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Police direct Gold Coast United fans after they stormed a closed off area of stadium in protest of a crowd cap at Skilled Park during the round 13 A-League match between the Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury , Saturday, October 31, 2009. Gold Coast United owner Clive Palmer made the decision this week to limit the Skilled Park crowd to 5,000 people to save on stadium fees. AAP Image/Dave Hunt.
At the end of their first season as an A-League club, we cannot say with any great certainty that Gold Coast United is a sustainable franchise. It was a tumultuous debut season of off-field debacles that blighted on-field achievement, culminating in penalty shootout heartache and another deplorable crowd figure.
On the park, Gold Coast were exactly what the A-League needed; another powerhouse club who could excite with star names, tear apart the opposition on their day yet were as unpredictable as the league itself.
The squad they built from scratch was certainly impressive. In terms of talent and ability of individual players, only the Melbourne Victory shaded the Gold Coast.
Jason Culina was an inspiration on his return to Australia, marshalling his troops, trying to lift them to his level and producing some sublime moments of his own.
His extraordinary vision and ability to cut through the opposition with his pinpoint passing, combined with Shane Smeltz’s early season goal scoring form, made you think, even for just a moment, that Gold Coast could threaten to go through the season undefeated.
Had it not been for injury-depletion at critical stages of the season, such as when an injury-ravished United were thrashed 4-0 away to Melbourne Victory in November, Gold Coast could well have stolen the Premiers Plate.
Jess Vanstratten, for example, only hit top form in the culminating rounds of the season, having missed much of the early season through injury.
Miron Bleiberg deserves much praise for the team’s performance in its debut season.
But it was the brash talk of an undefeated season and other bold claims that seemed to delude the club on the brink of their debut.
When they defeated EPL side Fulham in a pre-season friendly in front of over 10,000 fans at Skilled Park, you sensed an overwhelming arrogance sweep over the club.
Not only would they sweep to the title undefeated, bringing a glamour to the competition that it had not seen, they would also crowd out the Gold Coast market before the AFL moved. Owner Clive Palmer even baited the AFL with his suggestion that Gold Coast FC, set to debut in 2011, would be unable to sustain a crowd and predicting they would last three years.
As the season began, and despite the initial high-scoring victories, crowds plunged to the point where in late October, Palmer implemented the crowd cap of 5,000 people to limit the loss on stadium fees.
That match against North Queensland, which saw 2,616 turn up (it could have been so much worse), saw the club hit rock bottom.
The club publicly acknowledged they didn’t work hard enough within the local community, and the debacle over ticket prices only compounded the issue. For all the brashness and bravado that characterised their launch as a club, they failed miserably at the very basics of building a football club.
Yes, there were some factors out of their hands that impacted crowds; namely the fact the code doesn’t have the strongest footprint in the region and transport (especially public) isn’t easy to negotiate on the Coast, but there was no connection with the population and that was its fatal flaw.
With all the controversy and bravado surrounding Palmer, the team was viewed as his rather than belonging to the Gold Coast itself.
That lack of a connection and lack of concerted work in the local community saw the crowd drop from the over 10,000 to see Fulham to the 4,109 for the elimination final.
Despite a population base over three-times the size of Townsville’s, Gold Coast United was still behind the North Queensland Fury, with the core supporters, namely The Beach supporter group, making up a significant portion of the crowd each week.
With the defeat in the final, even their successful debut season (when you consider how challenging it is for an expansion franchise to join an established league) will be viewed as a failure such were the ridiculously high expectations made by them so publicly.
It poses the question: Is the franchise sustainable?
As long as Clive Palmer remains committed to the club, his riches will help overcome the deficiencies caused by the small crowds.
But, at heart, he is a businessman, and he’ll be guided by the bottom-line. It was, let’s not forget, fiscal concerns that convinced Palmer to implement the crowd cap.
The future of the club is in his hands, and we can only hope he and his team have seen the mistakes of their first season and start rectifying them in season two. They must understand that creating and running a football club is more involved than just business.
If the club cannot expand its core supporter base beyond the 5,000 mark next season, then serious questions must be asked about the franchise’s sustainability, and even then it will still depend on Palmer’s future.
They also need stability, and the news that Paul Okon has been axed from the coaching staff is a worrying sign that the club may be reacting in panic to their failed finals campaign.
While the AFL franchise starting 2011 won’t be in direct competition with the A-League club, they will compete in the relatively small Gold Coast community for the same corporate dollars and supporters’ dollars and loyalties.
They, incidentally, launched the countdown to their debut in 2011 in the heart of Surfers Paradise yesterday with a rallying cry for the locals to get behind the club and help them reach the 10,000 members mark.
It’s such a campaign that United should have been undertaking this time last year.
As they watch the A-League finals from the sidelines, we can reflect on their season by saying there are more questions than answers surrounding the future of Gold Coast United.