Didn't Stuart McLaren (Fury Assistant Manager) say on Fox Sports FC the other night that they will absolutely be in the league next season? It'll be interesting to see where the average attendance goes in two months' time, when they've had five more home games (considering it's not exactly a good indicator now with just three games at home).
Um. Akoto's a defender. Seriously will be furious if the Fury collapse. They've done wonders with under incredible pressure and unlike another troubled club actually draw crowds. If they and said other club fold and we're left with nine teams...
Absolutely. I'm incredibly pissed off that the Fury seem to be in a more dire situation than the Gold Coast, when they deserve to be in the A-League more. Their crowds, as small as they can be at times, have great passion. And you can see that plenty of people in the crowd are young kids. The type of people we want to grow up with a presence of watching Football at an early age. I'd be seriously gutted if they went under before the Gold Coast, or were allowed to go under at all.
I think the whole Fury situation is being run by the media circus around it. I doubt the Fury will have trouble staying in the A-League come season's end. Until someone from the FFA or the club itself actually comes out and says that the Fury are in dire straits and on the verge of folding, we should focus on how amazing and enjoyable the Fury - and, particularly, Cernak, Williams, Payne, Hughes and Akoto - have been this season. No doubt a large part of that is thanks to Straka. Cult hero for the whole of the A-League.
... The "imminent" sale of Adelaide United? Good one, Cockers. See you at the next amateur stand up night. (Does anyone else think Trimmers would make a good ventriloquist dummy to go with the act?)
And they pull another Palmer. http://au.sports.yahoo.com/news/article/-/8539330/fury-to-throw-open-the-gates/
Supposedly also giving some sort of Christmas present to the first 2,000 kids through the gates. I'm assuming it's a scarf or a badge or an issue of Football Weekly or a plastic clapper or a blade of grass. But yeah, jokes aside, let's hope it works in their favour, poor weather will stay away and the people that come to this game will continue coming for the rest of the season.
Palmer must have had an Ebeneezer Scrooge-like appearance by the ghosts of Club Football-past, present and future, Freebies for Fold Coast ruined by Mother nature(I recxkon its odds on that he'll go freebies for the rescheduled match too!) then freebies via QN for NQF..all good deeds to get folks through the gates. I just hope it doesn't devalue the league and it sees a few barnacles hanging on after the freebies end! On the GCU vs CCM game, gotta love the blokes leaving Robina after the ref called it off on account of the weather...they were chanting, "what a rip off, we want a refund!" the only bright point of the day for me I was all ready for some Sunday arvo football, it gets called off and Fox puts on the Tards vs Glory game at least they didn't torture me with the Red vs Jam Tards game..once on Friday night live was enough for me...grrr
And funding for a NYL side isn't going to give them that. It's going to give them funding for a NYL side.
Still hanging in there......... http://au.sports.yahoo.com/football/a-league/news/article/-/8923301/fury-fighting-axe/
It's official, the Axe falls on the NQ experiment. http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/197619,hal-hath-no-fury.aspx FOOTBALL Federation Australia killed off North Queensland Fury today. FFA CEO Ben Buckley and A-League chief Lyall Gorman flew up to Townsville today to deliver the death blow despite the club securing major sponsor deals and massive community investment. ... I'm sad about this. I feel that the basic premise in growing the game was sound, the execution however appeared to be anything but sound. The potential pathway for NQ juniors and in particular the oft touted push to expose the game to indigenous people up north is now for naught. Despite having their hands tied by FFA red-tape, many football fans I know admired Coach Franz Straka and the team for their efforts. I feel that this will be a decision that will come back to haunt the FFA. What I really want is for CEO Ben Buckley to actually detail why the decision was made and what the FFA's strategic outlook for the local game is and why Fury had to go to achieve that outlook. Unfortunately, of the major football codes in Oz, I feel that the governing body that communicates the least with its major stakeholders (the fans) is the FFA, I predict we'll get nothing more than a curt presser from FFA detailing not much except, Fury gone, too bad so sad. Given the media's enthrallment with more established codes, I hardly expect to be able to pick up a paper tomorrow and get more than just: "the sky is falling! see we told ya's, soccer is just like basketball - a flash in the pan and now its all going to be over!" (NewLtd papers) I don't expect the media to ask the serious questions as much as I wouldn't expect BB to bother to talk to the football public by answering them. A Sad day for domestic football, this time I feel we have once again shot ourselves in the foot by not putting in the proper amount of due-diligence before expanding A familiar theme for football fans in Australia - often we are our own worst enemy
What irritates me the most is that this was all pre-meditated by the FFA since August last year, even if the Fury got double the money that was needed, the FFA was still going to cut them loose. I'm really concered with the way they are running the game at the moment, there are problems all across the board right now especially to do with finance and here we are paying the Socceroos some of the biggest bonuses in international football while the clubs are starting to drop like flies and all the while we have Mr Lowy, the self-proclaimed saviour of the game in Australia, not willing to even spend a miniscule amount of his $9 billion fortune on trying to help. Guess we shouldn't be surprised, he's still ducking and dodging from the accusations of how he poorly spent $11 million of taxpayers money !