The thing about Berwick

BERWICK bashing has become the local pastime of choice in recent years and it seems everyone has an opinion on the Wickers whether they are part of the club or not.
And the vitriol from inside has far outweighed anything offered by independent observers in the past few months.
But let’s not walk away from the fact that the club, and the people involved in it, have brought most of that on themselves.
Many people, allegedly ‘in the know’ at the Edwin Flack Reserve, say that the now defunct regime led by Peter Jensen ruined the club and turned members and players away in droves.
Mind you, that has been said about every Berwick committee at one stage or another since the club returned to the former South West Gippsland Football League after its failed foray into the VFA during the 1980s.
And always by those outside the administration that they were bagging so loud and publicly.
And always by those who are tucked up in bed when the club’s committee members are trying to generate the money required to operate a club and pay under-performing players week-in, week out.
The Jensen committee ran the club for seven years and, while there were plenty of knockers, those ready and willing to step up and challenge were thin on commitment.
Then again, that’s often the case in football clubs, it’s just that, for some reason, Berwick folk love to make it more public.
And don’t for one second think that opposition clubs do anything other than laugh when the Wickers are down either.
Sure, you will hear politically correct rival officials say ‘good luck to them’ and ‘we want every club to be competitive’, but nine times out of 10, when questioned about which club they want to see fail (on and off field) the answer is ‘Berwick’.
The Wickers could write the handbook on how to sack coaches and break the spirit of good people, but apparently that will all change now.
Last week the MPNFL brokered a deal whereby the new committee (under club stalwart Cliff Donegan) swept to power with a plan to put things right.
It is the dawning of a new era at the Edwin Flack Reserve, a new beginning, a fresh start.
Call it what you like, but we’ve heard it all before and football followers will only believe it when the senior side is a genuine contender on field and the well-used knives have been removed from backs and permanently retired to the kitchen.