Almanac Footy: Ground Up and the Giants – Fact or Fiction…

Almanac Footy: Ground Up and the GWS Giants-Fact or Fiction…

 

It was with great anticipation that my wife Rebecca and I (former inaugural staffers of the GWS Giants) settled into our lounge chairs last Sunday night and tuned into the ABC to watch Ground Up starring Sam Pang. A whimsical account of the formation of an AFL Club in Tasmania. Less than five minutes in we both looked at each other and burst out laughing. This is the GWS Giants all over again! This is not a fantasy script – this is a truthful account of establishing a new AFL “franchise” albeit framed as a tongue in cheek comedy.

 

Unlike the GWS Giants Tasmania had finally been admitted to the AFL after decades of neglect and dismissal which was wonderful news provided you ignored the small print, the economic modelling, the stadium debate, the salmon sponsorship, the Greens campaign, the coach’s backstory, the opium proposal and the sound of taxpayers vomitting into the Derwent River.

 

The AFL call it expansion. Tasmanians call it overdue justice. The accountants call it $1.13 billion. The Commission call it “visionary investment,” which in football language means nobody is entirely sure where the money is coming from. Apparently, this was a real life topic of conversation at the recent AFL/Club Presidents meeting. Where is the money coming from?

 

In Ground Up Chief Executive Officer Hugh Shen (Sam Pang) steps up to the plate with the expression of someone who had been handed a live grenade and told establishing a footy club was about community engagement and spreading the league to all parts of Australia. David Matthews experienced the same trepidation some 15 years earlier when he landed in Blacktown just off the M4 halfway to the Blue Mountains. At least in Tassie they knew what the game is. In  western Sydney no-one cared.

 

Beside Hugh is Destiny, the new COO whose first task was to determine whether Tasmania’s mascot should be a devil, a mountain, a wedge-tailed eagle, a boutique gin bottle, or simply a stressed ratepayer holding a shovel. My Rebecca had less of a quandary. Surely the Giants must have a GIANT as the Mascot. G-Man was born.

 

In Ground Up the clubs first strategic meeting was held in a room overlooking the proposed stadium site which at various times had been described as visionary, unnecessary, transformational, reckless and world-class. But not in our backyard screamed the naysayers.

 

“We need a club song,” Hugh declared. “Something traditional?” Destiny asked. “Definitely. But also modern. Proud but inclusive. Fierce but family friendly. Tasmanian but commercially scalable.” Get three agencies on it.

 

The Giants stumbled across a demo tape sent by the Cat Empires Harry Angus in 2010. There’s a BIG BIG SOUND from the west of the town! A German beer hall romp with trumpets waling. Perfect! CEO Matthews loved it. So did Sheeds. Let’s send it to the players. Choco says let’s add Never Surrender-a bit like Richmond’s Yellow and Black!! The Giants thanks to Harry A has one of the great AFL club songs.

 

For the Tassie executives the mascot discussion was not easy. The Tasmanian Devil was obvious but obvious make AFL executives nervous. The AFL prefer obvious only after it has been through six committees, a rebrand, a stakeholder consultation process and a launch video featuring Auskick kids running in slow motion.

 

“What about a salmon?” Destiny asked. Hugh looked up sharply. “Careful. The salmon people are potential sponsors.” “That’s exactly why I asked.” Sponsor or mascot?” “Both if the jumper deal is big enough.”

 

This was the first great moral dilemma of the Tasmanian Football Club. Could a proud new AFL team be bankrolled by salmon farming while presenting itself as a clean, green, island-hearted people’s movement? The answer according to the commercial department was yes provided the logo was tasteful and nobody mentioned waterways!

 

The Giants had a similar dilemma. I was tasked with investigating non-traditional revenue streams to help support the ongoing financial viability of the club. Gaming was an option. We looked at a venues in Wagga, Rhodes and Concord. It was ultimately decided that gaming was not aligned to our core values as a family club. Instead, the club formed a partnership with an education provider and established strategically located childcare centres across western Sydney. Little Giants Childcare Centres operate in Oran Park and Killara.

 

European automobile firm Skoda sent Sheeds to Germany to check out the massive production line. Skoda wanted to increase its market share in Australia. Who better than Sheeds to spruik the virtues of the Octavia, Superb and Fabia. Major sponsorship deal done! We all drove Skoda’s in those early years. We even named the stadium Skoda Stadium. Not sure if Skoda sales were boosted but we were happy with the cash-and the cars.

 

In Ground Up Alistair (Andrew Demetriou style autocrat) the AFL CEO, arrived in Hobart with the authority of a man who had never met a problem that couldn’t be solved by a press conference or an embargoed media statement. He came to secure land for the new training centre. The first idea involved the war memorial precinct-good luck with that. Andrew Demetriou did a deal with Blacktown Mayor Alan Pendleton back in 2009. We operated out of demountables. Tumble weed blew across the precinct. The Giants trained on a baseball diamond. Commission Chair Mike Fitzpatrick was appalled.

 

Hugh was sent to confront the Greens, who had launched a campaign arguing that spending $1.13 billion of taxpayer money on a stadium during a housing, health and cost-of-living crisis may not represent sound public policy.

 

Hugh prepared carefully ably assisted by the AFL’s chief strategist Walter Lee. He had charts, graphs, multipliers, tourism projections, economic impact modelling and a slick PowerPoint presentation. And it must have a roof. No roof, no deal, no team.

