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Adelaide United will run out to raucous support from the Red Army and the South End tonight, but do Australians actually dislike the A-League’s active supporter groups?
The issue has come to a head after The Cove walked out on Sydney FC last weekend, prompting the usual hand-wringing response from club officials and plenty of reflection from mass media.
While there was widespread sympathy for The Cove’s actions, plenty of critics were otherwise willing to label it selfish, unsporting and downright pointless.
Even after nearly 10 years of A-League football, the issue of active support still stirs up passions like virtually no other topic.
The question is; do some of the game’s key stakeholders – club officials, venue management, casual fans – even want active support inside A-League grounds?
Issues with The Cove and Melbourne Victory’s once-vibrant North Terrace are well documented, but Adelaide’s active supporters have also long complained of being targeted by the city’s unpopular WESLO security firm.
Stand in the vicinity of any of the A-League’s active supporter groups and there’s usually an air of menace, although more often than not it comes from the security personnel eager to wade in and make their mark.
Rightly or wrongly, the perception that football fans are ‘hooligans’ has been a tough one for the A-League to shake, and it seems to stem in part from how differently active supporters watch matches compared to other codes.
A comment left on The Roar‘s Facebook page during the week about why “most sports fans don’t bother with the A-League” hinted as much.
“If the game is serious about broadening its appeal, then the game needs to iron that (supposedly anti-social) aspect out and it’s up to the ‘fans’ to pull their heads in,” read the comment.
But here’s the paradox; why would A-League fans want the atmosphere at matches to resemble those at NRL and AFL games?
If anything, the emergence of supporter groups like The Burrow at NRL club South Sydney suggests the trend is being reversed.
Even if the A-League did need to broaden its appeal, wouldn’t one of its strongest selling points be its unique atmosphere?
Yet a quick scan of social media and online comments suggests a significant proportion of Australians find the non-stop singing, chanting and flag-waving deeply disturbing.
It seems almost unfathomable that so-called casual fans would stay away as a result, but could that actually be the case?
Despite all the myths to the contrary, there’s a strong element of authoritarianism which runs deep through Australian society, and as a group we’re generally quick to do exactly what we’re told.
Couple that with the fact active supporter groups can number anywhere between the tens well into the thousands – compared to the more manageable individuals and small families who tend to attend games in other codes – and perhaps it should come as no surprise that active supporter groups are viewed with such suspicion.
But is it justified?
Should Football Federation Australia be doing more to protect the rights of active supporter groups, rather than placing restrictions on them?
Or do the businessmen in suits who generally run the game in Australia understand as little about football supporter culture as the rest of mainstream society?
We hear a lot about how “passion is not a crime” in the A-League, yet it certainly seems to alienate some.
So when Adelaide runs out against the Central Coast Mariners at Hindmarsh Stadium tonight – minus the support of the long-departed Marinators, of course – will the efforts of their hardcore fans be appreciated, on a night when they might reasonably expect to receive some love?
Or are the majority of fans who turn up simply there to watch the football, and think the singing and dancing is best left for the next time Taylor Swift is in town?