I've often wondered about the peculiar piece of our history which saw the Footscray Football Club's ownership of the Melbourne Monarchs ABL license between 91 through 96. I went to games at Western Oval as a kid and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, one which has become a lifelong enjoyment of the gamer through the Red Sox and the current ABL Melbourne based team, the Aces.
Did you get along to games?
What can anyone recall of the decision making process? Was it a big deal, or something trumpeted as an innovative move? Or just a low key type of thing? I think we got free entry with a FFC membership.
I like the fact that we had a championship winning team in our Club and did something right out of the box. European clubs have all sorts of associated sporting teams, can't immediately think of other AFL teams trying anything of the sort. Perhaps Carlton had a formal ownership or involvement in Carlton Soccer Club?
Would be interested to hear any thoughts or memories.
Melbourne Monarchs
Started by SonOfScray, Jan 11 2013 08:29 PM
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SonOfScray
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Arthur 'Nance' Williams
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Posted 11 January 2013 - 08:29 PM
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Caveman
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Arthur Olliver
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Posted 13 January 2013 - 12:07 PM
Son of Scray,I have never been to a baseball game- though I wouldn’t mind attending one at some point. As for the Melbourne Monarchs it was the club trying to gain extra support, money and exposure.It was always worth the time and effort considering ways to improve both the club and the ground- in 1991 the Western Oval was considered a pretty reasonable venue.Ground rationalization hadn’t progressed to the level that it is now with just 3 grounds in Victoria (two grounds in Melbourne.)
North Melbourne’s last match for Premiership Points at Arden Street was in 1985 and the Junction Oval’s final game was Fitzroy v St Kilda on Round 22 1984.
Yet in 1991 Carlton still played at Princes Park, Collingwood was still in Abbotsford, Essendon at Windy Hill, St Kilda was running around at Moorabbin and of course we were at the Western Oval.
1991 was to be second year of Peter Gordon’s reign and the feeling at the time since October 1989 was for the Western Oval to be redeveloped in a way that would increase capacity and also bring in more money through improved corporate facilities.Plans were made and an advanced draft was actually drawn up- a relative of my mine actually saw these plans. This wasn’t the only time that the redevelopment of the Western Oval was mooted, down through the ages, knocking down the Drill Hall and the Tennis club at the Barkly Street End, were always being talked about. Yet this never happened in the time of Footscray playing games there and also the Drill Hall remains, although the tennis courts are gone.
The Melbourne Monarchs link with the Footscray Football Club began when ringing the club, if you rang 417 Barkly Street the receptionist would answer –
Good Morning Footscray Football Club Melbourne Monarchs …. ,can we help you? Then the next step was if you were put on hold the music in the background was
‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ by Michael Jackson
So back at the beginning it was considered an innovative move, It wasn’t either low key or headline news, somewhere in between, the local papers reported on it, but the Sun and Age didn’t ‘front page’ the story. I don’t recall there being much opposition to it, In the early 1990’s there was still a genuine optimism about the club’s future as we had seen off becoming the Fitzroy Bulldogs and playing our home games at Princes Park, without any radical changes, we just raised the necessary money (and a fair bit more) and looked at ways of going from strength to strength- (totally unlike the situation in October 1996)
Anyway come 1996 the club sold the baseball club as the relationship fizzled out. Some of the reasons why it didn’t work out as well as we hoped, I attribute to this –
(1) Melbourne Monarchs- probably should have changed their name to Footscray Monarchs
(2) Most of their games seemed to be played at the Altona Baseball Stadium; they really needed to play on the Western Oval more
(3) Baseball like basketball had a bit of a ‘fad following’ in Melbourne– basketball was a big deal in the early to mid 1990’s, now it is a minor act. Soccer, cricket and football are unquestionably the biggest three sports in Melbourne, other have had a bit of a spurt but slide away again
(4) The football club was financially suffering again, they couldn’t really steer two ships at the same time away from the iceberg approaching.
This is all very annoying because in 1992 the club was thriving on and off the field. We were one of the first venues in Victoria to get poker machines, the social club increased bar staff at the time and more kegs were ordered to cater for the increasing demand. Yet stupidly (in my view) the State Government allowed Poker Machine Venue licenses’ to be handed out across the board to just about anyone who sold beer on their premises. In my humble, pokies should have followed the New South Wales approach;pokies are for clubs with members for example the Penrith Rugby League Club,Rooty Hill RSL Club etc. What we got here in Victoria was every pub putting them in, so the financial benefits of pokies revenue didn’t go back to the ordinary member who got discounted meals and drinks, but to those who owned the pub. So instead of going to the Western Oval to play the pokies, people could go to the Anglers Tavern, the Waterloo Cup not to mention pubs closer to the Western Oval. I personally refused to play pokies unless they were at the social club at the Western Oval (not that I was ever an avid player of pokies)However after October 1996, I didn’t really care anymore and I never made a trip to the club, so if I wanted to play pokies, then I wouldn’t bother driving to the now Whitten Oval.
