The A-League is about to put the other codes to shame

sambobly said  | June 4th 2008 @ 6:36am | Report comment

Soccer won’t take over the country. The other sports are too entrenched and soccer is bloody boring to boot. Second division soccer? If the premier stuff in this country is third rate how can a second division competition draw crowds?

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Redb said  | June 4th 2008 @ 8:36am | Report comment

Sheek,

I doubt soccer will be any different to other levels of sport in Australia - P an R may work where soccer is the traditional or historical code.

I’ll get accused of being naysayer again, but the A League should expand to 12 teams, consolidate and expand again if the situation warrants. Who in all seriousness would support a second rate team in a comp where the premier division does not even offer the best soccer players.

Hubris is alive and well in the soccer camp these days.

Redb

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Treizistes said  | June 4th 2008 @ 10:02am | Report comment

All smoke and hot air just like the AFL in regards to taking over NSW.

Give it up, not everyone is stupid.

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Midfielder said  | June 4th 2008 @ 10:33am | Report comment

Just to add to your article a bit from the smh and finding teams is not proble.

Ten bids to battle it out for A-League berths

SYDNEY

3 June 2008

Ten expressions of interest from groups interested in obtaining a license for a Hyundai A-League club were considered by the Board of Football Federation Australia (FFA) today.

“The number of proposals we have received reflects the momentum behind the growth and development of the Hyundai A-League,” said FFA CEO, Ben Buckley.

The regions covered by the proposals are western Sydney, Wollongong, Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Townsville.

Buckley said FFA had received a new bid from a leading Gold Coast businessman, Clive Palmer.

“We will now start exclusive negotiations with Mr Palmer’s consortium, Gold Coast United.”

Buckley said that FFA was also in active discussions with two consortia interested in a Townsville-based Hyundai A-League Club - led by Melbourne businesswoman Milissa Fischer, and local businessman Don Matheson.

“We are having further discussions with both Ms Fischer’s and Mr Matheson’s groups and we expect to be entering into exclusive negotiations with one of them by the end of this month,” Buckley said.

Other proposals received today include three seeking to have the second Melbourne license, two groups vying for the western Sydney license and one covering Wollongong and the NSW south coast.

The FFA Board Hyundai A-League Expansion sub-Committee will consider the Melbourne, western Sydney and Wollongong proposals further, and will determine a process and timeframe to award further licenses.

“We are very encouraged with the level of interest in the Hyundai A-League,” Buckley said.

“Since it commenced three years ago, it has had ‘cut through’ in the busy Australian sporting landscape with average crowds, viewership, membership, media coverage and profitability trending upwards each season.

“The attractiveness of the competition is clearly reflected in the level of interest in the additional licenses.”

FFA’s view is that the Hyundai A-League has the capacity to be at least a 12 team competition.

“When and where we expand the competition is measured simply by whether it is right for football, right for the existing Hyundai A-League clubs, right for the new clubs and right for the local community,” Buckley said.

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Redb said  | June 4th 2008 @ 10:48am | Report comment

Millster,

Doesn’t the A League have salary caps? Doesn’t the A League have franchises?

The AFL has membership based club ownership, nothing faux about it.

Redb

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Towser said  | June 4th 2008 @ 11:07am | Report comment

