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Just over 16,000 fans turned out at nib Stadium in Perth on Friday night, and you can bet that many of them were there to see former Liverpool star Robbie Fowler in action. But with the FA Community Shield kicking off the new English season overnight, just what effect does the English Premier League have on the A-League?
The standard of football was high, there were two 3-3 draws and plenty of talking points came out of all five A-League fixtures played last weekend.
But once again much of the focus was on crowds, as Sydney FC and Gold Coast United both posted disappointing attendances for their opening home games.
Defending champions Sydney had just over 12,000 fans turn out for their pulsating clash against arch-rivals Melbourne Victory, but given that the two sides have met five times in the past six games, surely the first thing Football Federation Australia should do is rethink their scheduling.
The problem is more serious on the Gold Coast, where half the supporters who turned out at Skilled Park yesterday afternoon appeared to be Brisbane Roar fans.
Marquee players, adjusted ticket prices and even a World Cup campaign don’t seem to have helped, with many of the fans turning out at A-League games the same ones who showed up in Season One.
And while the myriad problems plaguing the A-League have been discussed ad nauseum, has anyone thought to ask whether saturation coverage of English football has fundamentally changed our football-watching habits?
I ask not because I’m planning to put the boot into the Premier League – I thoroughly enjoy watching English football, contrary to what some of you seem to think – but because it might be time to reconsider some of our marketing and marquee strategies.
Jason Culina and Nicky Carle are both players I watched develop in the National Soccer League, and they’re clearly two of the stand-out individual talents in the A-League.
But ask the average joe in the street, or better yet the closest kid in a replica Premier League team top what they think of either player, and there’s a good chance you’ll cop little more than a blank stare.
I reckon most football fans in Australia know who Robbie Fowler is though, so maybe Melbourne Victory are going about things all wrong in their pursuit of a Brazilian striker.
After all, Sydney FC’s signing of Juninho didn’t exactly see the Sydney Football Stadium packed to the rafters, and while Carlos Hernandez is rightly regarded as one of the best foreign talents to ever play in the A-League, he’s another who fails to gain widespread recognition outside of the football realm.
Either we accept that a large percentage of football fans in this country spend their hard-earned watching Manchester United and Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal down at the pub and rarely, if ever, venture out to watch a live game of football at their local A-League ground.
Or we start to appeal to the pioneering spirit of men like Fowler, and try and entice some more former English Premier League stars Down Under – and preferably not those of the Andy Todd variety, no disrespect to the Perth Glory defender intended.
Because otherwise what we’re stuck with is a dichotomy between fans who regularly attend A-League games and become part of the fabric of the local football community, and those whose only experience of football is watching a distant team go around on a pub screen at 12am.