balloon with many supporters. But let's judge it in two seasons. If the experiment to re-brand has failed then there is always the usual methods that supporters can use to voice their disapproval: by voting member-board spots out and telling the WAFC that we're unhappy. But with so much to look forward to in the next few years we should see this all in perspective.
If you feel really alienated by the experience, remember that professional sport is always going to have these moments where the dollar overrules the punter. If you want to recapture the passion go back to the tribal roots of WAFL football; just remember Perth, West Perth, East Perth, Claremont and Swan Districts have alternated from the old sash style jumper to the logo based version almost every other year since we've all been kids. It's a part of the game.
Finally, something must be said for the debate to come in early 2011 about the club song. It's worth asking what a club song should do? A good club song should be euphoric, it should bring total strangers together and just sound simple enough that a new fan can be converted in three minutes after a game. The best examples - 'Tigerland', 'We Are The Navy Blue', 'Saints Go Marching In' or 'Good Old Collingwood Forever' - are the types of songs that they just play on repeat after a close win. It makes the supporter so happy they don't want to leave the ground until they're escorted out by event staff. You mightn't like the team when you hear it - or even the song itself - but you can at least think to yourself 'if that was my team I'd be doing the exact same thing'. 'Freo Heave-ho' might be many things (original and full of different parts like the Russian sea song it was taken from) but it is not these. Even the most passionate supporters still cringe when it comes on. The fact the ground PA switches to 'TNT' so quickly at Subiaco after the final siren says a lot. Of course, we shouldn't change it unless the new song options are better, but deep down I think we all know there'll be something to give 'Freo Heave-ho' a run for its money.
Football brings out passion in people and debate is always a good thing. We are a young enough organisation that at least these discussions can be had without tradition and conservatism dominating any prospect for new ideas. There aren't shaded photos of famous players from yesteryear down the club corridors yet but one day there will be. Sometimes the bravest call in business is to admit something hasn't worked - for whatever reason - and that change is the right way forward. Be it jumper, logo or song, perhaps in sport the same is true.