Fact #1: Bob Fulton, the real Bozo and not the one in these forums, has not been successful in rugby league since he coached the team to the 1997 ARL Grand Final, a game we lost when we shouldn't have. He has presided over a decade of failure by the NSW Origin team with selections that have at times bordered on insanity (and if you think he took his demotion from being NSW's chief selector lying down, think again. From what I have been told he didn't walk away willingly). And now since he has been back in a position of power at Manly we have, in the space of 3 years, gone from a team that only just missed the 2014 GF, to just missing the top 8 in 2015 and since then we have been a turnstile with some 40 players and one coach cut from the club and have been entrenched in the bottom 4.
Successful? I think not. They say that some players live on past reputations, but right now I'd say that Fulton the administrator is doing exactly that.
Fact #2: Peter Peters' continual attacks on Manly fans, either via his column in the paper or through things like this, is completely unprofessional for someone who holds a position of power within the club. There are a number of other clubs going through their own troubles, yet do you ever hear any one from those clubs continually attacking their fan base like Zorba does? Did anyone from the Tigpies come out and blast their fans over their comments about what was happening with Robbie Farah? Did anyone from Newcastle come out and attack their fans after they vented their frustrations over last year when they only won one single game? Yet Manly fans say anything about how the club currently is and Peters is straight away in the media giving them what for. Apparently we're sausage roll eating dummies, cowards who know nothing and we need to shut up because we're irrelevant.
Is it irrelevant that of the 16 NRL clubs, Manly runs 15th for membership numbers? If people like Zorba continue to alienate and attack the fan base at every opportunity we won't be 15th and we won't be attracting more members, we'll be dead last and losing them.
And its not just in these forums where fans are venting their frustrations and sometimes anger. Before it was taken down, Keith's article had a big response in Facebook with the general feeling being that he was right on the money.