Prior to the start of this year’s A-League competition, all the talk was of the two new clubs, Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury. Barely three weeks into the competition, and some serious problems are apparent at one of those clubs.
Something must be done, and soon, to reverse the fortunes of the Fury, lest it fall off the sporting radar.
Even by Australian standards, Townsville is not a large city.
With a population of less than 150,000, Townsville is less than a tenth of the size of Brisbane and less than 3 percent of the size of Sydney, not exactly the numbers that would provide a compelling case for a team.
This is particularly evident when one considers that both Sydney FC and Brisbane Roar are averaging crowds south of the 15,000 mark (even with their substantial population bases).
In addition to these less-than-appealing facts, Townsville is rugby league mad (the North Queensland Cowboys have the third highest crowds in the entire National Rugby League).
All things considered, the decision to base a team in Townsville is nothing short of perplexing.
Evidently someone in the FFA or Fury management realised at the last moment that perhaps the people of Townsville were not going to flock to see a group of men they had never heard of before playing a sport that they did not know an awful lot about (especially with Thurston and company playing at the same ground every other weekend).
Thus the search for a messiah was begun.
This messiah came in the form of Robbie Fowler, and the Australian football community gazed on in awe.
Hardly anyone in the football fraternity could believe an Australian club was capable of signing such a big name player. However, one large problem was that while the Australian football community may have heard of Robbie Fowler, the average resident of Townsville (and the average Australian) could not tell him from Karl Dodd.
Things have not improved for the Fury now that the A-League season has started.
Crowds have been well below expectations (crowds of 8,897 and 6,514 flying in the face of owner Don Matheson’s prediction of “ten to twelve thousand”) and on field performances have hardly set the league alight (5-0 anyone?).
I cannot see the crowds improving in the future – especially if the results continue to be so poor.
Everything about the Fury has, to date, been disappointing. The crowds, the results, the jersey and even the name have been met with widespread derision.
One can only hope that something happens soon to turn the fortunes of this club around. If not, the FFA has two options: either to step in and attempt to make the Fury artificially successful or to simply pull the plug on the team altogether.
Neither of these options are particularly palatable, but both are infinitely preferable to the long term damage the A-League could incur if the Fury continue on their present trajectory.
DT
Guest
Me too. Fury will survive and prosper if they can make it through the first few seasons without haemorrhaging too much money. Am hoping crowds pick once the NRL is over. Cowboys had good attendances despite losing almost every home game for the first five years, and the Suns (now Crocs) sold out their first 69 games in a row. Community engagement is a key, but I've been impressed with the run they've been given so far in the local media
DT
Guest
Ha! Can just picture it! Please no, Fos. North Queenslanders are a parochial lot, and if they get their heckles up that Fury is trying to muscle in on the Cowboys turf it can only go badly. The other side of that coin is, once the NRL season is over the Fury have a great chance to establish themselves in the NQ sporting consciousness. Code wars should be meaningless when the two codes don't actually overlap, but I admit the Fury will have their work cut out bringing in the average league fan.
AndyRoo
Roar Guru
DT excellent posts. It seems a shame we only get 2 spots in Asian club competition. Since we are not getting the full 4 spots in the ACL it would seem fair that we should get a couple of spots in the 2nd tier cup to prove we deserve more. But then I don't think that's the purpose of the cup and without the big east asian teams proabbly is a big drop off in quality. If those things were built up I guess it would make sence to set up a centre where you could get your Fifa coaching licenses in Nth Qld too and try and attract the SE Asia market. Could be handy attracting players too, if your a 29/30 year old J league pro a couple of years playing for the Fury, learning english and gettign your coaching license seems like a good idea.
DT
Guest
Just adding to the last point, that representative opportunities will come up for home-based Socceroos matches in Asia certainly isn't lost on the likes of Williams, Stefanutto, Sterjovski, Coyne and Burns. Fury players, acclimatised to the heat and humidity, will have a slight advantage when games in Southeast Asia come around. If Fury builds on this strength (sign a couple of Southeast Asian players, lots of pre-season games agains Asian opposition etc) it will benefit the Fury players and the team itself. The Socceroos will almost certainly base themselves in the north for future Asian Cup camps and so on, right on the Fury's doorstep. If Fury can make this into a real advantage for their players it can only help attract more quality players up north.
