NORTH Ballarat hall of famers remain questioning why they have been left out in the cold on the club board’s controversial coaching decision.
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Decorated clubmen and life members Digger Roberts, Owen Thomas, Lindsay Bradley, including past presidents Allan Abrams and Ken Clark joined voices to sound their disappointment how this week played out. These are men who built the club – they are concerned for the Roosters’ future. Together, they labelled the board’s decision to cut Roosters’ head coach Gerard FitzGerald at the season’s end as the “most disgraceful” decision in the club’s whole history and its rich Victorian Football League era.
They say the new board promised stakeholders, like themselves, transparency when Jenny Bromley was elected chairman in May. But they are still demanding answers on the board’s latest move.
“Their inability in justifying their decision is most puzzling and reeks of personal issues of several people and their puppets to dismiss Fitzy,” the band said in a joint statement.
“This new board promised transparency, openness and trust but none of this is yet to be displayed. They have still not given us valid reasons to dismiss Fitzy and why the (Roosters’) football department recommendation to reappoint him wasn’t accepted.
"We want those board members that supported Fitzy to resign and thus expose exactly those who did not.”
Bromley, addressing media on Tuesday, said the board felt a coaching change was needed to move the Roosters forward as a standalone team in the VFL. She said the board made its decision as part of an ongoing internal review that would soon allow the board to detail the club’s direction and criteria for a VFL coach. Bromley said the board was 100 per cent committed to stay in the state league.
This band of life members still feel FitzGerald was the perfect man to lead the club into its standalone venture for stability and for ambassadorial he plays in Ballarat, western Victoria and across the VFL.
They say the community response in support of FitzGerald speaks volumes. This includes media comments from premiership players Steve Clifton, Bill Driscoll and Paul McMahon and highly-regarded VFL figureheads, including Port Melbourne coach Gary Ayres and Phil Cleary.
“Our big concern now is how the club – even if appointing a new head coach – can recruit players and coaches into a club that may not be perceived credible, trustworthy or a stable environment.”
