Dees in a spin

It’s not only politicians that indulge in spin. The Melbourne Football Club is spinning so furiously that they’ll be suffering from vertigo for the next ten years.

The Demons have unveiled a ‘cutting edge’ new guernsey (although the Herald-Sun bogans refer to it as a ‘jumper’).Club great David Neitz, never the most assured of media performers, has been corralled into doing a piece to camera and some voiceovers in a web presentation provided to members.

Neitz explains that the new guernsey design features a high collar as a reminder of past champions.  . . .  . . . WTF? Tom Scully is going to play like Ron Barassi because his guernsey now sports a dinky little Mandarin collar? Oh, for goodness sakes.

Darker shades of red and blue also, apparently, evoke memories of the club’s “true” heritage. In the last forty years there can be hardly any hues of red and blue that have not graced the Demons’ playing uniform at some point.

The red yoke now has a deeper V which is “more demonic” apparently, and [spin, spin, spin, spin, spin].

There’s no doubt this stuff goes down well with members.

AussieRulesBlog recently received a link to the Bombers’ “I’m One!” membership advertisement and we confidently expect to feature in it in the not too distant future. No doubt supporters of other clubs will see it as arrogant, crass, and so on. That’s understandable.

We recall a Melbourne Football Club CD released many years ago. The silky-voiced Christine Sullivan sang the club theme song in an extremely slow tempo as a background to all living MFC players (I think) reciting their name and games total. This section of the CD was played on radio at the time and we freely admit to a couple of crocodile tears while listening to it. VERY emotional stuff.

And that’s where the unveiling of the new Demons uniform plunges into spin, because it desperately tries to pull on emotional heartstrings, but it’s only about what the current lot will be wearing. It’s not about doing.