Tim Lane in today's Age tears Freo to shreds over their "culture of failure" since it entered the AFL 14 years ago and he askes the question what causes a winning culture in some clubs and a lack of successful at others?---------------
IN A radio discussion recently, Leigh Matthews expressed the opinion that there is no such thing as culture at a football club beyond what is established by those who are there at any particular time. Given his experience at three elite-level clubs over a 40-year span, with the 17 playing years spent at an institution that has, for decades, referred to itself as "the family club", it was an intriguing assessment.
Few are better qualified than Matthews to pass judgement. Yet, as I listened, I couldn't help wondering about the winning traditions of clubs such as Hawthorn, West Coast and Carlton, and the fact that St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs have won just two flags between them in almost 200 years of cumulative participation.
Does the winning-culture window just happen to open at some clubs with more frequency than at others? And if money, power and business wherewithal, or lack of them, cause some clubs to be more successful than others, would not such factors help create and shape a culture within an institution? The formation of new clubs over the past 20 years has provided an opportunity to study the development of football club culture, if it exists, from birth.
West Coast and Adelaide have won five premierships between them in a cumulative 40 seasons. Within a 16-team competition, they are, as a tandem, achieving at twice the statistically predicted rate. One suspects a strong expectation exists at both clubs that over-achievement should be the norm. Then there is Fremantle.
Since entering the competition in 1995, the Dockers have been a miserable flop. The spread of success that the player draft is designed to eventually bring to all clubs has eluded them. Failure, which the system is also designed to impose on clubs in a roughly cyclical way, has been their byword.
Statistically, the Dockers should, over 14 completed seasons, have had seven top-eight finishes. They have had two. They have finished in the bottom four seven times — double the number according to mathematical probability. Fremantle should by now have played in a grand final, or even two; the closest it has come was a 35-point preliminary-final defeat in 2006. The next closest is so "unclose" as to not warrant consideration.
Full article at:
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/rfnews/fremantles-culture-of-failure/2009/04/11/1239223105936.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