DT
Guest
A few advantages off the top of my head: 1) Players. Southeast Asia is still one of the great untapped resources of playing talent for the A-League. It's just a matter of time before we see more SE Asian players in the league, and will happen sooner rather than later if Surat Sukha is a success for MV. Southeast Asian players are surely more likely to make a smooth transition to team based closer to home in a tropical climate. 2) The climate. A lot has been made about the home ground advantage that the Fury will gain when games are played in the hot and humid summer months. Don't know about you, but I'd be looking for players from Indonesia/Malaysia/Thailand etc before Scotland to exploit that advantage to the fullest! 3) Corporate partnerships. There's a lot of Asian mining and tourism money in North Queensland. This is probably the most important point for the suits at Fury and the FFA. 4) Asian Champions League. OK, so the Fury aren't going to get a run in the ACL for quite a few seasons yet, but as the ACL grows in prestige and brings in more money all A-League clubs are going to have to start positioning themselves to not just win the League, but to win games on a regular basis in Asia. Just look at how the Socceroos bombed in the Asian cup, not least because they couldn't handle the conditions, and you'll see the natural advantage the Fury might have - at least against SE Asian opposition (perhaps not so much in northern Japan or Uzbekistan). 5) HAL Socceroos. If the Fury (or any other team) can position themselves as Asia-savvy it's only going to benefit the representative chances of players for home-based Socceroos forays into Asia. If nothing else, Fury players will be conditioned to playing in the heat and humidity.
DT
Guest
You make it sound like FFA is trying to grow the game in a footballing desert, but it's just not the case. As Tom points out below, the region has strong Italian, Croatian, Greek and now British populations, and football is strong across the region. Take Ingham for example. Just an hour up the road from the 'Ville, over half the population is of Italian descent. One challenge will be attracting and maintaining the support of football fans throughout NQ who can't travel regularly to games. It won't matter too much if they don't come through the gates at the ground if they watch the games on Fox and wear their Fury shirts round the streets. As others have said, Fury has to get a home game up to Cairns. Will probably only happen in pre-season, which is a shame.
DT
Guest
Great point Luke, the region is brimming with talented indigenous kids, though at the moment most play league or touch and want to be the next Matty Bowen. Couldn't agree more re: David Williams, and they need to get players out kicking balls in the communities. Fury management might be on to this already though; the "welcome to country" ceremony at DFS before the Sydney game was a nice touch I thought.
Tom Alexander.
Guest
Cairns has got a large Asian and European student/backpacker population, easily in the thousands. The Cairns post did a street survey/Q&A once around Origin time and many of the students they spoke too felt, Rugby League was not to their liking. Many were diehard Football fans. Football has always had a strong following in Cairns and it's surrounding districts, especially amongst the large Italian, Croatian, Greek and now British populations etc. probably comes down to marketing really.
DT
Guest
It’s far too early to be making a call on the Fury based on on-field performance or even crowd figures. Expansion is a tough business. The Cowboys, for instance, won 2 of 22 games in their first season (1995), finished dead last in two out of their first three seasons, and didn’t have a winning season until 2004 (12w 11L, 7th place). Take a look at the first season records of expansion teams in the NBA (http://www.nba.com/analysis/00422957.html). Not one went remotely close to winning as many games as they lost in their first year. If the Fury can keep their heads above water this season, and maybe win a couple of games for good measure, they will be doing just fine! Given that the Cowboys were playing at the same time, I suspect that last week’s crowd may be close to representing the core supporter base for the Fury, and shouldn’t fall much further unless results are truly woeful. The real test will be how many turn up once the NRL season is done and dusted. As for the marquee man, if there is one primary school kid in Townsville who doesn’t know who Robbie Fowler is I’d be surprised! A real coup for the boys in green. Yes, Townsville is a small city, but as others have pointed out already, it is representative of a large catchment area covering northern, far northern, central and western Queensland. Sure, league is king up here, but there is also a very strong and active football community across the region, with two representative teams in the Queensland state league (NQ Razorbacks and FNQ Bulls). Without the development pathway offered by the Fury, north Queensland has already produced the likes of Wayne Srhoj (Mareeba), Steve Corica (Innisfail), Tahj Minniecon (Cairns), Michael Thwaite (Cairns), Shane Stefanutto (Cairns), Kasey Wehrman (Cloncurry) and Frank Farina (remember him?). The Fury is now the perfect fit as a career option for promising juniors across the region who, in the past, have had to look elsewhere for opportunities. The Fury doesn’t have the glitter strip and Clive Palmer’s private jet to lure a championship team, but given time and maybe a bit of extra support from the FFA they may build one from the ground up and will certainly become an exporter of young football talent to the rest of the league (like the Roar). The missing ingredient for me is Asia. James Cook University in Townsville has recently (and cleverly) rebranded itself as “one of the world's leading institutions focusing on the tropics”, specialising in tropical medicine, marine biology etc. See the perception shift here? Rather than being the permanent poor cousin to the southern universities, JCU is taking a point of difference and making it a strength. For mine, the Fury needs to hop on the same bandwagon and forge some serious ties with the likes of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The only pity watching Surat Sukha’s assured performance for the Victory last weekend was that he should really have been playing for the other team! Let’s not forget that Australia is a member of the Asian Football Confederation, and we need to embrace that if we are to continue to be welcomed in the region. Fury is perfectly placed to build bridges with Asia, and credit to them for initiating the pre-season jaunt to Singapore, but that needs to be just the beginning. As for the colours, logo, etc, green and white was an inspired choice (bring on the Palmeiras of the north!). They’ll get the logo and shirt right with time.