I’ve already made several points on this in an earlier post under another subject heading.
However I’ll repeat a few.
First of all P& R is not an option. Sepp Blatter also added weight to the ratings table of the AFC that P&R is how he expects the game to develop across the emerging football nations.
I agree with the thrust of this article that the biggest advantage Football has over any other sport except cricket is that it has a truly national following ,albeit traditionally at a lower intensity overall than AFL in the Southern States & RL in NSW/QLD.
As a migrant who has lived in nearly all states & has always been connected with Football in Australia I know this to be true because it is post war migration that has spread the game nationally. To the point that Socceroos can come from every state & players from every state can play in top European Leagues.
The clubs in every state are a mixture of district & Mono clubs,but make no mistake the so called & much maligned “Ethnic Clubs ” have contributed in a massive way to the creation of football in Australia as a “Secondary ” national sport.
So far this latent secondary national “feel” has had no real platform to develop into a “First tier ” National sport.
The Socceroos are important in this respect but without strong truly National domestic Leagues not enough.
The A-League has started off in my opinion with the correct blueprint for the game to grow Nationally.
Firstly one club from the main cities with 2 regional clubs added. Both good examples for other regional clubs to follow as role models,particularly Central Coast Mariners.
Slowly more clubs are being added & the calibre of people wanting in has stepped up a level with the pending ownership of “Gold Cost United” by Queenslands richest man. The FFA are not rushing Frank Lowy moves when the timing is right & the jigsaw fits not until.
But as I stated in my previous post this comes with a massive proviso,lots of money & I mean lots to prop up a second division whilst participating clubs find their feet.
Japan is prepared to wait 100 years to develop their football via a P&R system. But they have more money to splash around than this country.
Where will we get the money?
Firstly from an increased TV deal & sponsorship increases.
Secondly I hope from the AFC who I believe should help if they are committed to P&R amongst their member nations.
As I said before if cricket can find billions from one Asian country to fund the IPL given the number of billionaires in Asia,then surely football can(Thai bloke bought Man City for instance).
P&R is a sign of strength in a sport. It means that throughout the country there is enough support for a particular sport for the top to support whats beneath ,because whats beneath cares enough to want to be the top.
I firmly believe Football has that support throughout the country from my own personal football experience in Australia & the reasoning above.
Given what has happened in football in the last 3 years I believe the money will be found to create & uphold a second division. Not today, but tomorrow & not until the A- League has developed a stable & financially viable 12 or 14 team first Division.

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Koala Bear said  | June 4th 2008 @ 11:39am | Report comment

Millster,
I totally agree with you.. It can not be a total European style model, and we need a promotion and relegation model base on the conference style of the USA. Someone posted that fair suggestion up; I can’t remember who it was, but, it seemed to me that traveling all over Australia will send it bankrupt; as it did with the Rugby U Club Championships in their first season, it went into $7m debt with averaging only 4k-5k attendances..

We must not make that same mistake, and we should look at the state leagues first to see how we can stitch them up to the A-League.. To have a promotion and relegation play off at the end of the season, as we just witnessed in the EPL created enormous interest in England and even here in Australia.. Something we should keep in mind when we introduce an Australian Model..

