I am the kind of football fan that the FFA needs. I don’t come from a family of immigrants where football was the main sport they played in their home country. Neither my mother, nor my father played football into their adult life.
In fact, the biggest sporting influence I can cite in my life was my father; a devout rugby league and cricket fan, from whom I never got to find out how he felt about football.
I spent my youth playing basketball and supporting the Newcastle Knights.
I did my highschooling in Queensland, and being so far away from the team I loved in Newcastle, my passion to be a sports supporter waned.
Then came the 2006 World Cup. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.
Everyone was talking about it, and being the trend follower that one must be to wake up at 4am in the morning to watch a sport that you have never watched before, bleary-eyed, I set myself in front of the television to watch our national team take to the pitch.
I think, by this point, I need to give some background to this story.
Growing up in Newcastle in the 90s means I was witness to the 1997 ARL Grand Final.
Andrew Johns (the greatest Rugby League player of all time. Shut up Queenslanders!) receives the ball with less than 20 seconds to go, stands in a tackle and offloads to Darren Albert to run in the winning try.
My household goes wild. My street goes wild. My town goes wild.
For me, 99 per cent of the time, some way through the second half, you know who is going to win a game of Rugby League.
On very special occasions, however, a game can be so close that one try can make all the difference. And how special that one try can be!
I learned on the morning of 12 June, 2006, that there is a sport where almost every goal is that special.
As I began to wake up on that morning, I sat by myself in my living room watching a new sport where Japan was winning against the team I supported.
Then on comes Tim Cahill, who in a scramble gets a foot to the ball and drives home Australia’s first ever World Cup goal. I was no football fan at this point, but even I knew how special that goal was.
Five minutes later, Cahill gets the ball again at the top of the 18 yard box and fires home another for Australia. And all of a sudden this interesting sport is now the most exciting sport I have ever watched.
The glory! The excitement! The celebrations!
I woke up my family screaming out in excitement after the second goal. By John Aloisi’s third, I was out of my seat and I knew I was hooked.
I watched every Australian World Cup game in 2006 and was on my knees in front of the television when we played Italy in the round of 16 after the horrendous injustice done to the Socceroos.
As part of a fitness kick in 2008 I started playing indoor football. After making some friends who also held this passion for the world game, I started going to the local Brisbane Roar home games.
By now you can probably see where this is going. Last month I was a part of the 50,000 strong crowd at Suncorp Stadium.
Standing in the middle of the den after two seasons watching the Roar, in my Roar kit, face painted orange, hair sprayed orange, I sang until my voice was hoarse.
This time I witnessed not only two very special goals; but a game that rivals, if not overtakes the 1997 ARL Grand Final for top sporting event in my mind.
I really hope that the FFA get their act together, because I’m sure that there are thousands of people out there like me who are just one exciting game away from being hooked.
These days I wonder what would have happened had I decided not to wake up at a crazy hour of the morning to watch a game of an alien sport being played in Kaiserslautern by people I’d never heard of before.
Bondy
Guest
I come from a similar background as you the Rugby League dad, i still watch Rugby League occasionally i remember watching the knight's win the supposed unwinable Grand Final. What i find a litle disapointing in society still is that Football is tagged with the WOG mantra, i've mentioned on these boards a quater of my ancestry came here chained and my family have no correlation with Football apart from getting me into Junior Soccer they don't watch it nor attend. I love Football the beauty the weirdness the emphasis on how important a goal is, the insane time zones you have to live around. Football for life.
Axelv
Guest
I fail to see what ethnicity and cultural background you have (or lack of) has to do with anything. I think the FFA needs every single football fan they can get, starting with protecting your most loyal fans is a good start, building from there would make a solid future. Instead they are offending the loyal fans and trying to appeal to the bandwagon that don't really care (and failing).
AL
Guest
I can only speak as a Football fan. The joy and sorrow that comes with supporting your team is pure emotion.
