Voss Deserved Better From Carlton, And He Knows It

Michael Voss sat down in front of a microphone this week and did something that takes a certain kind of courage — he talked honestly about being shown the door by the club he gave his heart to. And if you listened carefully, really carefully, you could hear every single thing he didn’t say just as loudly as the words that came out.

I’ve been watching Carlton — or the VFL, as I still catch myself calling it on a bad day — for longer than most of our current list has been alive, and I’ve seen coaches come and go with the kind of frequency that would embarrass a revolving door. But the Voss situation sits differently with me. It has from the start. And his radio appearance this week only hardened that view.

A Man Who Spoke With Class When Others Wouldn’t Have Bothered

Let’s be honest about what Voss could have done. He could have torched the joint. He could have gone on radio and let fly at the football department, at the board, at whoever it was that decided his time was up. Plenty of blokes in his position have done exactly that, and nobody would have entirely blamed him for it. Instead, he was measured. Reflective. Dignified, even.

That tells you something about the man. It doesn’t tell you everything about what happened behind closed doors at Ikon Park, mind you — not by a long stretch — but it tells you something.

What came through clearly, if you were paying attention, was that Voss believed in what he was building. He believed the list was moving in the right direction. He believed the culture was shifting. Whether you agree with that assessment or not — and plenty of Carlton fans will have a robust opinion either way — the conviction in his voice was real. This wasn’t a bloke rationalising failure. This was a bloke genuinely puzzled that the page got turned before the chapter was finished.

The Problem With Patience at Carlton Football Club

Now, I’m not here to pretend the results under Voss were uniformly good, because they weren’t. We had some horror days. Some games where the Blues looked like they’d never met each other before the bounce. Back in my day — and I know, I know, no one wants to hear it — a coach at least got a full contract cycle before the knives came out. You’d have a crack, you’d assess properly, and then you’d make a call. None of this pulling the pin in the middle of a rebuild.

Carlton’s history with coaches is, let me be diplomatic here, complicated. We’ve had more fresh starts than a bloke trying to give up the smokes. And every time there’s a new broom, there’s a press release about culture, about identity, about playing the Carlton way. Then a few rough months come along and suddenly the broom itself is being swept out the back door.

The football public has a short memory. The football media has an even shorter one. But those of us who’ve been sitting in the same seat at Princes Park — sorry, Ikon Park — for forty-odd years, we remember every single one of these cycles. And we are exhausted by them.

What Voss Actually Said, And What It Implies

Without putting words in his mouth — and I want to be careful here — Voss indicated that the decision came as a blow. That he had a vision for the place. That relationships had been built and a foundation laid. He spoke about the players with genuine affection, which is either the mark of a good leader or a very good politician, and in my observation of the bloke across his time at Carlton, I’m inclined to think it’s the former.

He also, notably, didn’t bag a single person. Not one. Didn’t name names, didn’t suggest anyone had acted poorly, didn’t throw shade at the football department or the board or the CEO or whoever was sitting at the head of the table when the call was made. In a media landscape where the hot take is currency and burning bridges gets you clickes, that kind of restraint is almost old-fashioned. Almost VFL-era, you might say.

I find that admirable. I also find it somewhat heartbreaking. Because the unspoken stuff — the things a dignified man doesn’t say publicly — is often where the real story lives.

The List He Left Behind

Here’s where I’ll give Voss genuine, unambiguous credit: the list he leaves behind is not bad. In fact, in several positions, it’s quite good. Patrick Cripps remains one of the best midfielders in the competition when he’s right and firing. There are young players across the ground who show genuine promise. The forward line has options. The defence, well, the defence has had its moments.

Is it a premiership list right now? Hand on heart, probably not. But is it a list moving in the right direction? I think a fair-minded person — even one who’d grown frustrated with some of the results — would have to say yes. Voss, whatever else you want to say about his tenure, did not leave the cupboard bare. He actually stocked a few shelves.

The question now becomes whether his successor can cook with those ingredients, or whether we’re about to embark on yet another philosophical reset that costs us another two years of development while someone new works out which way the kitchen faces.

My Concern About What Comes Next

I’ll tell you what worries me, and it’s not the new coach specifically. It’s the pattern. Carlton has a talent — and I use that word sardonically — for creating instability at exactly the wrong moment. Just when things start to cohere, just when a group of players starts to understand each other and the game plan starts to click, something happens at the top and we’re back to square one.

The VFL era had its own chaos, God knows, but at least when a side was building something there was a sense that the football department would let it breathe. Now everything is quarterly reviews and analytics dashboards and stakeholder expectations and I half expect someone to ask for a PowerPoint presentation before we’re allowed to kick a goal.

Voss was, by most accounts from people who were inside the club, a straight-shooter. Players knew where they stood. The culture — that word that gets flogged to death in footy circles — was apparently genuinely improved on his watch. These things matter. They matter more than any single result, and they take time to build and almost no time at all to destroy.

Where This Leaves the Blues

Carlton football club is at a crossroads, as it seems to be roughly every three years regardless of what’s actually happening on the ground. The supporters — long-suffering, passionate, deeply invested — deserve a period of genuine stability. Not just talk of stability. Actual, sustained, boring, unglamorous stability.

Voss’s radio comments this week were a reminder that behind every coaching change is a human being who had a plan, built relationships, and cared about getting it right. You can question the results. You can debate the game plan. You can argue the list needed more done with it. All fair game.

But the way you treat a man who gave everything to your football club matters too. And how Carlton honours what Voss contributed — in the way they speak about him publicly, in the way they acknowledge the groundwork he laid — will say something about who we are as a club.

Here’s hoping we get that part right, even if we’ve been known to fumble a few others. Up the Blues. As always, more in hope than in certainty.