That was a big answer from Blake8 and he put some compelling views about why Lebanese, Vietnamese and Brits ought to be at A-League games. It is appealing logic but the hard evidence is they don't come in large numbers. Soccer had a big falling out with my generation in 70s-80s with preference for surf, pub music and drop-out culture. It is a great credit to the FFA and the A-League that some support is being clawed back. I congratulate them, they've peaked my interest again and though it is a long road ahead I think Footbal is a great thing and will grow in Australia.
Try living a place where there are no passenger trains and no one catches a bus to the game. Aurora Stadium regularly sells out for AFL and A-League games. Well, the soccer doesn't sell out, but we get good crowds who enjoy the game. Bring-it-on Victory vs Gold Coast in February
I think it could too, but it needs alot more dollars behind it, and more people getting to the games, I just got back from the SFS and I think it was maybe 14,000 I didnt hear or see the attendance, 1000 of them were probably from the central coast. Good on the sydney fans who made the effort, the rest of you that watched it on foxtel or couldnt be bothered to turn up for a team thats trying its heart out, well your shit I guess.
I can offer no excuse for sydney football supporters anymore that sit at home on game night, they are worth less than a piece of ground that a dog shits on.
It's pretty simple really. Australia was colonised before football was codified (just like the USA, Canada and New Zealand- where all followe different codes). Football clubs in Australia developed at the same time as clubs in Britain. However the clubs in Australia were of a different code. Up until relatively recently, there was noway of following sports except in person or by newspaper. Thus people couldn't follow clubs and leagues back in Europe so followed the local clubs- which were of a different sport. Migrants from the UK were from the same culture so had little problems fitting in and do not have to hang onto their old sports. Migrants from southern europe (the 'wogs') were from a different culture, so tended to from cultural groups and hold onto as much as their culture as they could, so they formed all the ethnic clubs.
Sydney FC could definately have marketed themselves better as a club for all of Sydney. At the moment it seems that they are an Eastern suburbs club- so they don't get as many of the football following fans from the Western suburbs.
That's quite interesting. I can't really explain why Sydney FC doesn't have the same kind of crowds at the Victory then.
It's just a different city. Melbourne's big on shared experiences, Sydney's always on the phone seeing if there's a cooler party somewhere else.
Yes it makes you wonder when, and if ever they will see Australia as their true love, not the country their grand parents left. In america I noticed every nationality was waving ol glory proudly, and all sung the national anthem with genuine pride, what had united the peoples in America in love of their country, certainly has failed here. And I guess they dont see what Australia is or has to offer culterally, as better than what their mother countrys had, because all people where ever they go encounter racism, its part of how the human race functions, I believe it wired into all races to some degree, and like bullying you will never get rid of it. The 'wogs' would have copped just as much racism from the anglos in America as they have in Australia if not probably more, but they do seem to rally and support their country America, alot more than the ones that live here do. I think here they see Australia as a better place to live, but not one they love yet outside their own communitys. I recall when I used to do removalist work around sydney back a while ago, I used to love going into the greek houses especially, they were always usually big dark bullnose brick jobs one story places, nice and cool, and kind of a low lighting in them, it was great to get out of the heat and brighness, there were usually lots of plants and little fountains, lots of holy pictures, ornaments etc and there would always be a middle aged woman in black fussing over you in greek/english and offering you drink and food when you came in, or when you were having a break, they were very hospitable and understanding of hard work, and treated you with alot of respect, it was like leaving the country and steeping straight into a different culture as soon as you walked in, it was everywhere and in everything, god I miss them days sometimes.
But in Football even 5th generation immigrants still cheer for their old country teams 1st or second. I know some Italian-Americans that would cheer for Italy over the USA if the faced each other.
Italian Americans seem to me as some of the most fiercely patriotic Americans I've met in my travels, yet at the same time hang proudly to their roots (yet many of the younger generation can't speak fluent Italian). Australia apparently has one of the highest rates of inter-ethnic marriage in the western world. We do OK. Blake8, have you ever gone to a Socceroos match? People of all ethnicities/cultures/religions there proudly flying the Aussie flag. Doesn't mean they would support Italy/Greece/Turkey/Iraq over Australia, but its a sign that many have affinity with this wide brown land...
Depends on who you're talking about. There are a lot of "Guidos" among young Italian-Americans. Basically guys that couldn't find Italy on a map, don't understand a word of Italian, but still walk around town sporting the Italia jacket or jersey acting like they are the gods' gift to humanity.
