LESS than a fortnight after he left the MCG for the last time on the shoulders of his teammates, Andrew Thompson has suggested the under-resourcing of St Kilda's football department may have cost the club a premiership.
After a period of deliberation during which he sought guidance from his father-in-law, former International Cricket Council president Malcolm Gray, the 221-game midfielder decided to "take a stand", and joined former Saints captain Nathan Burke on a ticket seeking to depose president Rod Butterss and his board.
The Footy First group, headed by transport boss and would-be president Greg Westaway, claims the incumbent board has failed to provide coach Ross Lyon's football department with adequate resources to challenge for the club's first premiership since 1966, instead focusing too heavily on profits. The rebels promise to focus its spending on key areas, including fitness and recruiting.
Thompson, who would also sit on a football sub-committee with Burke, Olympic swimmer Michael Klim and former player Mordy Bromberg QC, said he had not discussed his decision to run for the board with the teammates who gave him and Fraser Gehrig a rousing send-off in round 22.
The 34-year-old will accompany his former teammates on an end-of-season trip to Thailand before working full-time with a stockbroking firm and preparing for a possible board election in November.
"I suppose the only thing was whether I would take some time out of football, but I think this is a good group, and you've got to take a stand at some point. I think we do need to spend more money on football. I think there's been some issues off field, and I think it's just time."
Thompson expressed strong support for Lyon, but said he needed more resources. "We've had so many soft-tissue injuries over the course of the last five or six years.
"… It's very hard to say, but if the players were out on the ground, and we didn't have the injuries we had, we may well have won a flag."
St Kilda released a statement saying it would "seek contact with the rebel group to gather all the facts", after Footy First said it would lodge a notice for an extraordinary general meeting to be held in early November, when it would call for a board spill.
Confirmation that Thompson and John Gdanski, who has defected from the current board, had joined the ticket, will rock the Butterss administration. Only a day earlier, the president said he would be "shocked, absolutely shocked" if Thompson was involved.
Westaway said too much emphasis had been placed on reducing debt, to the detriment of the football department.
Burke said he was acting because he was passionate about St Kilda. "I think I'm being loyal in the fact I'm putting my name out there and trying to lead some change … the picture is not as rosy as some people like to paint."
