Is the damage to North Queensland football irreparable?

My point hasnt changed. I am able to follow both AFL and Football without any feelings of insecurity. I enjoy watching both sports. It is a shame NRL supporters cant get past those insecurities and allow football to grow in NQ.

The Fury are gone. They are gone because of many reasons. I believe mainly because of poor management at both Club and FFA level. I am sick of listening to people say the fans are to blame. On average we only had 2k-4k less crowds than the majority of the clubs in the A-league. People also carry on about a 2nd team in Sydney. Well why do you deserve one? You couldn't even average 6-7k out of 4 million plus population. In TWG forum Gorman said there should be a Western Sydney team as it was too far for fans to travel 45 minutes to watch a game from Parra to the city!! Fury had close to 1000 fans driving 200km round trip to come to the games scheduled during all times of the week. The Fury and FFA will never know if the community based model was going to work as it was aborted prematurely. For the region we will need to look to the future. An NQ Youth League team has the full support of Qld Football, now it is up to the FFA to let us know if we are worthy of entry to this league? Also Cairns and Mackay are more than welcome to bid for a new franchise in the future. If you want A-league in your town then find the support and give it a go. I do not, and never will, hate soccer. I do not trust anything the current FFA administration says. I am still waiting to see the article as to who was lying about the funding at the death of the Fury as I had signed my $3,300 binding contract. Who was lying, the Fury Board that said we had raised the money or the FFA board who said we had not raised the capital required?

Q.G.R.L. Do you have a geniune source to suggest otherwise. Gee you really love the well being of all sports dont you.

Q.G..R.L. I believe you're the angry housewife, for most on the eastern seaboard that doesn't need anymore explaining.

"20,000 registared juniors in the Fury’s catchment." Do you have a source?

"Quenslands game is rugby league . You sure know a hell of a lot about News Limited don’t you." No, I don't. But I do know a bit about rugby league and the Cowboys. News Ltd's sale of the Cowboys was in the news a few years ago.

Jon, THe principal sponsor of the North Queensland Cowboys is Toyota. The other major sponsors are XXXX, Dairy Farmers, Harvey Norman, Queensland Country Credit Union, City of Townsville, Coca-Cola Amatil (Powerade), Trukai Industries, ISC, Southern Cross Media Group (102.3 4TOFM), Jupiters Townsville, Stockland, WIN Television, Townsville Bulletin, Cowboys Leagues Club. http://www.cowboys.com.au/default.aspx?s=major-sponsors

Jon Hey I don't know if you remember but we had a chat while back on one of the other threads about the Fury. I recall you stating that you were from Adelaide and supporting Port Adelaide if I'm correct now from know about that club is it's dire financial straits and decreasing crowds also similar to the Cowboys so don't go throwing stones into glass walls. The Fury should of being handled better same with the Rams in Adelaide both had potential to carve out there niche but extraordinary circumstances cut both short.

20,000 registared juniors in the Fury's catchment. Sadly, poor schedueling by the A-League gave little chance for these juniors to travel to see their team. Saturday afternoon games are a must for this region. NRL have run surveys and come up with a similar result - Saturday afternoon games are the most attended.

2007. That gave the cowboys 6 years to establish themselves. Buckley promised the Fury 5 years. But even now New Ltd are still the major sponsor and as a point of fact half-own the Broncos and own the Storm outright. That is no different than the FFA owning clubs as News Ltd own 50% of the NRL. You cant tell me 7,000 members is enough to support a national team.

Pro-NRL suggestions that establishing clubs in the A-League should be self-sufficient stands in stark contrast to how other codes operate. The AFL operates as a Not-For-Profit organisation so pays no tax. As a Not-For-Profit organisation, any profit is ploughed back into ‘development’ and subsidies to struggling clubs. The AFL’s draft system also ensures struggling clubs are given access to emerging talent. These are all factors the FFA should consider in the development of the A-Leauge. I have witnessed the birth of two NRL teams, firstly while living in the ACT and then while living in Townsville. On both occasions the NRL lobbied local governments to put in the infrastructure and backed up the push through sympathetic media that suggested the positive impact that a national team would have to the region. It appears Cowboys supporters have short memories as they slammed the local council for daring to put their rate-money into backing the Fury when that is precisely what they did when the Cowboys were launched. Even today, the editor of the Bulletin writes how the QLD Government should give struggling NRL clubs a break by reducing Stadium Queensland’s charges. I find it hypercritical that the same News Ltd paper that was slamming the Fury’s financial woes should now leap to the support of an NRL team by suggesting attendances have been under-counted by 25%, security arrangements need to be relaxed, food prices reduced, and families are struggling thanks to the effects of Cyclone Yasi – all factors leading to current poor attendances. Every one of the issues mention by the editor was raised by Fury fans and dismissed. Maybe the FFA should look closer at the region before dismissing it completely?