The Roar
Guest
Restoring comments after outage – apologies for this issue. The Roar =============== BrisbaneGrowl Submitted on 2011/04/08 at 8:52 am | In reply to thom_canberra. I’m sorry you feel that way thom. I never meant to suggest that ethnic background was relevant to the FFA at all. I was simply demonstrating that I had never had exposure to the joys of football as a youngster, and in a country where football is probably not even the third most popular spectator sport, having parents that hail from a country where football is the most popular sport generally helps one to be exposed to it earlier in life. I agree that the FFA needs all the fans they can get, the point was not that the FFA should be picky, but rather there are many thousands of people in Australia that like myself 5 years ago, had never been exposed to football. If the FFA were able to expose some of those people to the World Game, then perhaps there would be a large number of them, which like me, would become hooked. =============== thom_canberra Submitted on 2011/04/08 at 12:20 am The only football fan the FFA needs is one that turns up to their home matches every second week. It doesn’t matter what ethnic background you come from and the fact that you choose to point this out as something relevant in the FFA’s eyes is a derogatory statement in footballs place in Australia. =============== BrisbaneGrowl Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 10:04 pm | In reply to NF. Haha NF, of course I tipped the Knights and I’ll be there supporting the mighty Red and Blue =============== NF Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 8:15 pm BG I’m a completely different case to you I missed the FIFA World Cup of 06 & the Soccerros in general pre-2009. I didn’t care at sport at all despite playing football and doing swimming but I have never heard of the Socceroos or the NSL back when I was playing it. I thought sport of just excerise go back home and play video games so I missed out on a lot of great moments of my chosen sports. It took me to a Cowboys game in 09 to be hooked on rugby league, as for football it took me a few Fury games to get behind it and finally watch my first World Cup last year. Overall, I’m a fan of league & football. P.S: The Knights are playing Broncos on Monday night. I tipped the Broncos. =============== PaddyBoy Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 4:16 pm I have to say, regrettably, I am the football fan the FFA is chasing, and struggling to find. I love my sport, and would love something to cheer for the the NRL/AFL seasons end, and in between the Test (aka real) Cricket is on. And I LOOOVVVEE European Football. I know you’ve heard it all before boys and girls, but I can’t follow a game if I have no team, and no way of watching. I don’t have Foxtel, and I’ll be damned if I’ll support Sydney FC, they reek of the eastern suburbs, every time I see them I think “Roosters with a round ball”. I’m covering a meeting hopefully on the 30th where the Western Sydney team fans are discussing team colours, logo’s, model etc, and that will be a big step for me. Quality be damned, I’d support Canterbury or Hawthorn if they ran out with a pub side, and I’ll support whatever manifestation of the Rovers comes about. =============== Davo Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 3:46 pm | In reply to Birkish Delight. fair point. i think that in paying for the match people get more out of it. They want to enjoy it more, and they do. The free game encouraged tokenism, the kind of people that showed up to that game are the type who scoff the samples at a bakery or in a supermarket but never buy the product. Practically no matter how good something else, if u don’t pay for it the first time, then you have to the next time. People become much less interested. Weird isn’t it! =============== Stevo Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 3:17 pm | In reply to whiskeymac. “I did it my way”? =============== Birkish Delight Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 2:36 pm | In reply to Davo. “If we can just get more people to one A-League game, from experience this causes them to become quite interested in returning another time.” I like you’re thinking, but this didn’t really help GCU get bigger crowds. They threw open the gates with a free game, had 15,000 turn up (from memory) then the next week they were back to 3,000. =============== Davo Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 2:31 pm great article mate, good read. i think with advertising and the better support in the media, the FFA would be able to appeal to fans like yourselves. In many ways i believe that newspapers have made it almost seem uncool to go to an A-League game. The way the attack the sport, the crowds the administration etc. This caused many people such as yourself to almost feel embarrased about going to A-League games and not want to take friends along to games. I know from personal account that the mates that have attended a Brisbane Roar game with me have all really enjoyed it and been keen for more. I think that beteer advertising about the game would help to build the A-League’s reputation and encourage people to bring a mate to a game or two. I believe that this is what builds fan bases, not necessarily billboards etc. If we can just get more people to one A-League game, from