“THEY’VE really picked the Club up, put us on their shoulders and moved us forward.”

Carlton’s resurgence off the field has been entirely driven by its members.

That’s the opinion of CEO Cain Liddle, who announced last night that the Club had achieved its record membership tally before Round 1 of the 2020 AFL season.

With 64,270 signed up for the year, Liddle took time to reflect on the stunning progression while talking to SEN’s Whateley.

While previous off-field recoveries across the competition’s history has been instigators by other factors, Liddle said the ‘All of Us’ mentality from Bluebaggers had been like no other.

“Let’s face it: Carlton has been in the position before where you’ve got to cut everything back and you’ve got to start again, because you don’t have the off-field investment to allow you to keep investing,” Liddle said.

“While there certainly was an element of our supporters being disgruntled, they continued to turn up to games, they continued to buy their memberships and they’ve actually enabled us to get through this.

“In terms of off-field recoveries and how they go, quite often they can be football-led where consistent, sustainable improvement in performance can generate those revenues.

“This one really has been entirely member-led from an off-field perspective.”

Citing the Club’s ability to investment an additional $4.5 million into the football department across its AFL and AFLW programs, Liddle said the membership growth was having a tangible benefit on performance and operations.

He said he could feel there was belief and expectation spreading across the board — and the players understood that was the case.

He reiterated that The Carlton Way would continue to define the direction of the Club.

“To come out and say you want to win premierships; when you’re crippled with debt, you want to be debt free; when you’ve just ticked over 50,000 members you want to have 100,000 members — they were big ambitious goals," he said.

“I think Carlton supporters have bought into the plan and the journey that we’re on… there’s an expectation that our performance will become more consistent and sustainable.

“I think [the players] are willing to accept that expectation has risen and what I’d hope that our supporters see is the vastly improved on-field performance moving forward that’s sustainable — not just a one-hit wonder.”