Don’t mistake A-League passion for stupidity
Roar Guru By kellett_1992, 19 Jan 2013 kellett_1992 is a Roar Guru
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- A-League, football, Western Sydney Wanderers
Western Sydney Wanderers vs Central Coast Mariners. AAP Image/Quentin Jones
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‘Passion is not a crime’, but while at an A-League match, failure to abide the FFA’s spectator code of behaviour can result in eviction from the ground, banning from attending future matches and potential fines if the offence warrants it.
Prior to the commencement of season eight of the A-League, the new boys, Western Sydney Wanderers, were handed the A-League’s 10th licence and with it came the pressure of succeeding, due to past failures North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United.
In the Wanderers’ short A-League history, they have brought with them a clear and evident message conveying vibrancy, enthusiasm and passion. The support has always been there in Sydney’s west but it took time to realise this, and perhaps the time waited was also part of the reason such characteristics have oozed from the club’s inception.
Although these characteristics show the traits of a great fan-base, each fan-base has its own ups and downs.
On Wednesday, four very important Western Sydney fans along with the club met with FFA in relation to incidents that have taken place throughout this year’s competition.
These incidents revolved heavily around the Sydney derby, in which several flares were thrown onto the pitch, the bottle incident while versing Central Coast Mariners and the recent W-League match in which another string of flares and pitch invasions occurred.
After a very lengthy and open discussion between all three parties, the conclusion of the meeting resulted in the club losing Tifos, oversized flags, megaphones and instruments.
These objects have more bearing on the match’s atmosphere than result, but it was made clear they are privileges, privileges that had now been lost due to constant failures to comply with the FFA’s spectator code of behaviour.
The four Western Sydney Wanderers fans provided the privilege of being in attendance for the meeting had a clear message for Wanderers supporters on the West Sydney Football website:
“It is up to us to earn back our privileges starting now. Our response and behaviour from this moment must be strong and unified.
“It is only due to the continued efforts at building an open relationship with the club that we have any chance at all to reverse the situation.
“The club is no longer able to decide whether or not we have our match day equipment. The club and the FFA can still have an influence on the police and stadium on our behalf. The ball is very much in our court now and the club and FFA have told us precisely what WE ALL need to do.”
These acts of stupidity are the last thing the Western Sydney club and FFA sought, as the game is presently experiencing tremendous growth thanks to the inclusion of the Wanderers, the three big signings of Shinji Ono, Emile Heskey and Alessandro Del Piero and a quality of football that has attracted an amazing four year deal worth $160million.
I currently run a Facebook page titled A League Reviews and Updates. When news broke and I published the story, debate raged and Wanderers fans were enraged to the point where they refused to lay the blame on the minority of supporters but the organisation that supports the club, the FFA.
Football in Australia will most likely never replicate the horrendous scenes and acts of hooliganism in most European countries. Our small acts of idiot behaviour don’t resemble acts of violence but prevent the potential to grow the game further when key supporter groups only tend to provide a base of roughly 2,000-3,000 fans.
Patrons and families who work hard and choose to use their money on an outing of football do not wish to see these forms of stupidity, which generally come from testosterone-filled young males who seem to lack the ability to think beyond, “we are being passionate.”
Passion is not a form of stupidity and, as I’ve previously discussed, fans are willing to go into detail as to how passion is evoked from the very heart and soul of every supporter.
For Australian football to progress off-field, these indiscretions need to be kept to a minimum. For when mistakes are made the message is clear as day: listen to the FFA, for although the governing body has made mistakes, it is in their best interests to aid the progression of making football in Australia the biggest sport of them all.
We Are Football.
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- A-League, football, Western Sydney Wanderers
January 19th 2013 @ 4:48am
Johnno said | January 19th 2013 @ 4:48am | Report comment
Build the Base, and it will expand and grow. Wets sydney are doing that. This hooligan or flare stuff is being blown out of proportion. When at the last Sydney FC VS West Sydney Wanderers game, only 3 people got arrested out of like 20-25000. A channel 9 beat up of the story, it was never as bad as channel 9 made out, with the sensationalist style of news reporting.
Think back to the Bulldogs rugby league team 10 year ago, now that was much worse, and the bulldogs cleaned themselves up.
one day cricket in the 80s and 90′s was much worse. And think of all the night club incidents of rugby league players over the years. They have cleaned up there act a lot, but we almost never hear of any A-league players in trouble at night clubs, almost zero.