Ross
Guest
Doyle, who told you Townsville has a population of less then 150 000? The figure is definitely more than 165 000 and closer to 170 000+. In your comments you focus on Townsville as the only location for the fan base when in fact all national teams up here - Crocs (NBL) Cowboys (NRL) and the previous national hockey team work with the understanding their talent and fan base comes from North Queensland. That'd be an area starting at Mackay in the south, north to Thursday Island, and west to Mt Isa. In that region I'm sure you'd find a population base closer to 300 000, if not more. An issue for any new club in the A-League is that currently there's no Free-To-Air deal with any TV network. I'd suggest that'd make it harder to get your product out to the wider community. Don't forget ticketing. Game day tickets are available predominately via Ticketek, which means patrons go online to get their tickets. I don't think that was made clear up here at the start of the season and I think a few people didn't attend the first game because of that. They were expecting to physically buy tickets where they'd purchased NRL game day tickets. Doyle, you acknowledge Townsville (actually it's more like NQ) is NRL mad, but when you consider the NBL game days create just as much of a "roar" pardon the pun, then the case should be made that NQ is sports mad, no matter which sport. I've just looked at the ladder and after 3 games find 20% (2 teams) have won more than a third of their games. That's not a lot of consistent wins from most of the teams. Finally, after 3 games a season doesn't make.
AndyRoo
Roar Guru
I am not sure what the oppurtunities are. Obviously if they make the ACL then they along with Gold Coast would receive a lot of away fans (great place for a holiday) Day to Day advantages I can't think of any that aren't available to other teams.
Redb
Roar Guru
Mushi, I dont think many here have been to Townsville, on the surface it has very little Asian influence, Cairns yes, Townsville I dont think so. Redb
Mushi
Guest
Yep we’re thinking magical fairy dust will all of a sudden lead south east asia to mistake the typical north queenslander for one of their asian brethren.
Mushi
Guest
Yes but if you look at the whole season they aren’t 91,000 individuals you are counting the same person 10+ times an awful lot.
Mushi
Guest
The cowboys get a crowd because they are the number one code in North Queensland, by a very wide margin. When entering any new market the cultural acceptance of your product needs to be considered as much as the potential market size. In NQ it seems like they lose out on both fronts, cultural predisposition is against them and the market is tiny. I actually found the decision baffling to expand there over say Wollongong.
Koala Bear
Guest
TT, Frank Lowy as gone on record that he wants a WS team in the HAL .... I don't know where you get your information from but its totally false... As a SFC supporter I say the more the merrier... ~~~~~~~~ KB
Midfielder
Guest
TT The world despite changes in business is the same everywhere... Football or RU ... now to explain.. Why the Taths do not want a WS team is the same reason that the Flying Circus / Bling / Choppers ... SFC have not connected with the broader Sydney Community ... a WS Football team will be massive and make the Choppers the small player in Sydney and will take some of their existing fan base.
Koala Bear
Guest
Westy, don't despair it's on the way... ;) ~~~~~~~ KB
Koala Bear
Guest
Yes Doyle thanks for reading my comments, and you would have then also noticed that, each one of them has been on a Football thread addressing the anti-football lobby comments made by your ilk ... I have no problem with the other codes, I have been watching them for years (mainly NRL)... But when an article is written by someone like you who clearly does not like the code as your profile has confirmed, you do wonder why, why bother, to put up an anti-Fury article on a Football thread if it is not to cause displeasure for the Fury die-hearts... A true football supporter like myself can only conclude, it is only to bring down a new football franchise trying to service an area where there is a genuine love for the code... Small now, but it surely will grow when they start to win a few home games... ~~~~~~~ KB
Redb
Roar Guru
Cairns is a different kettle of fish to Townsville. Amongst the league and soccer, it has a strong AFL comp and community, Cazalys,etc. Redb