Originally Posted by
1eyedog
Think he wants to go to Essendon first Carlton next. Essendon have a fantastic history with Indigenous players, they were the first club to really procure Aboriginal players from South Australia and the Territory and Islands. They invested hard in these States in the 80s now you'll find an overwhelming proportion of Aboriginal people support Essendon (Long) , St Kilda (Winmar) or, the older ones, (Richmond) M Rioli. If Essendon are involved in Martin I'd almost guarantee that he finds his way there.
Our proposed Indigenous program is great, but it's 20 years too late. Better late than never I suppose but it will be a long time before we become a destination club for Indigebous people. Playing the Cairns and NT games helped as larger-scale Indigenous populations had an opportunity to see us live. We were also doing clinics outside Darwin within Indigenous communities, but for one economic reason or another we stopped playing there, so we dropped the bundle of extending our brand across these communities. It's a shame because one thing that connects Indigenous populations from W.A to Tassie to the islands to non-traditional AFL States like Queensland is that every Aboriginal kid knows how to play AFL footy. It's kinda like when I went to India in the late 90s and played street cricket in India, every Indian kid could bat and bowl. A far higher proportion of Aboriginal people live AFL as opposed to what we see outside Aboriginal populations, and that resource is under utilised.
A lot of work is needed with this Indigenous program. Hope the club invests in it properly, it could rake in great reward.