North Melbourne Chairman Ben Buckley is calling members to turn out in numbers for the Good Friday ‘Kick for the Kids’ clash against Essendon.
“There’s been some really encouraging signs off the back of our form and the Bombers’ form,” Buckley told SEN.
“What is important is that we continue to sell tickets during the course of the week and this is a great opportunity for us to promote the Good Friday Appeal.
“We anticipate that we’ll have a very strong crowd and sales have been particularly strong this week.
“I think we would expect to be in the mid 40,000’s … we have seen really encouraging signs this week for general admission sales and reserved seat sales.”
Buckley was responding to commentator Brian Taylor’s stinging criticism of the club’s inability to draw large crowds.
"If they draw a poor crowd on Friday, I'd be turning that game immediately over to someone else next year," Taylor told the Herald Sun.
"If they don't pull a big crowd in that game, and for all of us who keep crapping on about how we've got to give these clubs the big blockbuster games, guess what? They're only big blockbuster games if clubs that can draw big blockbuster games are playing in them.”
Buckley hit back saying Taylor was off the mark.
“I don’t agree with that at all,” he said.
“We’ve demonstrated over history we’re more than capable of drawing large crowds.
“We have demonstrated we can fill Marvel Stadium and we would expect another strong showing this week.”
With Good Friday game entering only its third year, the North chairman believes time needs to be allowed for the tradition to grow especially after the first game saw 43,000 people attend.
“You can’t expect a tradition to be built overnight,” he said.
“We would expect that over the course of the next 10-years-plus that we will form a very strong tradition of having a game on Good Friday.
“I’ll also add that our reason for doing this game is not just about attendances and TV audiences, it’s about supporting the Good Friday Appeal and ourselves and the Bulldogs and St Kilda and now Essendon have been very strong supporters of that.”