experience this causes them to become quite interested in returning another time. Good work mate keep it up! =============== whiskeymac Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 1:57 pm | In reply to Stevo. “fan made”? =============== Birkish Delight Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 1:51 pm | In reply to pezz. I’m all for Australian football and only even look at other international leagues when the A-League ends. Long off season yes, but now I’ll try and follow the state / local leagues. =============== pezz Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 1:46 pm | In reply to Birkish Delight. Birkish Delight your story sounds very similiar to my own. Although i grew up playing football, i couldnt name an english premier league team if my life depended on it. i didnt no it was on tv and besides playing it (at a very crap level) i had no idea. then comes timmys goal. i was in the middle of my hsc trials and i had an exam the next day. but i watched every game. and since i live for football websites. im a sydney fc member (it took a while before i knew sydney fc existed but once i did i havnt stopped going). this off season is going to kill me, i need that live football fix and although i now follow the epl (watching most games i can) i find nothing beats a live match. =============== ian Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 1:39 pm | In reply to timmypig. Brisbanegrowl, If you think watching it on TV was great, try being there in the stadiums in Germany in 2006. To the timmypig, well mate your kids can do whatever they like( so says you) but late teenagers going away from sports at this age is common amongst parents who have pushed their children and tried to live their lives through the successes of many of their children. Those parents should be encouging their children to complete what they started and to achieve their goals. the very nature of teenagers is to rebel. This is where good positive parenting needs to step up a notch, not do the easy thing and say ,” Hey it’s OK you can quit and do whatever you want. ” Go down the road and hang out at 10.00pm on a school night and do drugs and smoke and lose direction. Parenting is a hard job and being tough is necessary some times. Maybe parenting 101 would be good for alot of parents. =============== Stevo Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 1:24 pm Uplifting story! Send it to the FFA and ask for a response. Maybe these are the kinds of stories that can be turned into a good commercial for the next A-league season? Mahony Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 10:52 am | In reply to BrisbaneGrowl. Nail – Head! Well done – a good read…. =============== whiskeymac Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 10:43 am | In reply to timmypig. Easy to u/s why boys chase girls at 16. no amount of football tragedy will ever beat that =) The fact you watch a few games is at least heartening IMO. For my part i started with Union (played it etc) and had no more than a passing interest in football until 1991 and it slowly took over. I stil watch the Tahs and Wallabies and tests (when on TV) but football is where its at for me. maybe the interest level is affected by the lack of local content up until, for many non NSL viewers, now. hard to follow the game when all the stars were o/seas and on late. hopefully the improving hAL will change that. =============== whiskeymac Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 10:36 am | In reply to Roarchild. hahaha i agree. casual, long term or even a NBA player (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/apr/07/lebron-james-liverpool) – all fans welcome. =============== Australian Football Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 10:17 am That was a pleasure to read. Now what you should do, is start saving your cents for the 2014 trip of a life time to Brazil. This WC Football tournament will be a blast—one you’ll never forget. I suggest you hook up with the G&G Army, or any number of the Football supporting traveling organisations that will be heading over there. You have just under 4 years to prepare for it.. =============== BrisbaneGrowl Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 10:10 am | In reply to Fussball ist unser leben. Thanks Fussball, and I can’t agree more. While I feel it’s important to be critical of the football administration and even one’s own team regardless of whether they are performing poorly or not (as we should always be expecting the best from those that represent us). I also feel that the best way forward is to be the change we want to see in the world (or football). The easiest way to be that change is to give the game all the support that you can. =============== BrisbaneGrowl Submitted on 2011/04/07 at 10:06 am | In reply to Birkish Delight. It’s good to see there’s others out there as well Birkish Delight that only needed to be exposed to a sport (or anything in life) to find something they love. It’s great that you drag along mates to each game too! I’ve been dragging my AFL loving housemates to Roar games for the last 2 seasons, and they’ve changed from being anti-football to discussing off-side calls and even footballing tactics.
Sean
Guest
My story is just like yours. That world cup converted a lot of people like us.
fatboi
Guest
god bless the new dawn