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A Sometimes Roar Fan, But A Fan This Weekend
I must confess, I’m not much of a soccer fan, okay purists yes I mean football. I find it, for the most part a dull and boring sport where it can take an inordinate amount of time to inch the ball into even the same postcode as the goal, at which point in time many more shots miss or are saved by the “goalie” or goalkeeper, with, I concede a high degree of athleticism from time to time.That said, I am a sport lover and intent every weekend and when sport provides me an opportunity, during the week to watch as much sport as I possibly can that falls within the realms of my sporting tastes.
This weekend, the A-League football season reaches the point where all clubs in the competition want to be when they set out at the beginning of the season, hoping to win as many matches as possible to put themselves in the best position to get themselves into the grand final of their competition. The two teams that found themselves in a good enough position at the end of the regular season and won all required finals matches, a feat in itself, Brisbane Roar and Perth Glory will take to the field on Sunday, feet at the ready to run and kick themselves to the point of being able to hoist aloft the league trophy after 90 minutes.
I’m from Brisbane and even though I don’t particularly enjoy football as a sport, I will at least be listening as they try to make it two pieces of silverware in a row, just days after another Asian Champions League loss, thankfully at home, so overseas travel didn’t knock the bejesus out of them, even if the loss did have that effect. I will be cheering while listening to it on the radio, it’s not something I would go out and watch at a pub, or the ground, I would prefer to be able to potter around a do other things while keeping an ear on the unfolding events.
Being not that keen on the sport of football, I would consider myself a sometimes Roar supporter. One of those people you hear that will support their team when they are up, but happily bash them when they are down.
The Brisbane Roar started the season extraordinarily well and I thought that they would dominate throughout and back-to-back trophies were a very distinct possibility given the start. But then, from round 9 of the competition, the team began to hit that wall that a team which has performed record-breaking feats will inevitably encounter at some point.
The team lost the next 5 games in a row and looked as if exhaustion had caught up with them. It was at that point that I found myself caring less and less about my parochial support for the local team in a sport I could easily avoid. I stopped caring so much about the season and the end result, it wasn’t going to involve the Brisbane team in any capacity other than them watching at the ground or on television as far as I was concerned.
Then something extraordinary happened. All of a sudden I started hearing of wins and the regular draws that are experienced all too often in the round ball game, though it took me a few wins to actually realise that this was occurring and my interest was piqued.
My local team could even challenge for the top spot in the competition, though they were to finish 2nd on the ladder behind the Central Coast Mariners, their very worthy and challenging opponent in last year’s championship showdown. Fortunes were switched when the Roar ended up beating the Central Coast Mariners to progress to the biggest day of the 2011-12 season.
I will be paying attention to see if the local boys can do it for Brisbane again after what sounded like an enthralling contest at the end of last season. A game that not even I as a bit of a knocker of the sport can say was anything other than an unbelievable contest between two teams with nothing between them, save for the undying determination and patience of the Roar outfit which was able to pounce twice within the last 10 minutes.
C’arn Brisbane Roar! Keep up that winning.
The A-League Cough is Developing Into a Potentially Deadly Flu
Soccer in Australia, or football as the purists call it has had its ups and downs over the decades in the Australian sporting landscape, with competitions coming and going, being reformed and re-badged into different competitions but ostensibly returning with franchises from the same main cities in each reincarnation albeit with a club or three or more added here and there. We have ended up now with the present A-League, a competition of 10 teams this current season, now heading for the grand final qualifiers.
But alas, what should be the kind of happy and celebrated last weeks of the A-League season have been thrown into chaos, first by the removal of the Gold Coast United license for next season just months ago, a franchise owned by billionaire Clive Palmer who, towards the end of the road did not see eye-to-eye with Frank Lowy, Ben Buckley and the FFA.
What has occurred today however, has turned the cold that the A-League was suffering from into a flu. Today, the FFA learned from the owners of the Newcastle Jets franchise that they can expect to have the license for theclub lobbed back at them after an unexpected announcement that nobody saw coming.
FFA boss Ben Buckley responded saying that the Jets are contracted to participate in the competition until the 2020 season but what are they going to do with a team in their main competition who has an administration that does not wish to be there? The players might be keen, but why would an administration pump resources into maintaining a team in a competition they do not believe in?
Far from that, this latest major hiccup proves that there must be something sick within the FFA organisation itself, now with two clubs that have had major grievances with the governing body of the sport in Australia.
Club grievances with the umbrella organisation are not the only problem that the A-League and FFA face. In the wake of the unceremonious exit of Gold Coast United from the competition, the FFA decided, weeks later to award a franchise for a western Sydney club to fill the Gold Coast void from next season.
Ben Buckley and the FFA have said that the concept of a western Sydney team had been worked on for some time and obviously when the events in Queensland with the Gold Coast team an opening was seen and the FFA jumped swiftly to plug that gap with a team from the west of Sydney.
But this western Sydney team will have a matter of months to form a coherent team and a strong administration to even go close to competing in the 2012-13 season. Such a quick turnaround will be a challenge for the team and it will need some time to attract marquee and other players. If the Newcastle Jets exit goes ahead, the new side will not be short of top talent to try to tempt from going overseas, though the higher prices many may attract in Europe and Asia would likely prove insurmountable for a club that has to rush to attract sponsor’s money before they can even think of how much to purchase any player for.
The A-League are also the last of the football codes, aside from rugby union to venture into western Sydney, with the NRL having long been part of the sporting community, from junior rugby league clubs to senior teams like the now Wests Tigers and Penrith Panthers. Consequently, the new franchise may struggle for crowds as they attempt to grow crowds in an already very competitive western Sydney sports market which now has a team playing in the AFL, albeit not well.
The A-League and FFA certainly have some lessons to learn and must begin to throw caution to the wind. They must begin looking at how the league can evolve gradually, without making bold moves in a competition that needs to endure where previous top-tier competitions in the same sport have repeatedly failed. But the cough is certainly a dangerous flu and the governing body either needs some strong antibiotics or “hospitalisation” to keep damages from recent events to a small part of the FFA body.
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