Coburg Going Forward for 2014

What are training night's????

cobrascorer wrote:

What are training night's????

Good job for Cobra.
Did you say gooday to Queen Lizzie for me. ??

We didn't go to London. Unfortunately, the queen heard we knew you and she rejected our advances!

As you picked up, I was having a dig at the inappropriate apostrophe in the advert.

I didn't see you at NBC's good win over Blt last Saturday night.

From Paul Amy on twitter...

Shame to hear Coburg general manager Graeme Blow has resigned. Very well regarded in his short time in the VFL and won't easily be replaced

Interesting gig for the next person coming in.

Could be seen as one of two ways of thinking:

1) The Toughest Gig in the VFL. No Pokies, No alignment next year and a small supporter base.

2) Most exciting gig in the VFL. Becoming standalone, reclaiming the Lions name and building up from scratch.

Coburg truly have come to the fork in the road, for the good of the competition, let's hope they find the right path and become a strong force.

Sadly I think you will find Coburg in the same bracket as Bendigo esp if they dont have the money to build a strong team.

Williamstown on the other hand will be OK and it looks like Frankston at long last are building a compeditive team.

I dont know what the future holds for the Zebras as not having a consistant stream of funds from pokies like Port,Willy and Frankston would make it hard for Sandy to go standalone.

Good article on the Lions, in this weeks footy record.

I really do hope they get a big name identity to coach, who will hopefully also attract both supporters and new players to the club.

(offtopic - these are the sorts of articles I like to see in the record, not so much about the U16 national carnival etc..)

Also the talk of upgrading the Coburg City Oval is way overdue. The ground if brought up to modern standards could even be a viable finals venue if more undercover seating was developed along the wing.

Further to the above post, the article is now up on the VFL website.
http://www.sportingpulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?client=1-118-0-0-0&&news_ta…

Quote:COBURG Football Club hopes to announce within a month a high-profile signing as its coach for season 2014 when it will stand-alone as a VFL club.

Club president Bill Balakis said the club had advertised the coaching position and he believed it would be a trigger point to the club’s aspirations.

Richmond will end its alignment with Coburg at the end of the season. Both clubs along with Williamstown and Western Bulldogs will field stand-alone clubs next season in the VFL when there will be a 16-team competition.

Balakis said Coburg Football Club had much to thank the Richmond Football Club for over the journey of its alignment.

“Richmond has been fantastic and has been very good to the Coburg Football Club,” Balakis said.

“Without Richmond the Coburg Football Club would never have survived.”

Balakis said the club had recently appointed former VFL umpire Brian Woodhead as its General Manager and this was also another important step forward.

He said Woodhead, who umpired 24 VFL games in the mid-1980s and coached the umpires before entering Amateur umpire administration, brought experience and football savvy to the position.

“The club is in a good position. It is self-sufficient, we have our own coaching staff, our own sponsors and we have a General Manager who understands the state of play,” Balakis said.

“We have on-going sponsorship from the CFMEU and ETU and we are looking at another sponsorship with possible naming rights to the ground.

“There has been a lot of interest shown from past and present supporters because we are going back to a stand-alone situation.”

Balakis said the club would return to its name – the Coburg Football Club and would also reclaim its moniker as the Lions.

He said the club hoped to be in a position to announce its next-season coach before the curtain drops on the 2013 home and away season. Coburg will not play finals for the fifth successive season.

The club’s best home and away season since the competition was revamped was in 2003 when it posted a 16-4 record, but its best year was in 2007 when they reached the Grand Final. Geelong defeated them.

Coburg entered an alignment with Richmond in 2001.

The Lions, as the club will again be known, have not won a flag since 1989 when competition legend Phil Cleary coached them to the second of back-to-back premierships.

“We want to name the coach so he can begin the task of recruiting for next year,” Balakis said.

“I think that’s an integral part of where we want to be. We want to be a destination point for EDFL and TAC Cup players.

“We want to embrace that more than we have. We want to recruit good, young kids.

“We want to get to the position where young kids see the Coburg Football Club as the place where they want to play and attract the interest of AFL recruiting scouts.”

Balakis said Coburg has already set a player budget for season 2014 and that whatever recruits were added fell into that budget.

He said the club would not irresponsibly spend money on luring players to the club.

“We are not in business to do that,” Balakis said.

“The days of being in debt and living beyond your means are gone. It’s really important for us to align ourselves with our budget and that’s what we intend to do.”

Balakis said retention of the club’s current leadership group is also important as he believes the club is strong in that area.

“There are some very good footballers and very loyal footballers in that leadership group.

“And, we have some young players developing into good footballers in our Development League team.”

Balakis said the club is looking at “second and third income” streams. He said the club did not have an interest in pokie-machine revenue and would not pursue one.

He said the club is working closely with its Council and AFL Victoria to possibly re-develop Mantello Holden Oval (City Oval).

“The re-branding of the Coburg Football Club is an exciting time for us,” Balakis said.

“We are moving back into our past and embracing the Lions. We have already changed the theme song to the old Coburg theme song.

“It is important that we connect with the whole community within our municipality so they in turn can embrace the Coburg Football Club.

“We don’t want the Coburg Football Club to become another Brunswick or Caulfield or Northcote where they have just disappeared. I think we are beyond that.”

Balakis said he can understand the ‘tribalism’ associated with supporters and that some Coburg supporters may have been alienated because of the alignment with Richmond.

He said now that Coburg had returned to its old identity that tribal support would return.

“I think we will get more local supporters coming to the games and embracing the club a little bit more.”