Anybody read the piece by Zoltan Kovaks in todays worst to put Fremantle back into the Fremantle Football Club.

Hit the nail on the head there I think.

I cannot find a link to the article but it is worth a read.

Unless the nail you are referring to is the, we're running out of things to bash Fremantle for nail, he missed it by a mile.

I was looking for this weeks "Its a quiet week in football so lets criticise Fremantle" article and this was it.

So according to Zoltan, Freo haven't been successful as there's not enough Freo football history in the Dockers? Another 'theory' that can never be proven one way or another, fills an empty spot in the paper and criticises Freo. All boxes ticked.

Maybe we should rename as the Fremantle Bull-Sharks ? (Rolls eyes)

Our history began with Neesham, and not before. Who the hell is this bloke to pontificate about us? You can't manufacture a history and nor should you have to be a wharfie or have a Fremantle postcode to have the passion.

Even if you are prepared to accept the premise that 'culture' is the reason Melbourne beat Fremantle (rather than actual tangible ideas like ability and strategy) to suggest that culture would be effected by changing the anchor to a shark or a bulldog is like suggesting the Eagles could solve their culture of drugs by removing the lyric 'we're flying high' from the club song.

And, just getting sucked into the argument a bit more, if there is a more Fremantle person than Gerard Neesham I'm betting Gerard is related to them.

I haven't read the article but I agree that as it's a quiet week for AFL footy there's always a good read in bashing the FFC.

Putting the Freo back into Freo sounds like another push to get thecommentatoroftheyearSlappo and his mate sidekickofthedecadeSumavich to the Dockers.

Sounds like stale news to me

What a load of rubbish.

I hate myself for saying this but the mob down the road made their own history and lets face it they have achieved a very mild degree of success without having any connection to any specific club or location in the state so why on earth would this make any differance to us?

Yeah more Freo people, can I suggest Mark Bayliss as the next CEO? He has served his time (so to speak), is from Freo and is willing.

For those who haven't seen it, please note that the piece by the esteemed football journalist, Zoltan Kovacs, is an opinion piece appearing on about p. 20 of the paper, and not in the sports section.

Reading it is a bit like sticking your head over the back fence and asking your next door neighbour, who doesn't really follow the footy, what s/he thinks about the 'culture' of FFC.

The fact that Kovacs' opinion is in print and your neighbour's isn't (well unless your neighbour is Kovacs) doesn't lend any credibility to Kovacs' opinion. In fact I think his opinion is profoundly stupid...but of course that's just my opinion.

What's really interesting, for me, is that The West commissioned this bit of dross in the first place and then chose to publish it on the opinion page. Do they really believe, in all their 'professional' wisdom, that the 'culture' of The Dockers is a general interest story? Of course they don't.

So what's their agenda?

And no prizes for guessing.

I have to admit I find the whole concept of 'culture' a bit strange. What answer would any club give to a question of its 'culture'? A glib one word or sentence answer straight from Management school or buzz word bingo? Ultimately, the culture is created by the team itself - if Sydney, for example, is seen as having a hardened, selfless culture, then this is a product of the way the team has played in the last few years. Can't imagine such words being used to describe the Swans in the Capper/Edeslten era! Therefore, all such questions or pontifications are meaningless, as the simply represent a persons view about the need for a label to attach to the team. And as for Fremantle-ness, not sure how important that is in the era of national drafts, and the idea of looking for the best available talent whereever it is. As a 3rd generation Claremont fan, who chose to support Freo largely because it was an instant underdog (the Claremont connection being secondary), I would presumably not qualify as Fremantle enough. However, given the 14 years of support, I think I have clearly demonstrated the intestinal fortitude and ability to bear great burdens with a wry grin required to be part of the 'culture'!

It was the biggest load of crap I have ever read in the West...and that is saying something

I smell a mob mentality.

I have calmed down enough to post what I wrote to the West Today.

