Essendon members, supporters, players, coaches, staff and Board.

It is a great honour to be the President of the Essendon Football Club and I thank you for this privilege.

Since starting this role back in August, I have learned a great deal about this remarkable organisation, its people, and its culture.

I have met hundreds of Essendon supporters, members, sponsors, players, coaches, and staff - and I am here to say: the future is exciting. Our people are ready to work.  They are passionate, enthusiastic, and energetic. And they are hungry for success.

The Essendon Football Club is one of the world’s oldest sporting clubs. We have a rich history that spans 150 years.

We have more than one million fans and supporters across the world.

On the strength of this rich history and our one million people, the Essendon Football Club can flourish.  We have the history. We have the numbers. We have the spirit. We’ve shown we have the pride and passion for the mighty red and black. And we have the commitment to pursue our goals of sustained on and off-field success, across all parts of our Club.

To achieve this, we all need to come together, work together, be united. 

I’d like to thank all our coteries and supporter groups, such as the Essendonians, the Collins Street Dons, Red and Blacks, Sydney Bombers, the Coaches Club, the Essendon Executive Club, the Band of Bombers, the Law Dons, the Essendon Women’s Network, and the purple bombers.  These groups are filled with people volunteering their time to help this club. 

Many AFL clubs would love to have the supporter groups we have, and I thank all these volunteers from the bottom of my heart for their hard work and dedication to the cause.  We would be a much poorer club without you, and we need you all going forward.

I would also like to thank David Collins and Barry Capuano from our past players association.  Respecting our past players and officials for what they have done for us, over many decades is important. We are all grateful for the work you have put in, to put this club in such a strong position.

From the northern suburbs of Melbourne to the Northern Territory of Australia - and everywhere in between - we are all part of the Mighty Bombers.

Proud to be red and black. And proud to Don the Sash.

I want to publicly thank former President Paul Brasher for his great service to the Essendon Football Club.

Paul and former board members – Sean Wellman, Simon Madden, and Peter Allen - have each made important and significant contributions to our Club. 

I would also like to thank Xavier Campbell for his dedication and service to the Essendon Football Club. Xavier assumed the CEO position at the most turbulent time in our Club’s history. I thank him for his commitment to the Club. 

As well, I would also like to thank outgoing coach Ben Rutten, along with some long serving staff members in Lisa Raciti, Al Stewart and Lisa Lawry who have all moved on this year, for their loyalty and contribution to the club.

I also want to mention our staff at the football club and thank them for the supreme effort they have put in this year, in what at times have been difficult circumstances.

2022 has been a year of change and challenges.

Change is never easy, and it hasn’t been for many at this club over the past few months, but it has been necessary.

To make change you must have courage. 

Courage of your convictions, courage to voice your view and courage to act.   

I want to personally thank 5 key members of this board, Kate O’Sullivan, Melissa Verner Green, Dorothy Hisgrove, Andrew Muir, and Kevin Sheedy, who stood strong when change was needed, despite the uncomfortableness of the situation. Thank you.

We play in one of the most competitive sporting leagues in the world. For our men and our women players, it requires dedication and sacrifice, as well as courage, to remain competitive. We acknowledge that in all areas of our Club, at times during the 2022 season, our focus drifted, our communication was unclear, and we were not competitive.

Many challenges still lie ahead. But since taking on the President’s role, I have new insights into the depth of talent on and off the field. And I am buoyed by the Club’s enthusiasm for next year.

I can tell you, that we now have right team of players, coaches, staff, and board members in place to get to work on creating a stronger and more unified Essendon Football Club – a Club of which we can all be proud.

The hard work has begun. 

In my first address at the round 22 game against the Tigers at the MCG, this is what I said when talking about the need to make change.… “We need urgent change, and it requires us to be bold, decisive and courageous.  As a club we cannot accept mediocrity and we cannot waste a minute”.

I am proud to say that, so far, we have lived up to that pledge….since then…

We have appointed Brad Scott, a coach with 10 years’ experience, and another 3 working for the AFL in a senior role, to help steer our men’s team back to success and his impact has been immediate.