Pretty darn good weekend with only Gold Coast having below 13k and that being significantly below 13k. The "neutral site" game for Wellington really worked out with the team pulling in 20k in Aukland, which is the best attendance for an A-League game in Aukland, Wellington's best regular season attendance, and third best all time, including their lone finals series appearance in the 2009/10 season. Code: Gold Coast 4031 Wellington 20078 Newcastle 13174 Sydney FC 13947 Victory 18404 Total 69634 Average 13927 Code: Season Average Median %<7k %>16k AvgPts MedPts <7kPts >16kPts AAAQ AAAQRnk 2005/06 11936 9827 14% 19% 40 56 38 40 174 4 2006/07 11521 8439 24% 24% 47 88 63 20 218 5 2007/08 14325 12231 0% 29% 0 0 0 0 0 1 2008/09 11612 10932 14% 19% 46 30 38 40 153 2 2009/10 10577 9573 20% 14% 63 62 53 60 237 6 2010/11 8386 7929 38% 5% 100 100 100 100 400 7 2011/12 12602 11051 23% 17% 29 27 60 48 164 3 Code: Round 2005/06 2006/07 007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 Grand 1 17552 15741 14554 13331 13631 10810 15970 14412 2 11181 14584 16994 9670 12130 9045 11154 11979 3 7921 5897 10135 13585 9153 10512 17502 10838 4 11651 15024 14828 12870 8674 6624 7331 10666 5 12031 8832 12291 9502 8361 6571 12728 9965 6 8366 12658 15131 11281 12008 10018 9601 11184 7 12087 9928 12442 12001 10084 4801 13927 10459 8 10516 14910 10077 9818 6198 8745 9805 9 12175 14260 15352 14736 12529 10465 13118 10 10400 9824 18308 12294 12238 7359 11431 11 9299 12580 11149 10145 6891 8868 9705 12 10143 15235 16371 11396 9746 8478 11452 13 13204 9640 10709 7522 7250 8641 9322 14 7276 14960 15611 8233 9632 6764 9994 15 10860 10528 14521 13957 8048 7965 10552 16 9751 20003 14415 9901 10034 5936 11000 17 11746 11681 13884 15627 7981 6854 10701 18 10146 11643 17112 17379 6170 8351 11229 19 9602 11941 13884 11006 11359 7635 10679 20 9523 15546 21171 14505 10687 10645 13344 21 14627 16259 17581 17044 9870 9643 13676 22 7097 8994 8203 23 11990 7890 9754 24 10591 11624 11193 25 9487 7791 8498 26 10875 4953 7230 27 12637 14122 13379 Grand 10955 12937 14596 12181 9828 8400 12602 11043
one of the highest rates of marriage may not mean anything if the rest of the worlds marriage rates between differrent cultures is say 3% average, and we are around 5 %. Of course I have been to socceroo matches, and seen lots of non anglos supporting australia, but I believe if you move to another country permanently and become a citizen there, then you dont support anyone against it. I doubt even most aussies have an affinity for this wide brown land as you put it, than other cultures, maybe an affinity for the coastline which 90% of the population live along or within a 100 miles of.
I think this says it better than I ever could. I grew up in Sydney and Soccer was always my preferred Football Code. Sydney culture is not inherently a soccer culture. FFA - its your job to work on this.
I think a western Sydney Club is not an option, it is a necessity to keep interest alive in Sydney Soccer. I would love to see a Tasmania United, in fact we will eventually see it but, first me must have a Sydney Derby.
I think we have stabilised this year, and we will probably rise a little in future but not sink further than what we have, and we can probably thank the Melbourne Victory supporters for keeping this competition alive so far.
I suspect that a Tasmania United would end up similar to North Queensland and yeah, a Sydney derby should be the first priority.
The old countrys, Italy, croatia etc have very long past historys, Australia does not, so it seems the past has alot to do with the present and future attitudes of someones nationality.
Firstly, to correct my earlier post: "A Western Sydney Team should be the FIRST option. Very important. Yes, a dedicated Tasmania United Team is a long shot. Australian Football is deeply ingrained in the culture here and yet we can only mangae a proxy team, Hawthorn. The curious thing is that, much like Sydney and Melbourne, we have a strong junior soccer culture. The pathway to senior Leagues is still confused.
That would take half of the Sydney FC supporters away, we would have then even more embarressing attendance figures. We also have 3 teams in NSW already, I think the ideal solution would be to move Sydney FC out west, perhaps inner west, and build from there.
Since this thread is already talking about potential for future expansion, I´d like to ask for your opinion regarding something. Since Australia seems to be lacking markets with sufficient potential (at least that´s what I get out of this thread so far), how about New Zealand? Whenever the Phoenix play outside of Wellington, they have drawn extremely well (correct me if I´m wrong). Do you think, cities like Auckland or Christchurch could support an A-League team? Would a NZ derby help the league and Phoenix or harm them? Don´t understand this to be a suggestion but rather a question, since my knowledge about NZ regarding these matters is very limited.
Aukland already had an A-League club and it drew flies. They held most of the A-league records for lowest attendances until Gold Coast came along. Maybe with a different ownership group Aukland would work, but history doesn't bode well for a club there.