I admire Bill Cowen for telling it as he sees it and he is right facilities at the reigning champions ground are a joke. Other clubs (including Coastal) aren't much better and must improve. I think his point is as the governing body what have Mainland done to assist clubs to maintain previous high standards following the earthquake? Apart from pillaging the FIFA and CEAT funds themselves at the expense of clubs to recover QE2 and get new lighting and an artificial at Avonhead sweet fa. As a governing body they should have taken and facilitated an overall approach to recovery much like cricket, hockey and rugby did but this didn't happen. Hence individual clubs got active and had to pursue their own agendas, some more successfully than others. Seems to be those that are reliant on council grounds like Bays and Coastal in the hardest hit areas have been dropped in it. So once again club engagement takes a backward step.
The AGM for Mainland is due in a couple of weeks and their annual report has just been released. A wages bill of $800k and reserves of $800k takes some justification - are players and supporters in the city getting value for money here or pillaged for all they are worth? We keep getting hit with the same old story of poor performance on the park, no national age group reps etc etc. When Mike Coggan took up the CEO role at Mainland, they were in dire financial straits. Mike set out to turn that around and build a reserve fund equivalent to 6 months expenditure, an area that he has done extremely well in. In the mean time we have seen the wages bill double not to mention many other costs mostly funded by increased fees and levies - will this now ease as the target has been met? Their was talk of "giving back" to the code at last years AGM which we have yet to see. Should be an interesting meeting.
On another note Bill often talks about the standard of the MPL and the need for a South Island league, an idea that has support of most ChCh and at least 3 Dunedin clubs but not their federation (apparently). This is to try and elevate the number of higher intensity quality games available to our better teams, an admirable idea. 1998 was the last year we had a full travelling Sth Island league and I agree it is time it was reinstated. 4 teams from ChCh, 3 from Dunners with Nelson as well would be a real fillip for the game here and commit clubs to a serious level of competition. It would also turn our under achieving clubs back into either ambitious up comers or simply feeders for the 4 who strive to achieve at a higher level. No relegation for the first 3 years to reflect the level of commitment required to get a team on the park and at least half the travel costs funded by the Federation. I see that as a better use of the $50 - $80k of annual surpluses Mainland currently generate. A Sth Island league does 2 things at the same time - it lifts the quality of the game and the profile - bring it on. And it needs to happen in 2014, none of this "we can't change anything for 2 years" approach. The Southern League went into hiatus as a full travelling league as a response to the fuel crisis (does anyone remember that?) nearly 20 years ago. We've been arguing about how to improve the quality of the local league ever since. Various things have been tried, mainly through the ramping up of junior training programmes, split Norhtern/Southern zones, quality control standards, end of season play off's etc whilst avoiding the obvious. Time for Mainland to show some leadership, grow some balls and get on with governance of the game. They should be right behind this.
