The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

We could all benefit from concentrating more on the football

23rd October, 2016
Advertisement
There needs to be more sense in the A-League's fixture list. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)
Expert
23rd October, 2016
257
2725 Reads

If we ever wanted proof of football’s popularity in western Sydney, consider the fact that more people turned out at Spotless Stadium last night than GWS Giants’ average home attendance last season.

In other words, it took one game for the Wanderers to do something the AFL’s project club has been struggling to do for five years – namely draw a decent crowd to Spotless Stadium.

Is the comparison important? I would argue it is, for the simple reason that the AFL and its disciples seem to spend an inordinate amount of their time trying to reinforce the status quo.

And you know who will be the first to comment on this piece, ranting about ‘code wars’ and accusing A-League supporters of being hysterical? AFL fans.

The biased reporting of A-League games and the over-the-top policing that accompanies it recently prompted respected Melbourne journalist Rohan Connolly to slam the double standards.

Connolly said on SEN radio that much of the reporting around the Melbourne derby amounted to “easy, lazy, cheap journalism” – which pretty much sums up the sort of media A-League fans have had to put up with since day one.

Yet as much as we shake our heads at the sort of coverage football gets in the tabloids, it’s not like A-League fans can launch an effective boycott – since it’s hard to find many A-League fans who read News Corp newspapers in the first place.

And that really is the crux of why the A-League continues to attract such hyperbolic headlines from newspapers like the AFL-obsessed Herald Sun.

Advertisement

Of all the mistakes the newspaper industry has made over the past 20 years, one of the biggest is failing to identify an alternative readership to the predominantly middle-aged, middle-class Anglo-Australia they mainly cater for.

Instead of viewing A-League fans as a potential source of new revenue, most Australian newspapers have simply lashed out at a sport they’re not invested in and whose success they never expected, nor sanctioned.

Point this out to the parties concerned, though, and the reaction ranges from sneering incredulity to utter astonishment.

When Police Association of NSW president Scott Weber called Wanderers fans “grubs” last year, the association seemed genuinely shocked that anyone might take offence to the slur.

No wonder the majority of fans are treated like hardened criminals for the simple act of filing into an A-League stadium.

Not only do most police officers fail to understand football culture, they are actively hostile to it – and that hostility is reinforced by tabloid headlines which imply the antics of a few are the actions of the majority.

Good luck holding anyone to account, though, since the stock-standard response from those seeking to control the narrative is to try and put A-League fans back in their place and maintain the status quo.

Advertisement

Just look at the response The World Game columnist Philip Micallef received on Twitter yesterday for daring to write that “Melbourne’s nasty media needs to be challenged”.

However, A-League fans don’t get away scot-free from this excoriation either.

Melbourne Victory fans

Recently I’ve had several readers on The Roar suggest that I’m engaged in writing ‘clickbait’ – as though wanting someone to actually read what I write is somehow an intrinsically bad thing.

Yet those who leave the most aggressive comments about what I write are almost always absent from any discussion about what actually happens on the pitch.

It’s futile to demand a better football media if we can’t even engage with the one we already have.

We just witnessed another pulsating weekend of A-League action, full of the sort of drama we take for granted when we watch the big games in Europe.

Advertisement

But we could all stand to focus a little bit more on the football. (Click to Tweet)

That includes me, it includes some of you and it certainly includes most of our mainstream newspapers.

close