 

I was sent to Canberra for four months to work on a proposed redevelopment of Manuka Oval in partnership with construction giant Grocon. A business case was to be presented to the ACT Government. A new commercial, residential and sports precinct was proposed. Community consultation was at the core of the project. It soon became apparent that the residents of Manuka and Kingston were not going to allow for any modern development in the leafy suburbs surrounding the archaic facility. Chief Minister Andrew Barr was having enough problems convincing Canberrans of the benefits of light rail. The project was abandoned. Manuka Oval remains the most inferior AFL facility in the land.

 

Tasmania has the passion the history and the right to belong. But the whole thing is at risk of being swallowed by infrastructure politics before the first player has even pulled on a jumper.

 

Across Bass Strait and up the eastern seaboard the GWS Giants watch with the weary wisdom of a club that had been born not in a football heartland but on a spreadsheet, a demographic forecast and Kevin Sheedy’s imagination.

 

The Giants knew what hard looked like. Trust me.

 

In 2009 the people of western Sydney were not demanding an AFL club. Australian football in large parts of the west was not sleeping; it was practically in witness protection. No-one cared. Perhaps they still don’t 15 years on despite impressive on field performances and regular finals participation.

 

And yet the AFL keep looking at Western Sydney and see the future. A massive growing, vibrant region filled with families, migrants, young athletes, new communities and possibility. The league’s greatest fear is not failure. It is absence. As Kevin Sheedy argued the biggest risk would have been doing nothing.

 

Kevin arrived like a football prophet preaching “Don’t fence me in” to a market that did not yet know whether it wanted a fence, a Sherrin, or a sausage sizzle. He understood something essential that expansion was not just about a team. It was about planting a flag, telling stories, shaking hands, visiting schools, winning trust and being prepared to look ridiculous for a decade-perhaps more.

 

The Giants had Tony Shepherd as Chair, bringing business credibility and political steel. They had the wily Gubby Allan as Football Manager, Tom Harley, Alan McConnell, Grant Mayer, Andrew Hill and a foundation staff that had to build everything from scratch including the list, culture, facilities, housing, operations, community links, football credibility and basic awareness.

 

They needed player accommodation. They needed a training base. They needed to convince young draftees that Blacktown was not a punishment. They found Breakfast Point and Craig and Melissa Lambert. They needed to explain to parents why their sons were being sent to a start-up club in rugby league territory with orange jumpers and Kevin Sheedy talking about Israel Folau.

 

Blacktown International Sports Park was to be more than a facility. It was a statement. The City of Blacktown mattered-apparently. Community mattered. Schools mattered. Local clubs mattered. The Giants could not simply parachute in and demand love. They had to earn curiosity first.

 

David Matthews understood this when he became CEO. The job was not just running a football club. It was missionary work. The Giants had to be visible, patient and stubborn. They had to accept small crowds without flinching-and still do. They had to play in front of empty seats and still behave like the mission was worth it-and still do. But foremost they had to build a competitive football team, and Blacktown was not going to cut it.

 

A golf driving range was found at Sydney Olympic Park. A $3m offer was made to the owners. Richmond champion Dustin Martin toured the site whilst under construction. Blacktown Mayor Allan Pendleton felt betrayed. Perhaps he was.

 

Headlines were brutal in the early years. One-hundred-point losses were the norm. Players and families would gather at The Palace Hotel post-match to “celebrate” inside 50’s, quarters won and tackles laid.  The phrase “AFL is non-existent in Western Sydney” was thrown around as if it were a closing argument. But the lesson of GWS was never that expansion is easy. The lesson was that if you are serious about generational change you do not judge the orchard by the first sapling.

 

Tasmania’s problem is different. It has the football soul already. It has history, players, clubs, legends and a population that understands the game deep in its bones. Tasmania does not need to be taught what a behind is or who those people are behind the goals waving flags. Or why is the game so torturously long. Think Hart, Baldock, Hudson, Richardson, Stewart, Lynch, Eade and co.

 

Tasmania’s risk is not cultural indifference. Its risk is political exhaustion.

 

The Giants had to build belief in a place where AFL was foreign-it still is and will for decades to come. Tasmania must preserve belief while everyone argues about concrete, debt, planning approvals and whether the club’s first major sponsor should be a salmon, a poppy or a government department wearing a scarf.

 

In Ground Up, Hugh and Destiny stumble through the absurdities because every start-up club is part sporting dream, part hostage negotiation. The difference is that Tasmania’s drama is unfolding in a place that already loves the game. That makes the stakes higher not lower.

 

The Giants could afford to be strange. They were inventing something. Tasmania cannot afford to look artificial. It is representing something that already exists.

 

That is the real learning from Western Sydney. Build facilities, yes. Hire expertise, absolutely. Get strong Chairs and Boards, smart operators, football people, commercial thinkers and community builders. But never confuse infrastructure with identity.

 

A stadium does not create a club. A training centre does not create loyalty. A sponsor does not create belonging. A song does not create soul.

 

People do.

 

The Giants survived because Sheedy sold imagination, Shepherd gave it structure, Matthews gave it endurance, and the early staff accepted the humiliation of being pioneers. They knew the first decade was not about instant validation. It was about laying foundations for a city skyscraper.

 

Tasmania must do the same, but in reverse. It already has the foundation. The danger is digging it up to install a luxury apartment complex nobody agreed to.

 

The Giants had learned that expansion is not a launch. It is a long, awkward, expensive act of faith. Tasmania now faces its own version of the same truth.

 

Build the stadium if you must. Fight the politics if you can. Take the salmon money carefully. Avoid the opium jokes entirely. Choose the Devil, sing loudly, hire wisely, walk humbly and remember the lesson from Western Sydney.

 

You do not build a football club from concrete. You build it from people.

 

 

Read more from Richard Griffiths HERE

 

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