Fair enough, criticise the Fremantle Football club for their inconsistent form. Criticise them for some of their draft picks....but Zovaks has no idea about the soul of the club...no idea at all.

Soul does not come from success....some might say it comes from how the club responds to defeats....

Was Zovak around in 2001 when Fremantle crowds still turned up in number to cheer the club when it won only two games and brought the wooden spoon home? No....he was off sipping lattes somewhere.
I was there, during rain drenched nights...I heard the crowd cheering, groaning...but all the time still supporting. I saw the crowd numbers tick over which would give a club like North Melbourne heart.

I was there when we marched from Fremantle to Subiaco to declare our heart is in Fremantle, and unlike the manufactured corporate Eagles, we wanted to be based in the Football heartland of Perth, Fremantle.

The thing that gives me the tom tits is that when we had Neesham as a coach (whom I believe should have been given more time)everyone outside the club was telling us we had to have more experienced (ie Vic/AFL)people in the club to get anywhere.
FFS whatever we do they will just want us to do the opposite.
I am all for more "Freo" people in the club but only if and when there is a need and a suitable person, to say Freo has no soul is absolute carp if you want to see soulless look up the road. Anyone that is or was anyone in that corporation seems to have links to Freo, the heart of football in this state.
And the last thing that I want to see is any of that rabble anywhere near our club.

I agree with Dockerplus - this is the start of another annual drive to get one of the ex-EGirl halfwits into the Docker coaching ranks.

And of course this morning's Sunday Slimes puts Zoltan to shame.

SA to push hard to get Pav back ?? FFS ...

Read Zoltan's baseless conspiracy theories here.

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=54&ContentID=72457

This is getting really old, really fast.

It's so tired it really needs to get itself to bed with a mug of cocoa before it does itself a mischief.

For those that remember those black vinyl thingys that spun around and made noise, this is exactly where all the 'experts' in the media are: trotting a stuck record, as if they were the first ones to think of it.

And who the hell is Zoltan? Some media God descended from Olympus to dispense wisdom? Our cobbled together history, song and anchor is weighing us down? Has Zoltan just plagiarised everything Walls ever said, or has he just done his research on Big Footy's forums?

What about the Western Bulldgos, cobbled together after Freo, and what have they achieved since, but their cobbled together history is 'better' than ours?

St Kilda, when did they win a flag last and how often have we been told they're ready to. But they're 'older' than Freo, so they've got soul?

Richmond, terminally crap since Kevin Barlett started to lose his hair, but they're a 'prouder' club?

Turn it up, it's got scratch, scratch, scratches all over it.

Maybe the Zoltan of Zwing heard about the Hagdorn award and decided to have a crack ?

First let me say that I am a foundation member but have lurked at this site for a few years.

Please do not shoot Zoltan, the messenger.

I thought the article reflected what many of us realised for many years, that the club is the bastard son of a very unhealthy relationship. That is government and sport.

You only have to look at the success of Port Adelaide to see what can be acheived if a club starts off on the right foot. I believe that if the club had arisen from the Fremantle clubs it would have had the essential ingredient that it has lacked for so many years, the passion of the administrators (chairman, board etc) to make the football department accountable. That ingredient is passion from which the club grows it's traditions.

When you have souless administrators you may have a good set of books but you don't grow traditions. Traditions are born out of adversity, board room struggles and years of pain. We are having the on field pain but the ivory tower has none of it. They sit there every week and grimace but you don't see them falling on their sword over the on field success or failure as they are basically Govt appointees. It's only the football dept that falls on their sword. The ddministrators are the trustees of our relaionship with the club, ( I should correct, it is not really a club but a semi govt organisation) and I think they do a lousey job.

West Coast was born out of the desire of a bunch of local footy fans who wanted to see a local team and put up a whole lot of their own money to make it happen. They went bust and where bailed out by the WAFC but it was born out of a different context than FFC. Hence the passion to succeed.

Rather than sitting around on this forum and critising the messenger make sure that the administrators and the football department are kept accountable for your club.