I also agree with you the current models of NRL and AFL are too contrived with salary caps first pick drafts etc it is just rewarding mediocrity and not incentive based.

~~~~~~~
KB

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Lazza said  | June 4th 2008 @ 12:03pm | Report comment

Paul,

You will be never open your mind to Football, you just consider it a threat to the AFL and won’t give it any credit.

Football is targeting the current and next generation of sports fans. They have been brought up with easy travel, the Internet and Pay TV are much more knowlegdable about all sports compared to the baby boomers. Franchises are falling over themselves to get into the A League and the Socceroos are playing competitive matches in front of sell out crowds around the country. No longer do we have to wait 4 years for a quality meaningful game. There’s a 2 year marathon of WC qualifiers and then the World Cup itself followed by the Asian Cup. All COMPETIVE games and all played in front of good crowds. There were 50k at Suncorp last Sunday, a lazy 44k at Telstra Dome last Friday to watch a ‘friendly’ club game.

When the next TV contract comes into force in about 4 years time, the Socceroos will be on FTA TV rating anything between 1-4 million per match and the A League will be shown to an even bigger audience. It will be a lot harder to deny reality then.

Promotion and relegation may be a long term goal but I think it will happen eventually. Like all leagues in this country, when your team is struggling, what have you got to play for? Draft picks? P/R is the best concept ever developed in sport.

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Ben of Phnom Penh said  | June 4th 2008 @ 12:27pm | Report comment

The idea of a P&R system has its merits and as has been noted that there are considerable obstacles in terms of finance and support that can be garnered at this early stage in the A-League development. I believe a second tier needs to be national and as such would require significant subsidies from the FFA to exist. This can only occur once TV rights and other revenue streams have increased by orders of magnitude from current levels. Then there would be the need to compromise; a subsidized second tier will mean less funds for other areas of development such as youth, national teams and womens football. Hence the business model will need to show that the second tier is a better investment in the longer term future of football in the country than these alternative investment options. Timing is the key here and as I’ve said before we have to wait a little while yet however it is healthy for the debate to rage in the meantime.

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Lazza said  | June 4th 2008 @ 12:51pm | Report comment

Michael C,

According to the Sweenet Report, Football is currently No. 3 in the country with only Cricket and AFL having more interest. Football and Cricket are neck and neck with Football pulling ahead after the last WC and Cricket regaining No. 2 after the Ashes.

I’m sorry to keep bringing up Sweeney but a lot of people here just keep pulling out ‘facts’ and opinions out of their backsides. Most baby boomers don’t even know the true sporting landscape in their own country. How many times do you hear AFL/RL fans say that there sport is ‘Australian’ rather than a ‘regional’ sport which is more accurate. They might be big but they have never been truly national sports. Only Cricket and Football have been able to manage that.

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Redb said  | June 4th 2008 @ 1:21pm | Report comment

Lazza,

Let’s not get into the definition of national too much .Sweeney suggests national sports interest of AFL at 56%, soccer at 51% - therefore AFL has more market share nationally than soccer. Your argument is that soccer has a more even share and I agree to some extent, but it clearly not as holistic as you suggest (soccer stronger in NSW than Vic/WA for example) . Where AFL is strong, soccer maybe second, where NRL is strong, soccer maybe second, but second is still second at least for a domestic sports comp level in which the A league and its proposed 2nd tier would operate, that is, no national team in the Socceroos to create pull through.

Thus second in terms of passion, crowds, TV ratings, sponsorship, merchandise the lot. Most people are not multi code fans.

There is a small but growing level of delusion in soccer in OZ that the people of Tasmania, Darwin and Sunshine Coast for example will flock/watch soccer overnight becuase whammo they now have a team. I think this can work in time if that team is successful, but if they are getting flogged and the pool of total teams is now greater (therefore less chance of success), albeit in two tiers, most of the second tier will attract bugger all. Clubs need success to build fans, sponsorship,etc to buy players grow the brand, etc.

Feel free to pigeon hole these comments as an AFL fan if you like, but other sports such as basketball prove its not that simple. Again, most people are not multi code or multi team. Most have only one passion and the rest of the time are theatre goers/bandwagoners and are interested in successful teams. Rep teams are different, but i would argue patriotism for our country/state is the passion not deep down traditional passion for your club.

Redb

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Towser said  | June 4th 2008 @ 1:41pm | Report comment

Most posts seem to indicate that a steady as we go approach is needed.
The reality is there is no other way.
The reality also is as Millster said & Redb supported that Big dollars for little return are needed.
No big dollars no second division,its as simple as that.
