As a Melbourne supporting kid who grew up in "the Robbie Flower" era, watching ordinary sides amongst small crowds through the late 70's and 1980's, one moment stands out in the memory bank from the drought-breaking appearance in the 1987 Elimination Final.

Pardon the pun, but where the hell did all these Demons supporters come from?

Sure it was their first final in 23 years and there was a wave of emotion riding behind Flower's retirement season, but the MCG was full and that simply didn't happen.

Two weeks after that dominant win over the Kangaroos, the moment that stands out and effectively ended Flower's career, was his teammate and young Irish born and raised ruckman Jim Stynes, running across the mark and causing a post-siren infringement that led to Hawthorn's Gary Buckenara kicking the winning goal.

Well, fast-forward another 23 years and Stynes, who many had already described as the most amazing on-field success story in the history of the game, has led an off-field charge that will enable the world's oldest football club to keep that title, by not just surviving but thriving.

Make no mistake; today's announcement that the Melbourne Football Club is debt-free is extraordinary, and the Herculean work of Stynes and his team, staved off a possible chance of extinction and a very likely threat of irrelevancy. Just like that '87 final, Demons supporters have come from far and wide, but this time in a financial sense.

And just as well too, because the future was looking genuinely scary.

One could make a case that in the modern (post-1980) era, all bar the Essendon Football Club amongst the Victorian teams has had a turn of playing a rather dangerous game of pass the parcel.

When the music stopped in early ‘80's, South Melbourne became the Sydney Swans, while in the mid-90's Fitzroy was shipped up to Brisbane.

But history also says that St Kilda, (Save Our Saints) Richmond (Save Our Skins) had old-fashioned tin-rattling rallies. Collingwood was cast pre-Eddie McGuire as was Carlton pre-Richard Pratt.

Geelong was millions of dollars in debt in the late-90's prior to president Frank Costa changing banks and pulling off a refinancing deal that was as helpful as recruiting new CEO Brian Cook, while Hawthorn's desire to merge with Melbourne was due to it drowning in red ink.

And a decade ago, the Western Bulldogs sent in a trio of stars to The Footy Show wearing opposition jumpers, to show their supporters an example of what would happen should they continue to be unable to afford to pay their way.

By 2007 it seemed a battle between the Kangaroos and the Melbourne Football Club as to who would end up playing out of the Gold Coast.

The devil and the deep (red and) blue sea argument was that a move up north guaranteed riches but a loss of identity, while standing still meant racing backwards.

Later that year at North Melbourne, Footy Show co-host James Brayshaw was swept to power with a pledge to keep the side locally-based and importantly with a wave of goodwill and a decent dose of pre-GFC optimism that was keeping the doomsayers at bay.

In horseracing the old punting mantra is, "Money Lost, Nothing Lost. Confidence Lost, Everything Lost." And the Demons as an organization seemed devoid of confidence... which also happened to have no money!

While the genuine hard work and expertise of the many individuals involved in getting the club back on its feet should be acknowledged and praised, the "confidence" factor should keep any reappraisals of previous office-bearers in perspective.

After all, stand back and think how stupidly irrational is it to donate money to an organization with well-paid staff that collectively pays more than $7 million annually to a group of blokes who kick a footy.

However if you can afford it, and the person asking you to put your hand in your pocket is someone who not only gave you years of pleasure for his on-field deeds, but is a person to be admired for the thousands of lives that he has directly and indirectly enriched through a youth charity that he personally started, then you can be... well rationally irrational.

Thus individuals looked at the greater good and factions became united.

As such, perhaps its time that the man who won a Brownlow, played a league record 244 games in a row, and yes, ran across the bloody mark at Waverley, should be reassessed by his own supporters, be they those who had Flower's number 2 on their back when they were kids, Garry Lyon's no.3, David Neitz's no. 9, or Ron Barassi's no.31.

There's a very good argument to say that as it now stands, the Melbourne Football Club has had no greater hero than Jimmy Stynes.

"Racetrack" Ralphy Horowitz is a full-time racing analyst for private clients and media commentator for Sport 927. He has been a member of the Melbourne Coterie since 2000, and is a former member of the Cheer Squad! (Late ‘70's for clarity!)