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There is a lot to like about Brisbane Roar, including the fact they play some of the most attractive football in the A-League. But what is up with their crowds?
A few weeks ago, The Courier Mail’s resident football writer Marco Monteverde said it would be “embarrassing” if fewer than 15,000 fans turned up for Friday’s top-of-the-table clash between the Roar and Western Sydney Wanderers.
Unfortunately for Marco and the Roar fans in attendance, his words became a self-fulfilling catastrophe, with a crowd of just over 13,000 turning out to see a pulsating 3-2 win to the home team.
A Jamie Maclaren brace and a late winner from Dimi Petratos saw the home team fight back from a 2-1 deficit late in the match, so why weren’t the stands heaving with fans?
Well, where do we start?
For one thing, it’s hard enough to generate a decent atmosphere inside a 50,000-capacity stadium, but it’s nigh-on impossible when the ground is barely one-fifth full.
Then there’s the fact that when the fans do come, they’re still sometimes dealt a heavy hand by police and stadium staff.
A much-shared tweet by Copa 90 presenter Eli Mengem on Friday night seemed to confirm as much, with police apparently stepping in and asking a small section of Roar fans to vacate their seats.
No flares, no banners, no unruly behaviour. So why are young passionate fans of our game & being forcefully removed? pic.twitter.com/MR5HHfGvv8
— Eli (@ElMengem) March 4, 2016
Speaking to a long-time Roar fan a couple of weeks ago, he told me that the River City Collective – a splinter group who broke off from The Den years ago – had recently resumed taking their place in the stands.
If it was the RCC asked to vacate their seats – and from the looks of things, it was – you have to wonder why the police asked them to move.
But then you also have to wonder why Brisbane’s dedicated hardcore section The Den has shrunk so significantly in size over the past few years.
Where once it was common to see almost three full bays of active Roar supporters, today we’re lucky if half of Bay 332 at Suncorp Stadium fills with vocal fans, and I’m not sure why that is.
Is it ticket prices? Over-policing? Is it the fact that the club has burnt plenty of bridges under the Bakrie regime?
I actually spent the entire weekend on the Gold Coast, and I can guarantee that a trip to the so-called glitter strip is always a good way to put things into perspective.
I’m still not convinced the disparate population base of the Gold Coast can support a professional sporting team – let alone several – which perhaps explains why only 8,313 fans turned out for the Gold Coast Titans’ opening game of the NRL season.
And having spent much of my weekend watching sport on TV, I perhaps hit on another reason the region struggles to sustain decent crowds.
Like so many in South-East Queensland – including several English fans I regularly talk football with – I’m a transplant to the region and already support a club from another city.
In fact, having hailed originally from Sydney before moving to Brisbane, I’m acutely aware of just how Sydney-centric much of the discussion around certain A-League issues can be.
That’s why I think it’s important to hear from Brisbane Roar fans about what they think their club can do to improve attendances.
It’s not as if the Roar are alone in struggling to attract decent crowds, with yesterday’s clash between the Mariners and Melbourne Victory as notable for the dreary action on the pitch as for the 5,000 diehards who turned out to watch Victory’s routine 2-0 win.
Those diehards deserve some recognition, not least because without them plenty of A-League games would be played with practically no one in the stands.
It’s a shame when small crowds are the focus of attention.
But some teams need to do more to pull their weight at the box office, and that includes three-time champions Brisbane Roar.
Last week the Roar and AFL club Brisbane Lions announced an unprecedented collaboration, whereby members of both clubs are afforded reciprocal admission into each other’s matches. But will it help?