But given that the support money is forthcoming from whatever source, we need look no further than CCM for the role model for a second division club.or for that matter Wellington.
Both are blueprints for starting up clubs from areas that had previously no real history of supporting football.
The NZ Whatevers were a blueprint of what not to do.
IF these 2 clubs can acheive what they have in a short space of time there is no reason that other clubs from regional areas and 2nd or 3rd teams from Sydney & Melbourne(could be Geelong)plus maybe a Christchurch,Islander( based PNG?),Singapore,even East Timor down the track.
Population also is a given for growth no matter what support money there is available. No point in a LIsmore,Bathurst Whyalla or Albany teams etc.
We are not Europe in this respect ,where small clubs from small towns are supported by hundreds of years of community history & never expect to reach the EPL for instance.
All clubs in Australia or our region must come from areas where the population is substantial enough to support the crowd average of the first division, if they are promoted.
Meaning that the second division club always has the potential population wise to support a first division standard attendance.
That way we keep up a standard & that is why I dont support anything less than a well thought out(in terms of population & capacity to grow) plan regarding locations.
That is why I disagree with Millster & KB. Conferences work effectively in countries with massive populations & state league teams ,because they are supported by small population groups ,will drag the league down.
The A-League has to be National & cover regional areas to work effectively . You are right KB this is not Europe ,Australia is uniquely placed ,its population is spread out as it is in the region that is why clever picking of areas with adequate population is necessary to maintain a uniform football standard that can cover both divisions.
I grew up next to Chesterfield ,Doncaster,Mansfield. All small towns all historically by population ,never destined to ever produce anything but mediocre football clubs languishing in the lower divisions of English Football.
Twas always thus,Twill always be so.
Throw in small towns ,small state league clubs in an A-League 2nd division & watch the A-League dragged down.

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Michael C said  | June 4th 2008 @ 1:48pm | Report comment

Lazza -

a couple of things -

firstly, Sweeney is deceptive - - it doesn’t count regional areas and the ‘interest’ measure for soccer is so much more open to misrepresentation that for example Aust Footy - - in that ALL Aust Footy that garners ‘interest’ IS LOCAL (i.e. contained entirely within the Australian marketplace). Soccer on the other hand, being the global game - - and awful lot of what will satisfy ‘interest’ in the Sweeney report will consist of watching the EPL, or checking out the scores for the UEFA cub in the paper or playing an EPL ‘dream team’ on-line. And, that is far from the sole domain of hardened soccer fans - - - more just ‘followers’, rather than ’supporters’.)

secondly - -oh, drat, I’ve forgotten…..

ah, now I remember,

main thing, for such an ambitious notion as this PandR plan might be - - you’d want to have slightly better demonstrable market share???
The reality, is, to get a truer picture of how soccer sits - - is to ADD the RL and AFL sweeney and even pariticipation figures together. IN a sense, from the sports marketing perspective, the AFL and NRL are like 2 ‘conferences’ (similar to NFL in US). The simple fact that they never come together at the end of each season for a combined finals is of little consequence.

The question in that context is to whether soccer is robust enough (yet? ever?) to attempt a PandR national 2 division ‘league(s)’.

I’d reckon at very least, soccer has a bit more work to do, before thinking such things. And, in reality, I reckon, even just such notions continues to undermine what IS presently in place, I reckon if everyone were just told now, that, within 2 years we’ll have 12 teams via this geographic breakdown - - and, that will be it, that we don’t envisage change within 20 years after that, so, like it or lump it, if you want ‘IN’, then, these represent your access points. For now, there seem many people with their own ambitions, and, I could imagine, that, those who miss out next time ’round will - - like the fluid nature of the structure of the old NSL where teams came and went with regularity, I reckon there’ll be factions effectively working away, nobbling away, just waiting for their chance - - and, talk of a Div 2 and a FFA Cup, I reckon would just add fuel to those flames.

I reckon, you need to bed down the new structure for 20 odd years - - and the main reason is to effectively ‘kill off’ the old school soccer culture. Effectively, force a generation change.

I could be wrong!!!

btw - the author ignores the fact that soccer participation in NSW equates to 52% of males and 52% of females accross the country - - that puts the NSW ’stronghold’ nature of soccer on a par with RU and RL (54% and 57%) and Aust Footy in Vic (50%).
NSw represents 33% of the national population.
I’d suggest that Soccer ACTUALLY DOES have a stronghold - - NSW, Sydney - - alas, like the 2 Rugby codes, they share a common stronghold, and, regionally, thus far, the NSW regional reach of the NRL is being challenged by Soccer - - such a move to a 2 Div comp or FFA Cup structure would be further widespread assault on the supposed NRL heartland.

And, in reality, the FFA has a bit to do yet to prove that it isn’t a little overly NSW centric.

The top 85% of all Soccer participants are in NSW, VIC and QLD. Makes sense, the highest Population base, but, NSW at 52%, vs Vic at 18% and QLD at 15%. That’s a fair dominance by NSW. (given VIc is 25% of national population, and QLD is 20%, so, 45% of the country have 33% of the soccer participants — obviously, the other 22% of the country has 15% of soccer participants).