There was some issue apparently not 100% certain or sure with Tim Cahill ,, tim Cahill is a socceroo yes, but he is not even a player who plays in the A-league. He was playing in the EPL at the time and is now in the MLS.
Just sections of the mainstream media harp on about football stuff over 1 or 2 flairs, there are barley any arrests. One day cricket in the 80′s and 90′s was much worse not he SCG hill. Sometimes a few hundred were arrested and asked to leave the one day cricket match.
It got so bad they had to bring in mid strength lite-beer, to control the matches more and reduce arrests.
A-league behaivour is fine overall. And the pre season stuff int he A-league this year could of happened in any sport. So the A-league crowds majority are well behaved as are the A-league players. West sydney will be a hit in the A-league, it’s there first year a few teething problems, which new club in any sport has not.
January 19th 2013 @ 8:14am
kellett_1992 said | January 19th 2013 @ 8:14am | Report comment
Johnno, thanks for your reply.
To make comparisons between other sporting codes can at times it can become very tainted and confusion. I actually had an extremely long debate/discussion with my father who has a very worthy opinion on these sorts of matters – I won’t describe any further detail as to the worth.
Making these comparisons can lead to discussions about ethnicity, race, gender, socio-economic status, time actually spent at the sport (cricket 6-8 hours therefore a build up of alcohol over an extended period can lead to more arrests but not all within the same period, football and other footballing codes may not experience the quantity of arrests but the quality – reasons – are far worse, generally an aggressive and defensive nature follows).
I could go on about the different impacts had on each sport but I could write a whole other article, so let’s not confuse ourselves with prolonged debate and follow the simplicity of the matter.
I don’t condone these idiotic acts by the monterey minority of supporters. In fact the majority have done a superb job in handling this sort of approach by the FFA. The way the conducted themselves was worthy of highly regarded representatives of a club, but these are just mere fans.
These privileges can be earned back through the gaining of trust. The FFA do not wish to tarnish the club they brought in, they wish to prevent these acts that continue to happen. It is not acceptable and nor should any fan associated or nor associated condone these acts. The bigger picture is it is not just about a few fans, making a mistake but it’s about ensuring a family friendly and passionate atmosphere is provided, because football can provide that unique quality when sometimes your heading for a dour nil all draw and other times a goal fest intensifies that passion and emotion to the point you explode!
I am sorry for this to have occurred to the majority, they don’t deserve it, but after numerous efforts to convey they message this is not acceptable, something had to be done.
Before the media chose to ridicule our sport even further.
January 19th 2013 @ 6:41am
Bondy said | January 19th 2013 @ 6:41am | Report comment
Nice write up Kellett.
January 19th 2013 @ 9:17am
kellett_1992 said | January 19th 2013 @ 9:17am | Report comment
Cheers Bondy. Always up for a discussion incase you’re interested – thoughts?
January 19th 2013 @ 8:09am
striker said | January 19th 2013 @ 8:09am | Report comment
Channel 9 are anti-football so i dont watch them anyway as they are protecting there sport the NRL.
January 19th 2013 @ 9:20am
kellett_1992 said | January 19th 2013 @ 9:20am | Report comment
Anti-football they are but I guess the price they pay for NRL warrants that. Only leads to one thing though – pushing away potential viewers due to poor, abysmal reporting that alienates other sports supporters – mainly football fans.
January 19th 2013 @ 8:54am
pete4 said | January 19th 2013 @ 8:54am | Report comment
kellet – I think we need to give WSW and the RBB some breathing space here. This club hasn’t been around very long so obviously it’ll take some time to settle down and for the fan groups to organise themselves. Next season I think the FFA will most likely be more unsympathetic because on the whole crowd behavior at A-League football is excellent.
January 19th 2013 @ 9:04am
kellett_1992 said | January 19th 2013 @ 9:04am | Report comment
The A-league are sympathetic Pete 4 this decision has not only been influenced by the small minority, but also Police and Parramatta stadium. They don’t want it to get out of hand. How can security and police, police these idiotic acts? They can’t. So for the safety of other fans this action has been taken.
It’s not the worst thing in the world, and I really like the wanderers and the whole package they bring but stamping it out early is better then police having to resort to restraining due to unresponsive fans.
These may be teething issues but if this isn’t how you would have handled it then please enlighten me as to how you would have handled it?
