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It’s taken nearly a third of the season, and the first ever cross-town derby to do it, but I’ve finally gotten around to watching the A-League this season.
Readers will know that the round ball game is not at the top of my list of preferred sports, but it’s one that I happily follow in the background, through scores, highlights, and the ever-present discussion and debate on The Roar.
So with the oval ball competitions out of the way, and the much-anticipated inaugural meeting of the new kids on the block, Melbourne Heart, and the entrenched Melbourne Victory taking all the sporting attention in Australia last Friday, I figured now was as good a time as any to get back into the football.
And, in the process, I learned some nice little things about the A-League:
1. It’s still going!
As the other codes drew towards their thrilling finales, and consumed all the news bulletins, column inches, and web pages in their wake, the real worry was that the A-League might not still be going by the time I got around to tuning in.
With the FFA’s attention focussed on any football matter you’d care to mention as long as it’s the 2022 World Cup bid, it seemed for while there that no-one seemed to know the A-League was kicking along each week.
And with several clubs on the brink of imploding, and with various mining magnates both preparing to walk away or play club saviour, it’s a wonder the competition, and the football itself, has been as good as it has.
The Melbourne Derby was a cracker, and I was glad I made the effort to watch it. It was fast, it was a bit niggly, and in the end, only Victory supporters would argue the wrong team won.
It’s just a pity this game was in the ninth week of the season. I would have thought it would have been the perfect season opener, rather than fighting the other codes for airtime. Or maybe that’s just me?
2. All good local derbies are Red v Blue.
All the big local derbies involve red against blue. Think Liverpool v Everton, Holden v Ford this weekend just gone.
The A-League over the years has built up a great red v blue rivalry in Adelaide and Melbourne Victory, but it’s hardly local. They’ve got some local-ish derbies in Newcastle v Central Coast, and more recently Brisbane v Gold Coast too.
But how does a local derby with orange taking on yellow excite you? Orange v Yellow sounds like a hissy fit in the Wiggles dressing room, to me, and whilst I’m sure it might be entertaining to see Greg punching on with Jeff (or whoever wears what coloured skivvy), it’s not going to draw me in as a contest.
At AAMI Park in Melbourne last Friday night, the A-League had it all: the red of the Heart taking on the blue of Victory, in a classic local turf war. The Red and Blue created an amazing “us against them” atmosphere on the coverage, and the colour was the perfect match inside the stadium.
I’m sure the almost 26,000 people that were part of it are already counting down for the return leg on December 11.
3. Stripes are “the new black”.
How good does the Heart’s red and white striped kit look?
When the A-League kicked off way back when, the team strips all had a certain sameness about them. Sure, Reebok let them choose their own colours (which was big of them), but there really wasn’t a whole lot of difference between the teams.
Now, I see that five of the eleven clubs have decided that if they’re going to play the world game, they should at least look like a football team.
If stripes are good enough for the PSV Eindhovens and Barcelonas of the world, then they’re good enough for the Perth Glorys and Melbourne Hearts too.
4. Kevin Muscat is not dead.
I got something of a shock to see Kevin Muscat not just still running around on Friday night, but playing bloody well and setting up Victory’s one and only goal.
Excuse my naivety, football folk, but doesn’t a testimonial/benefit game and a transition to SBS’ World Cup commentary box generally mean you’ve hung up the boots?
Either way, Muscat was back to his best on Friday night, setting up the goal as I mentioned, earning the wrath of the Heart faithful whenever he touched the ball, and he even copped one of the many yellow cards handed out on the night.
But he also snuck in a friendly dig in the post-match, replying to a question of the special treatment he got from the red sections that, “it was nice to see all six thousand of them making some noise,” a not-so-subtle reminder of pecking order in town.
5. AAMI Park might just be the best little stadium in the country.
Is there another thirty thousand-seat stadium around the country that provides as good an atmosphere as a full house at AAMI Park?
Wow, what a sight! The colour, the noise, the closeness of the fans to the action, it just ticks all the boxes for what you’d want from a football ground. I bet the pies are even good.
Of course there’s some kind of cruel irony that such a brilliant little stadium would be built in AFL-dominated Melbourne, and not … well, anywhere else really. The square field teams in Melbourne – the NRL’s Storm, and Super Rugby’s Rebels also call AAMI Park home – are going to be extremely well catered for in the future, and I can’t wait to get down there next year to experience it myself.
This reminds me, actually, “Honey, I’ve been thinking…”