by comparison - - because, it’s been made :
AFL
50% in Vic, 25 % of popluation.
Maybe 1-2% in NSW, 33% of population.
the other 48% of participants are spread amongst the remaining 42% of the country.
Okay, 11% in QLD which equates to 20% of national population.
SA and WA both very well ‘over represented’, such that, they TOO are strongholds, both running at about the same ratio as Vic, i.e. WA 19% participation vs 9.88% of nat. pop, and SA 14% participation vs 7.6% of nat. pop.

Are 3 strongholds better than 1?

Many people speak of the AFL as missing out on half the population, but, in reality, it’s a 3rd for these purposes. NSW.

The NRL has 2 strongholds. QLD and NSW, and that’s it.

Soccer isn’t quite the nice national spread than some might like to believe. That’s a seductive myth.

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Treizistes said  | June 4th 2008 @ 2:03pm | Report comment

Midfielder

Nearly all the clubs lost money last year, there is no guarantee that FTA TV will pay anything for the Soccer, what happens if the sugar daddy dies?

The ratings the soccer get out here are the same as the Toyota U20’s comp in the RL, that’s not very big, if ch 9 did say to soccer, yeah we’ll put you on Saturday nights for a trial, what would happen when they had ratings like the swans do, but instead of just in Sydney, it was nation wide, something like 80-90k in each state?

They wouldn’t keep it for long would they?

Where would the money come from to fund all this then and keep it going?

Traveling across Australia every week costs money, imagine have a second division doing it too and then having to prop up 3rd world nations in the pacific who are poorer than a heap of African countries?

It just doesn’t make sense.

Look, Soccer has done well out here in the last 4 years, but some people are getting carried away, Australia will jump on the Socceroo band wagon all the time, that’s all we have ever done, same with the Wallabies, but below that, not many care, and def not enough to have 40 odd million watching in Australia and the Pacific like you said in another thread because it’s a club comp and most of Australia and the Pac Island are Rugby mad (RU-RL) not soccer.

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The Substitute said  | June 4th 2008 @ 2:37pm | Report comment

Okay, just read all your replies. Just a quick run down of responses:

Paul,

Where you and I differ is that I actually want all codes to prosper, whereas you are keen to see the AFL hang onto its current standing. I would actually like you to point out where in my article I say football (or in your language: soccer) is the superior code. I am suggesting it has positioned itself better than the other codes, I did not say it was better.

Redb,

That sentence was to point out that the other codes are quite limited in their expansion prospects in that they can really only go after untapped markets that are actually big enough to sustain a team. Football has the opportunity now to go after any market in this country they want.

Michael C,

Travel issues are of course a key concern. Without lookiong to much into it all I can say is look at the NBL. They have teams in Singapore, Cairns, Perth and New Zealand, etc. That league is falling over financially, yet they can afford to fly to Singapore? I think it has something to do with their Virgin Blue sponsorship, so perhaps the FFA could work out a deal with Qantas is my initial thoughts.

Towser,

One thing I should have stressed in the article a bit more is the timeframe. If we believe Lowy, P&R will come into effect before we host the World Cup. Before last week we were all led to believe that was in 2018, now it is more likely to be 2022. We will have at least 10 years to implement this (possibly more, if ou look at how long the US federation to set up the MLS following on from USA ‘94) so there isn’t a need to rush it.

Treizistes,

That money doesn’t seem as though it is going to run out any time soon. The next broadcast deal is supposedly going to be on par with the size of rugby leagues, and free-to-air networks will be involved. There has in the past been talk of an all-football network on Foxtel.

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Lazza said  | June 4th 2008 @ 2:45pm | Report comment

Treizistes,

The next TV deal for Football is, according to a lot of media reports, going to be on a par with the NRL with some journalists suggesting it may even rival the AFL’s contract. The Socceroos are the main attraction with our move into Asia there is 4 year cycle of quality, competitive games which generate a lot of interest and huge TV Ratings.

The A League ratings are on a par with Super 14 and the biggest ever for Pay TV are Socceroos games. The FTA networks took a ‘wait and see’ approach to ‘new soccer’ but Channel 10 have already declared their interest in televising the A League. With all this extra money the quality will improve further and so will interest.

The only thing that might slow progress is if we get a Twenty20 competition in Cricket involving the best players in the world. That would make the summer market more competitive but still big enough for both sports to thrive. Cricket can only really do that if it abandons Test Cricket, not an easy choice.

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Michael C said  | June 4th 2008 @ 3:04pm | Report comment

Millster -

interesting view on ‘equalisation’ policies.

Vulnerable.

All clubs are vulnerable,

These policies were brought in to effectively regulate to the clubs so as to avoid a single administration bringing down a club with over 100 years of history. As was happening. It’s more a sign of not trusting club administrators. Not entirely a bad thing!!!