January 19th 2013 @ 9:20am
pete4 said | January 19th 2013 @ 9:20am | Report comment
From what you have written above it appears everyone is happy to comply. I just think it’ll take time to iron out in a market like West Sydney due to it’s diversity because especially around derby time you’ll see a spike in crowd numbers which will pose a challenge when there is a big match atmosphere
January 19th 2013 @ 9:26am
kellett_1992 said | January 19th 2013 @ 9:26am | Report comment
I don’t for one second dispute that at all, agree completely Pete4.
January 19th 2013 @ 9:31am
MV Dave said | January 19th 2013 @ 9:31am | Report comment
After mistakes made in relation to security of MVs active support hopefully the FFA have learnt some lessons. It took some time to sort out those issues so hopefully history won’t repeat. Good to see the club consulting the fan group early on and as long as dialogue continues progress can be made.
MVs active support is now bigger, louder and more colorful than ever before and add so much to the match day experience.
January 19th 2013 @ 9:51am
asanchez said | January 19th 2013 @ 9:51am | Report comment
This is a tough one. I wouldn’t let the mainstream media worry football fans, as they have alienated people from our game for over 30 years by biased reporting and blowing minor incidents way out of proportion. I get the feeling that even if there’s no incidents at A-league matches, the media wil still conjure something up. So I don’t think their reporting is our biggest concern. And this will only stop when one of the main channels buys our rights one day down the track, and then watch them promote the crap out of our sport!
The issue I have though is with supporter groups often using the word passion to crime childish behaviour. I must admit, I don’t have an issue with swearing, as long as its not over the top, we hear it in everyday life, you hear at other sports also like at AFL/NRL games for example. Moshing isn’t that bad either, but it’s the flares being thrown on the pitch which I have an issue with.
I’ve watched football matches all around the world for the last 30 years, and lived in Europe for 10 years, and we can’t compare the 2, nor should we. Many of the supporter groups over there have heavy criminal or mafia links and all sorts of stuff happens in the stands during games. Unfornately not all those guys are there purely to watch a game of football. This in not where we want to be. Personally I dont mind the flares in European games and the colour and atmosphere they add. But Europe is Europe and we don’t live there! For some fans to crack the sads and say that that’s football (flares) and that it’s allowed in Europe is a copout. Other things like drums/flags are definitely previliges. We live in a different society here where things like flares are despised and will keep holding our game back from the mainstream. So as a summary, just keep the flares at home, they’re not needed and even harm the sport’s image here. The RBB have shown that they can create a smashing atmosphere without them. I hope they can gain the FFA’s trust back very soon.
January 20th 2013 @ 1:11pm
Ian Whitchurch said | January 20th 2013 @ 1:11pm | Report comment
Mmmmm no.
I’d say they are run by people who are pathologically inclined to make money.
January 19th 2013 @ 9:58am
Gweeds said | January 19th 2013 @ 9:58am | Report comment
It’s amazing how all this is a replay of what happened with the Melbourne Victory active supporters over the years. Fortunately after years of too-ing and fro-ing and negoitiating with the club and police, it seems that they have arrived at a failrly common position. Hopefully will be the same with the Wanderers.
January 19th 2013 @ 10:06am
Tom Trollodge said | January 19th 2013 @ 10:06am | Report comment
Why don’t we “accidentally” group the home team & away team hooligans together away from everyone else & let them sort it out for themselves.
January 19th 2013 @ 10:40am
Anthony Dunn said | January 19th 2013 @ 10:40am | Report comment
I have a very old fashioned approach to football in which hooligans are just other part of the game. It’s going to sound horrible but it’s just another small part of the game I love, not that people get hurt & die etc. Just that although it’s stupid, fans go out of their way, even if the clubs hate it, they go out of their way to defend the club. It’s stupid, but I think it’s wrong to say that’s not passionate.
January 19th 2013 @ 11:12am
Qantas supports Australian Football said | January 19th 2013 @ 11:12am | Report comment
Kellet—-good read and you made some very good observations—I whole heartily agree with. Of course these WSW supporters will never abide by the responsible behavioural rules set down by the FFA or even by their own inner circle of responsible leadership—some WSW idiot will still smuggle in a flare to throw onto the field, triggering off another bottle throwing incident. So different from what is suppose to be normal responsible football behaviour.
On their first outing as a supporter group, some WSW lunatic threw a rock, which hit a SFC ball boy on the head that resulted in him being carted off to hospital even before the commencement on the season. Has their behaviour improved or looked likely to—I can’t see any evidence of it.
Of course now the FFA’s biggest fear is can they unload this mob off to an unsuspecting prospective owner, or will they remain the FFA’s barnacle club, latched onto their back rump for ever—or until they say they have had enough?