http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/115453,blog-an-open-letter-to-clive-palmer.aspx

Fortress Miron to be defended by just one.

Even in a socceroos shirt, Thwaite was a bit of an oddity – he was ok on the ball (as far as defeners go), but he did have a habit of going on a wander.

Similar thing at the Victory. He had a couple of excellent games mid-season (actually helped us out of a bad patch), but then completely lost his bundle for the rest of the season and was shown up for a complete incapacity to mark players (he lost his place in the team a couple of weeks out from the finals).

Yeah, it was an amazing game. I watched the whole thing, and kept thinking, boy, Thwaite looks out of his depth here. He was getting skinned all the time, he was frequently out of position – I think he was the one keeping Brown onside when he raced through and around Higgins for his goal.

Ifil made him look stupid, Daniel gave him problems, and for a guy that some (insert GCU’s most avid supporter, GAZ here) were touting as deserving a Socceroos call up, he looked massively off the pace!

I think that the players got carried away by their pre-season and very early season form, and believed some of the crap that came out of the mouths of Bleiberg and Palmer, and now that things are coming unstuck there’s a good chance that they are not sure where to go from here. Culina and Okon need to put their heads together and sort it out between them, because I don’t think Miron is up to the challenge, as he’s proved in the past.

I won’t disagree with you on the point about government running businesses, although governments have had a long history of it – from banks (CBA, Suncorp) to butchers and a fishing fleet (Qld in the 1920s), and with my socialist hat on, I am all for it., because it was not about profit, per se, but about making sure there were stable jobs floating around, an “honest player” in the marketplace to help regulate the others – moderating capitalism, if you like. We could argue economic theory here, but it isn’t really relevant. We all know about how inefficient government run enterprises are, etc.

However, when operating a business specifically FOR PROFIT, Governments tend to want an immediate return on their investment, whereas most businesses plan for incremental gains that initially cover costs and build into tidy profits. That is evidently not what is going on with the stadium deals at both Skilled Park and Suncorp since the redevelopment. This is about recouping the cash in the fastest possible time, with no regard for the sustainability of the costs they are imposing on the clubs that are, in fact, filling the govt’s pockets.

So I agree with you that the government is being an idiot about all this rental cost business.

Again, my argument really comes down to the responsibilities of government – first and foremost they need to provide the basic provisions and equality of access for all, which is where infrastructure comes into it – trains, busses, light rail, hospitals, schools, universities and TAFEs, etc. and after all of these things are sorted out, entertainment comes into it. Unfortunately, it seems, entertainment and the provision of sporting facilities seems to outweigh the provision of these other things at times. Hence the argument about crap public transport on the Gold Coast, which invariably ends up in a discussion of why people don’t attend GCU games.

Incidentally, I wouldn’t put Libraries in my list of “entertainment”. They are cultural institutions and are about literacy, learning, preserving our history, and then entertainment, a distant last place.

The Nix has won very few games by a margin of 2 or more goals in its whole existence, let alone 6.

Even when GCU were flying at the start of the season (and looking pretty good) – I recall stating here on the Roar more than once that the combo of Panta, Thwaite and Rees was not really anything fantastic.

But that’s life in the A-League – get a marquee, fine, get a few quality players, ok, but then you’re filling the remainder of the roster with low budget players – because there’s no other way.

Still – this loss had nothing to do with that – this was something else altogether.

It’s an amazing scoreline.

But will Bleiberg going be enough if Cliver Palmer, a man who is quite open about the fact that he knows nothing about the game, is addressing the team at half time? I have the greatest respect for Palmer, but this is not the way to run a football club. And there is the unpleasant suspicion that GCU are in fact the meat in the sandwich between Palmer and his arch adversary, Premier Bligh.

I actually believed at the beginning of the season that GCU were the best thing to happen to the A League since the first kickoff of season one. I wasn’t alone in that. Instead, what we have is a weekly soap opera of decline and fall. Unless drastic action is taken to turn GCU around very, very soon – and it will require drastic surgery – I will be surprised if GCU exists next season.

I would not be at all surprised to see GCU push towards record attendance lows in the next couple of matches. We could well be entering NZ Knights territory for the game against the Fury who, on current form, will win at Skilled Park. The GCU team is clearly at rock bottom in terms of morale, and Bleiberg is equally powerless to do anything about it.

What we will see now is just how much Clive Palmer actually wants this football club to survive, because he is going to have to think about almost everything again and be prepared to eat some humble pie and admit that he got things wrong. Can he do this? Well, if he can’t, Gold Coast United are dead in the water.

Its still Soccer!!!

Apart from the Socceroos (who are now the biggest national team) people couldnt give a toss about the game in general. Which shows in crowds and ratings..

I hope that’s in place before Ange’s first home game as it would be a real positive turning point for the club.

They might not have much money and arent in the top 3 of the table like GCU but their tickets are cheap and the stadium has a lot of people wearing lime green. Old and young they were going off when they clinched that win last night.
They might be small now but that is a Football club with a future.

Bears last time on the GC they were a joke, prett similar to the swans before barrassi came in. K Hunt seems a similar “joke” strategy that I don’t think is the way to go but if they do everything else right it should look more legit.

There is another match at Skilled Park next weekend. I couldn’t care less whether I go or not, and there is no more damning indictment from a member than that.

Re the new aussie rules teams, I can say that the Bears operated out of Carrara for its first five or six years when they were a bit of a basket case.

Some crowds were as low as 4,000, other times they were around 18,000.

So with a smarter return to Carrara, I have no problem envisaging crowds of around 12,000 to 15,000 in their first season.

But the AFL team will be a huge success when compared too GCU, GCU have butchered their entry into the market. Meanwhile the GC AFl team will spend a lot of money yet charge much less for tickets (and give away bucket loads of free ones too). They know posting big crowd figures gains momentum with news services, sponcers and builds a club.

I really wanted to become a fan of GCU as a summer sport and support the other code/s in the winter months, no problem. but with the crap coming out in the media of late about the capping of the crowds to 5k well they can count me out!

Firstly, if they do not want me and others like me to come out and support them well it is a no brainer! Then there is always this underlying thing of football or as I will keep on calling it Soccer of having some sort of cultural supperiority over other codes.

Now this type of thing does nothing for the game with so many of us wanting to be convinced that Soccer is a worthwhile sport to follow; With this sort of snobbery it will and I imagine is turning would be supporters away from the club and sport!

I will give GCU a tip, watch the next 18 months at how the new Gold Coast AFL team goes about it’s business, they will work their asses off to win hearts and minds whilst soccer on the coast will continue to languish.

Lastly, how do you expect a team to be successful with no-one watching them, it makes me wonder!!

If I feel like responding I will. Are you intelligent enough to understand this?

Are you intelligent enough to sense the irony?

Rugby League dominates QLD in terms of crowds and viewers – the AFL is a distant second.

Just assuming superiority, as you guys always do is not an argument – it is just bloated egoism of the worst type replacing argument with an elevated sense of self importance.

His posting of comments from the editor of a surfing magazine were a total waste of time and what this article was about. I’ll stick to it, a total waste of my time.

Don’t worry about what the world can do for you – worry more about what you can do for your local football club.

con’s line: “A case of life imitating absurdity” was quite good and that was a pretty fine pre-season prediction that the billionaire owner would address the team at half time!!