Artificial excitement???

From a follower of soccer where fans jump and sing and chant totally unrelated to what’s happening on the pitch - - now, that’s artificial. (well, in my eyes it is).

There’s plenty of excitement - - but, hasn’t equalisation done wonders for allowing fans to retain a sense of realistic ‘hope’, rather than just airy dreams. The club memberships and attendances proove that even Carlton fans - - retain a sense of hope despite what they effectively self-inflicted by cheating the system.

In the case of the AFL - - it was more a vote of confidence in the tradition of the existing clubs (perhaps a Vic centric thing - - and I don’t mind this being watered down). But - - effectively more a recognition that the strength of the whole is derived from the strength of the component clubs.

But - - vulnerable - -certainly, in the AFL sense, you can’t afford to take anything for granted.

In the soccer sense, on a global scale - -what’s one more or less club, or player — you can afford to be a little more blasé.

Lazza -

tv deal -

I still reckon that most estimates are based on a combined Socceroos/HAL package. I still speculate that for FTA value, the Socceroos are the only beacon for now. And, if anti syphoning includes the Socceroos, then, it’s be an FTA fight only for the Socceroos. And, effectively, Pay TV will be able to name it’s own price for the HAL.

The simple fact is that Super 14s offer zero FTA value, and most of the value in the Super14s is the other 2 members of SANZAR. NZ doesn’t offer the same value to the HAL as does NZ to the SANZAR triumvirate.

The Substitute -

NBL - - well, can they REALLY afford to fly to singapore? If they dropped Singapore then maybe the Kings and Bullets might not be on deaths door.

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JimC said  | June 4th 2008 @ 3:26pm | Report comment

“The next TV deal for Football is, according to a lot of media reports, going to be on a par with the NRL with some journalists suggesting it may even rival the AFL’s contract.”

“The A League ratings are on a par with Super 14.”

Can someone explain the logic here. These two statements would seem to be inconsistent. Surely S14 level ratings would imply a pretty small TV deal.

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The Substitute said  | June 4th 2008 @ 4:08pm | Report comment

Michael C,

P&R is a long way off, I’ll admit that. But I was meerly pointing out the facts:

1. P&R would enable football to go deeper into the Australian market than any other code.

2. Cities/regions previously aligned with a rugby code or AFL but without a team (Tasmania, Sunshine Coast, etc.) could easily turn to football, just like the Central Coast.

3. It is hard to see P&R (or even a radical overhaul of second tier comps) happening with any of the other codes in the next ten years, football’s P&R timeframe, if ever.

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Lazza said  | June 4th 2008 @ 4:21pm | Report comment

JimC,

Super 14 ratings are by no means minor for Pay TV, just not at NRL/AFL level.

Why are there 10 franchises bidding to join the A League? Why are Channel 10 interested in showing the A League?

It’s a growing sport and the FTA networks can see the potential finally. When it goes on FTA it will open up the other 75% of the market. Now explain to me why Cricket is a minor sport since obviously only the National side gets any interest?

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The Substitute said  | June 4th 2008 @ 4:48pm | Report comment

Lazza,

A bit off topic but in that same article Searle pointed out something I found ridiculous.

“Our draw was out first. The AFL scheduled two of North Melbourne’s three matches up here when we are playing at home. If they were so desperate to avoid us, they could have scheduled to play the June 28 match when we were away.”

Both times this issue has surfaced in the last week, the AFL has been painted in a pretty poor light. But what Searle has just suggested is that the NRL scheduled their game first. When in fact the AFL were the first to schedule on the Saturday night. The NRL’s flexible schedule meant the Titans were going to play that weekend but not necessarily on the Saturday night.

The article also referenced the Lions-Magpies game and how it went up against the Broncos-Cowboys game.

On BOTH these occassions the NRL had the opportunity to schedule AROUND the AFL, but IT decided to go head-to-head. Its pretty pathetic that they are throwing all the blame at the AFL on this issue.

(See Paul, I still stick up for the AFL occasionally!)

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Michael C said  | June 4th 2008 @ 4:56pm | Report comment

Thanks Subbie,

that’s the anti AFL Sydney centric media at work busily trying to paint the AFL as the bad guys.

It’s I nice hatchet job being conducted.

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Lazza said  | June 4th 2008 @ 5:32pm | Report comment

International Rules is a nice ‘carnival’ and good way to reward the best players from both sports but it’s hardly a serious sport?

The way it’s going it will probably be a Gaelic Football match soon. The Irish don’t understand the concept of ‘controlled aggression’, a lot of AFL players don’t either. To them you either play Football or it’s Boxing. Make up your mind!

I can understand why the Sydney media are a bit defensive. The AFL are putting teams in the RL heartland during the RL season, FFA are keeping away from the crowded winter market. Basically the only way the AFL can become a truly national sport is by ‘knocking out’ RL? Let the wars begin!

Stops people whinging about Football for a while!

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