“It is with some regret that I stand before you today as Interim President of the Carlton Football Club,” with those words Stephen Kernahan commenced the formal segment of his first address to sponsors and guests as the Interim Carlton President.
Kernahan spoke of the Club’s support for Richard Pratt and his wife Jeanne and the outstanding contribution Richard has made to the Club, particularly during the last 16 months as President.
“As has been well-documented, Richard Pratt decided on Friday to stand aside as Carlton President. In doing so, he has once again put the interests of his beloved Blues in front of his own,” said Kernahan.
“Greg Swann and I went to see Richard on Friday after he had met with his family and made his decision. There is no doubt Richard will continue to support the Carlton Football Club and it is great to have both he and Jeanne with us here today.
Kernahan addressed the topic that the football world had been discussing since Friday. He then spoke of the unified board, hard working and enthusiastic administration and football department that will ensure the resurgence of this Club continues. As he said, the show must go on.
After the first 12 rounds of the home and away season, more than 600,000 people have attended Carlton matches, representing an increase of 29 percent on last year. Home game attendance is up by nearly 25 percent, as are away game crowds by nearly 35. Here at the MCG, Carlton’s six matches have so far attracted average turnouts of nearly 63,500.
It’s also worth noting that last Sunday’s match against Collingwood attracted an average television audience of 1.165 million across metropolitan and regional Australia. In fact the average tv audience for Carlton games this year is 746,410 – the third highest in the AFL – representing an increase of 49 percent on the average to round 12 of 2007.
In good news for the Club this week, two of our young guns have recommitted to the Club - Brad Fisher re-signed for two years and Michael Jamison for three. They are part of our young developing side and victories in the last two weeks have us hovering around the final eight. We know we have a long way to go but it is great to see the development. You have a look at Murphy, Gibbs and Kreuzer and they are 18, 19 and 20 years of age. They will be at their best in their mid-twenties. I am not saying it will take us that long to get back up where we should be but you can see we have plenty of improvement to come.
We cannot afford to look past today’s game against Essendon. Here at the MCG where these two teams have fought many great battles over the past 111 years.
We are heading in the right direction – We are Carlton – look out here we come.