On a different tangent, there was trouble between the Footscray Football Club and the VFL back in 1979 and 1980.This was to do with the Footscray JUST soccer club using the Western Oval for their matches. I do remember this at the time,if you could visit the AGE NEWS ARCHIVE for these dates
The AGE- Monday 22nd October 1979
The AGE- Monday 29th April 1980
The AGE- Thursday 5th June 1980
This tells the story of what was going on at the time. The Footscray Council was allowing the Footscray JUST soccer team to use the Western Oval as well as the Footscray Football Club. Anyway the conflict was resolved and the threat to move the Footscray v Geelong game of 1980 from the Western Oval remained just that a threat (though we got thrashed on that day- I was there- it was the 11th defeat in a row for 1980 and the 15th all up taking into account the last 4 matches of 1979 that were defeats.
Carlton and Collingwood later had involvements in soccer clubs, but they were not financially successful for them, so they fell on the scrap heap.
North Melbourne’s last match for Premiership Points at Arden Street was in 1985 and the Junction Oval’s final game was Fitzroy v St Kilda on Round 22 1984.
Yet in 1991 Carlton still played at Princes Park, Collingwood was still in Abbotsford, Essendon at Windy Hill, St Kilda was running around at Moorabbin and of course we were at the Western Oval.
1991 was to be second year of Peter Gordon’s reign and the feeling at the time since October 1989 was for the Western Oval to be redeveloped in a way that would increase capacity and also bring in more money through improved corporate facilities.Plans were made and an advanced draft was actually drawn up- a relative of my mine actually saw these plans. This wasn’t the only time that the redevelopment of the Western Oval was mooted, down through the ages, knocking down the Drill Hall and the Tennis club at the Barkly Street End, were always being talked about. Yet this never happened in the time of Footscray playing games there and also the Drill Hall remains, although the tennis courts are gone.
The Melbourne Monarchs link with the Footscray Football Club began when ringing the club, if you rang 417 Barkly Street the receptionist would answer –
Good Morning Footscray Football Club Melbourne Monarchs …. ,can we help you? Then the next step was if you were put on hold the music in the background was
‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ by Michael Jackson
So back at the beginning it was considered an innovative move, It wasn’t either low key or headline news, somewhere in between, the local papers reported on it, but the Sun and Age didn’t ‘front page’ the story. I don’t recall there being much opposition to it, In the early 1990’s there was still a genuine optimism about the club’s future as we had seen off becoming the Fitzroy Bulldogs and playing our home games at Princes Park, without any radical changes, we just raised the necessary money (and a fair bit more) and looked at ways of going from strength to strength- (totally unlike the situation in October 1996)
Anyway come 1996 the club sold the baseball club as the relationship fizzled out. Some of the reasons why it didn’t work out as well as we hoped, I attribute to this –
(1) Melbourne Monarchs- probably should have changed their name to Footscray Monarchs
(2) Most of their games seemed to be played at the Altona Baseball Stadium; they really needed to play on the Western Oval more
(3) Baseball like basketball had a bit of a ‘fad following’ in Melbourne– basketball was a big deal in the early to mid 1990’s, now it is a minor act. Soccer, cricket and football are unquestionably the biggest three sports in Melbourne, other have had a bit of a spurt but slide away again
(4) The football club was financially suffering again, they couldn’t really steer two ships at the same time away from the iceberg approaching.
This is all very annoying because in 1992 the club was thriving on and off the field. We were one of the first venues in Victoria to get poker machines, the social club increased bar staff at the time and more kegs were ordered to cater for the increasing demand. Yet stupidly (in my view) the State Government allowed Poker Machine Venue licenses’ to be handed out across the board to just about anyone who sold beer on their premises. In my humble, pokies should have followed the New South Wales approach;pokies are for clubs with members for example the Penrith Rugby League Club,Rooty Hill RSL Club etc. What we got here in Victoria was every pub putting them in, so the financial benefits of pokies revenue didn’t go back to the ordinary member who got discounted meals and drinks, but to those who owned the pub. So instead of going to the Western Oval to play the pokies, people could go to the Anglers Tavern, the Waterloo Cup not to mention pubs closer to the Western Oval. I personally refused to play pokies unless they were at the social club at the Western Oval (not that I was ever an avid player of pokies)However after October 1996, I didn’t really care anymore and I never made a trip to the club, so if I wanted to play pokies, then I wouldn’t bother driving to the now Whitten Oval.
On a different tangent, there was trouble between the Footscray Football Club and the VFL back in 1979 and 1980.This was to do with the Footscray JUST soccer club using the Western Oval for their matches. I do remember this at the time,if you could visit the AGE NEWS ARCHIVE for these dates
The AGE- Monday 22nd October 1979
The AGE- Monday 29th April 1980
The AGE- Thursday 5th June 1980
This tells the story of what was going on at the time. The Footscray Council was allowing the Footscray JUST soccer team to use the Western Oval as well as the Footscray Football Club. Anyway the conflict was resolved and the threat to move the Footscray v Geelong game of 1980 from the Western Oval remained just that a threat (though we got thrashed on that day- I was there- it was the 11th defeat in a row for 1980 and the 15th all up taking into account the last 4 matches of 1979 that were defeats.
Carlton and Collingwood later had involvements in soccer clubs, but they were not financially successful for them, so they fell on the scrap heap.
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