this is not a surprise - it was a great concept just in the wrong location.
The Swans were really trying to promote the family club theme - well Families dont take their kids to the Cross - hell I hate going to the Cross.
Western Suburbs Aussie rules club at Ashfield has been going for years - Maybe the Swans should have bought/leased the Moore Park bowling club when they had the chance.
I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure..................
Chickens drink - but they don't pee!
AGE IS ONLY IMPORTANT FOR TWO THINGS - WINE & CHEESE!
Yeah, horrible location. An AFL pub in sury hills would flourish i reckon.....
So that building is completely shutdown from tomorrow? Will probably be turned into something horrible with $15 beers.
A very good location would be adjacent and at back of the Trumper Stand within the
Fox Studios prestinct. The origin plan was to have a hotel there. I am no expert, but it is entirely possible to build a social club there.
This was one of those ideas that came from the previous management which was pretty much doomed as, has been said above, who on earth wants to go to the Cross if you are not 18 to 35, and even then what percentage of them! Don't know what is likely to happen now.
Probably a place in the Precinct would be logical.
If you've never jumped from one couch to the other to save yourself from lava then you didn't have a childhood
Much as I wanted to support it, like others I just wasn't all that hot on heading to the Cross. If it (or another attempt at similar) rises from the ashes in a better location I'd be glad to patronise it!
Very sad news indeed. We now have no official social club in Sydney to support our team. Suggestions of a social club at the SCG or Fox Studios are ridiculous. I mean who would go there on non match days? Ever been to Fox Studios on a weekday? It's a ghost town.Originally Posted by Cheer Squad
I'd like to see the Swans pursue something like the Lions have done in Brisbane where their club offers lifetime membership for $1 and now has over 58,000 members in just 6 months of operation. The Lions recently stated their social club is set to deliver profits of $1 million+ per year.
Official website of the LIONS@springwood social club
Hopefully someone at the Swans look at the Lions set up as a model to follow. Finding a suitable location will be the real problem in Sydney.Last November, the Lions moved their social club from the Chalk Hotel near the Gabba to a newly designed venue at Springwood which was formerly an Ikea centre.
The new club has 200 poker machines and if early indications are a guide to the future, this could be one of the best moves the club has ever made.
Where the Chalk club had about 5000 members, the new club has 58,000 in just six months and, if trends continue, is expected to make million-dollar profits annually.
"Our expectation is that within two or three years Springwood will be making a significant contribution to the profits of the football club and to the football department which is what we are all about because we want a competitive team on the paddock."
http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/l...-1226051406325
Whilst it never would have been able to hold the capacity of something the size of Club Swans, many many years ago some friends of mine and I that used to bounce around in bands together tried work shopping the idea of using the Hopetoun, which was at that time starting to suffer one of its many death spirals (that eventually got it), as a a small size Swans social club. We'd gone as far as identifying components of the pub that would need to be remodeled (the upstairs, which did actually exist, would need to be knocked right through to increase capacity significantly) as well as what the split of Swans vs. live music etc. would be. The other guys took it further with trying to look at the Cricket NSW schedule for year round viability.
The logic for was that it was close to the SCG (god knows how many Swans fans walk past it on the way home after a game), the Swans could have contributed financially to the costs to fix up their various ailments. Hoey would then play live music as it currently did but block out Swans game days to provide a venue before/after game for drinks etc. + venue to watch away games. Club could use it for smaller functions etc. Seemed like a great idea at the time, and the Hoey's still sitting there all boarded up and waiting for someone to love it.
I knew him as a gentle young man, I cannot say for sure the reasons for his decline
We watched him fade before our very eyes, and years before his time
While I'm no longer a Sydneysider I think a Swans Club in the right location would be an idea worth pursuing - maybe the Hopetoun or somewhere similar could become Sydney's Rising Sun, a great place to be when we're playing away and a pleasant place to visit on the way to or from the game.
But the one thing I really don't want to see is a club that's financed by poker machines. They are a pest whose numbers we need to reduce, not multiply.
He reminds him of the guys, close-set, slow, and never rattled, who were play-makers on the team. (John Updike, seeing Josh Kennedy in a crystal ball)
The funny thing there is that Springwood is practically in Logan, a long way from anywhere.
I can't see the concept working at all - I think regardless location, the idea of a Swans social club in a 24/7 format is gone. I'm all for having some sort of a base but commercially it doesn't seem viable. We already have a proliferation of Leagues, RSL and other clubs, so I can't see where a Swans Club would fit in an already cluttered marketplace. Maybe we need to settle for the few pubs that cater for Swans fans already.
Maybe the days are gone of a 'social club' being a physical thing and they're being replaced by 'virtual social clubs' such as RWO?
The Hopetoun..... a Swans club? On the one hand, Swans club, yay. On the other hand, the Hoey is a bit sacred. It would be just plain wrong for it to be anything other than the Hoey. Its role as a live music venue would diminish significantly. Although, if that's the only way it could get open and profitable again....
Maybe we could try to get The Excelsior from Justin Hemmes' grubby little fingers? Or at least convince him to abandon his plans for a Mexican restaurant there.
Officially on the Reid and Sumner bandwagon!
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