We have appointed 4 new board members, Tim Roberts, David Wills, Andrew Welsh and our first ever First Nations director, Dean Rioli.

We have appointed the club’s first ever female Vice President, in Dorothy Hisgrove.

We have appointed a new CEO, Craig Vozzo, a highly respected leader who comes with extensive football experience from the West Coast Eagles. Craig has a clear mandate to return us to being a strong and competitive football club.

We have conducted and already begun enacting the most significant and extensive external review of any sporting club in this country. More than 80 interviews conducted, 120 surveys returned, a culmination of more than 700 hours of work, it is a blueprint for the future success of this organisation.

We have committed to reinvigorating our VFL program by appointing a full-time coach in Leigh Tudor and appointed additional assistant coaches. We understand the importance of the VFL.

We committed to developing our players, by increasing our development coaches from 2.5 to 5.5 people for next season.  We employed Dan McPherson as our GM of High Performance and Cam Roberts as our Head of Development.  Development is a key recommendation of the external review.

We have begun re-establishing ourselves as a club that will attract, retain and celebrate our First Nations people.  We look forward to watching Anthony McDonald Tipungwuti,  Alwyn Davey junior and Jayden Davey, Anthony Mankara, Tex Wanganeen, and Alastair Lord flourish at this club.  We welcome Walla back from his break and wish him all the best.

We are in the process of setting up a First Nations national advisory committee, with representatives from all states and territories, to help us re connect with all First Nations people across the country. Director Dean Rioli will lead this committee.

We have continued to work on how we reinvigorate Windy Hill, with the clear objective of our AFLW team playing all home games there in 2023.

We have begun working on a renewed strategy to engage better with the community.

We have begun work on investing further in our people within the club, providing more resources for the projects that we believe are important, and most importantly providing more people to carry through the important tasks needed.

We are concentrating our efforts on our core business – football, clearing other distractions with a renewed effort to address our key reason for being, on field success.

We are committed to providing better value for our members and fans, who are without doubt our greatest and most important asset.

And on that point, tonight, I want to announce that we have been listening to what you have been saying. 

You have been calling for better facilities at the NEC Hangar to watch and enjoy training.  I can announce to you tonight, that we have committed to installing a provision of seating which includes shade cloths to enhance the member experience. The work will begin early in the new year.

We want you to come to the NEC Hangar, it is a world class training facility, and we want you to experience it and see why it is so important to our long-term success.

In 2022 we celebrated our 150 years, and the 1200 players who have represented the red and black and the millions of supporters whose lives have revolved around the Bombers.

As part of the 150th celebrations we hit the road.

The Essendon Country Tour connected regional Victoria, with the 1984, 1985, 1993 and 2000 premiership cups led by Kevin Sheedy. Sheeds was joined by Essendon icons including Mark Harvey, Dyson Heppell, Sean Wellman, Dustin Fletcher and several other past champions.

The introduction of our own AFLW team this year has added a whole new dimension to the meaning of equality and diversity at this club. One of the standout memories for all of us was witnessing a loud and inspired crowd of more than 12,000 see us defeat Hawthorn by 26 points at Marvel Stadium in our first match. Congratulations to everyone involved in our AFLW team this year.

Watching everyone come together in the red and black to cheer our women is a moment this club will cherish for the rest of our history. Personally, I was just one of many who will be able to say I was there that night, and I am so glad I was.

In July we won the VFLW premiership with a 35-point victory over the Southern Saints in the Grand Final in Port Melbourne. The win gave everyone great joy and showed just how far our women’s program has come since we were granted a VFLW licence in 2018.

In 2022, Essendon became a five-team club, 2 Men’s teams, 2 Women’s teams and our wheelchair football team.

To everyone in the room tonight thank you for your loyalty and commitment to Essendon.

But now, it’s time for all of us to come together.

We need to unite as one.

All our teams, all our supporters, all our staff, everyone.

Together as one, we will be unstoppable.

United, we can achieve all our goals.

We are Essendon.

Thank you.