THE North Melbourne Football Club is being torn in two directions but even the most bitter Kangaroos rivals agree on one thing — the club's astonishing achievement in finishing third during this difficult and strife-torn season. In fact, what the Kangaroos achieved in 2007 almost could be described as a miracle, given all they were up against.

As footballers and their support networks throughout the AFL have moved so aggressively into the 21st century, the extent of the Shinboner spirit — whatever that is — has never been so impressive or so defiant. Not only did the Kangaroos pay their players as a group between $500,000 to $750,000 less than most of their opponents, but they operated with a dedicated but virtually skeleton full-time group of football staffers, not to mention a further dedicated group of part-timers who clearly worked well beyond their wages.

Nothing will change next season unless the club commits to relocation and the brave but risky new Gold Coast world.

Outgoing Roos chairman Graham Duff, who simply lost the hunger and had neither the time nor the inclination to continue to fight to unite the club, believes the Kangaroos can survive at Arden Street but admits they will never thrive while they remain in Melbourne. Since 1999, the club has tried to forge new markets in Sydney, Canberra and the Gold Coast, and yet those attempts have been dollar-based, the club never truly putting its heart into those pushes. If it stays in Melbourne, where would it sell itself next?

Even when Glenn Archer, seen by some as a spiritual saviour, broke Wayne Schimmelbusch's games record in August, he could not draw a decent crowd worthy of his work for the club.

The expert Kangaroos peer-review group led by former AFL commissioner Peter Scanlon has recommended that a relocation would require another year of deliberation. Archer has asked for two years to give the club a chance to remain viable but frankly, the time for deliberation has passed, and the AFL and the Kangaroos board recognised as much on Wednesday.

The Kangaroos have every right to turn their backs on the Gold Coast, but you have to wonder how much hope there is in the long term for a club that has known this move has been on the cards for two years and yet remains completely divided over what to do.

The club's past two chief executives were respected football men who could not turn the Roos into a viable force and who have moved back into key football roles at other clubs. Rick Aylett, the incumbent, has struggled to come to grips in 12 months with the massive task he has taken on with minimal administrative support, and the Kangaroos could not afford big-time club chief executives such as Greg Swann or Brian Cook.

In truth, the club has fiddled while Arden Street has burned. Its supporters — more of whom are paid-up members per head than any other club — have every right to be confused. While the players and coaches in 2007 have been mighty, the board, which was put into place uneasily on the eve of the season, has failed to demonstrate true leadership.

Sure, some directors have been at odds with each other from the start, and the extraordinary ownership structure of the club has crippled its decision-making powers, but it is not good enough to blame bullying shareholders when the board itself could not even come together to make a recommendation to stakeholders.

So now it has come to this — a December 1 deadline that, on the club's recent form, could well be extended once again. Not that the AFL is entirely blameless in the current scenario. Having stated in the 1990s that it would not be banker to any club, it went on years later to create, correctly, a competitive balance fund with a series of strict guidelines — stipulations that clearly have not been met by the Kangaroos. Yet still the money has come in.

Andrew Demetriou made public his commission's plan to play 22 home-and-away games in Queensland almost three years ago and still we have no set stadium deal in place to sell to a new Gold Coast team. Carrara still looks like a relic of the 1980s. Rugby league has a club ensconced, along with a new stadium, and soccer could even beat Australian football into a region the AFL has regarded as a priority. The AFL, too, has procrastinated.

Should the Kangaroos choose to remain at Arden Street — and the smart money is on Demetriou getting his way and overseeing a relocation — the club faces an uncertain future and a decade of hard slog and drudgery simply to remain alive. And it will have wasted the AFL's time and caused immeasurable heartache and angst for its small but loyal band of supporters.