DURING the depths of the Great Depression, it was put to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the architect of the New Deal, that he might be the most popular president in American history.

"If I'm not," Roosevelt quipped, "then I'll be the last (president)."

Jim Stynes comes to office as probably the most popular president/chairman in the 150 years of the Melbourne Football Club. And it follows that if he cannot lift the Demons from their current depression, it's conceivable that Jimmy could indeed be the last Melbourne chairman.

If that sounds a touch alarmist, then consider what Stynes himself said about Melbourne's situation: "It is common news to everyone that the Melbourne Football Club is in a precarious position," he said upon taking the reins of a ship that seemed headed for Gilligan's Island.

Stynes went on to say that a loss of $1.5 to $2 million this year and eventual relocation to the Gold Coast were "possible if we don't turn things around and do it quickly".

Those who care about this football club should read Stynes' statement on the evening he accepted the chairmanship — a job he took on with some reluctance, incidentally, because no suitable corporate titan could be found for this Rooseveltian challenge. So much for Melbourne's silvertails.

The Stynes manifesto was an impressive diagnosis, and represented a significant shift in how this footy club perceives itself.

In essence, Stynes said:

■We're in trouble up to our necks.

■The reason why is that we don't have enough support.

■We have to grow the club, and quickly.

"In simplistic terms, we lack supporter numbers and supporter numbers equate to revenue and revenue increasingly dictates how successful you will be on the field."

Jimmy went on to say that the club's role as the club of the Melbourne establishment had been usurped and rendered irrelevant since all clubs had high-level connections to the corporate world.

"The club needs to develop a broad-based positioning which recognises its past but projects it into the future."

Put another way, ye Old Money won't save us. We still have to tap into our well-heeled well, while finding a new base of punters in the burbs.

Stynes also swiftly put to bed the dangerously complacent notion that "there has to be a club called Melbourne" — a phrase that I've heard 1000 times from Demon fans. Once it was said with a born-to-rule tone, or complacent apathy. These days, those who say "there has to be a Melbourne" are only trying to convince themselves.

Stynes' predecessor, Paul Gardner, told The Sunday Age in late March that the AFL said "they think there's always going to be a side called Melbourne and they want to see a strong Melbourne".

Nothing against Gardner, but I'd take the AFL's words with a shaker of salt. It would be nice to have a team called Melbourne, even preferable to have one. It's not mandatory.

There's no entity called London in the English Premier League. We know Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and West Ham are all based in the ancient megalopolis, which is about three times the size of Melbourne.

The Scottish Premier League has Hearts and Hibernian, but the name of the kilted capital, Edinburgh, is not evident on the SPL table. There's no club called Perth in the AFL, for that matter.

Similarly, it would be wonderful to maintain the presence of the game's oldest club. But Stynes can't ensure the survival of the Melbourne Football Club via a heritage listing. It will live or die on the basis of its present-day relevance.

Until now, the prevailing view was that North Melbourne and the Bulldogs were ahead of Melbourne on the endangered list, and it's true the Demons wouldn't be in the cross-hairs of Jeff Kennett et al to the same extent if they were winning. North and the Doggies, however, have looked death in the face and decided to fight. Melbourne hasn't.

What Stynes has signalled is an end to the complacency, a justifiable scare campaign and, above all, a view that Melbourne must find and capture new supporters, a process that requires a more inclusive mindset.

Melbourne, for various reasons, does not appeal to this city's myriad ethnic tribes in the manner of Carlton and Collingwood, or even Hawthorn, which, recognising that its genteel eastern suburbanites weren't enough, went to the outer-south-east and turned populist.

There won't always be a team called Melbourne unless Stynes can translate his inspired diagnosis into the right treatment. Saving Melbourne will require modern, novel thinking — no less than Jimmy's New Deal.