NF. Cheer's mate i made a geographical error, i remember them now The Gold Coast Seagulls. I think the overall point that some were trying to make was that if a mens senior team folds people spell the death of the sport which is completely false.

Bondy A correction about the Crushers they were a 2nd Brisbane team there was a Gold Coast team already there in the 90's the Seagulls/Chargers. Football will be fine in the region can we stop the bickering about league/football too but can co-exist here in Australia.

Okay, the reason the majority of our Kangaroos' players play in the NRL is because the NRL is one of the premier RL competitions in the world. The A-League however is not up there as a premier football competition. I'd say for the Socceroos to be 20th in the world the players have to come from higher domestic competitions because the quality is better than the A-League! Hence why in the Asian Cup there were only 4 players named from the A-League. As for Aussie superstars playing in Australia, maybe we can afford them in their twilight years, but for a Harry Kewell and Cahill at their peaks, Australia can't compete with their multi-million dollar salaries! Although the quality of the A-League has improved significantly lately - which might mean a player will still develop skills similar to if they were playing in Europe - there simply isn't enough money to keep them here. On the other hand, if a club wants to get the crowd back or more fans through the gates they should find a way to bring in a true marquee player and if that means getting the FFA to fork out half the bill then maybe that should be an option. Take Gary Ablett for example. Everyone thought he'd stay at Geelong, but when you're thrown so many million dollars at you, you almost have no option but to take the cash and move to another team. Did the Suns come up with all the money to afford Ablett? No, most of the money has come from the AFL headquarters! Harry Kewell was getting paid roughly $270,000 per WEEK at Liverpool, no A-League team can afford that. However now in his twilight years, if a team puts in half and the FFA the other half they could present him with a very attractive salary in addition to quality football on the park :-)

we can agree to disagree then - the improvements in training, coaching and the ability to play in a professional comp with an international aspect (Asia) is not bad. Some players earn good money here (Aloisi, Smeltz for example) and the overall wage is not bad. There's a youth structure where players are graduating from NYL to HAL to Europe. It's a viable competiiton in that respect and can offer players a lot. What it cant offer is the type of money the larger euro comps and asian comps can. The ponds maybe smaller for other codes but the money in the UK and France etc will always be persuasive to a Carter, SBW, Gasnier, Gower etc. As for cricket, the IPL is the new world isnt it? The fact players return here is good (money faily lifestyle all play a part); butour footy players also return to the HAL. anyhoots thats all i have on this and it will just become circular. Fuss, will argue it more coherently anyway =)

Sydney definitely needs 3 teams because it's so spread out. Sydney FC to represent the East+South, Western Rovers FC to represent the West and Northern Spirit FC to represent the North Shore. South Coast FC will obviously represent the Illawarra region (with maybe a game or two in Campbelltown?)! Melbourne is good with two teams at the moment and the third should and most probably will be based in Geelong. Melbourne Victory mostly represents North+West, Melbourne Heart South+East (North Vs South of the Yarra?) and Greater Geelong FC to represent pretty much all of Western Victoria (Ballarat, the coastal towns all the way out to Warrnambool and Ararat).

Exciting finish Copa del Rey. Ronaldo brilliant header now Di Maria off. Real Madrid win. Mourinho the complete coaching genius?

@ CDFCFTW You fall for the same error when you say that" "... if we want football to succeed in Australia as a viable code that people actually want to go and see" Why do people think "the code" equates to the A-League? The A-League started 6 years ago; yet, football has been the most popular participation sport in Australia for decades. I think you fail to grasp the concept of globalisation and its impact on labour markets. Australia, with a population of 22 million, will simply NEVER retain "the best and the brightest" in ANY field - higher-education, health, science, commerce, etc. etc.

Nice one Bondy! Forgot about the London derby tonight - set the alarm 15 mins too early for the Copa del Rey ... but, no prob, quality football is available 24x7x365! Now if only Spurs can grab a point. ;-)

ease up on the code war. most of the last paragraph was a bit un-needed. regardless i don't buy the whole 'football is soft thats why it gets huge numbers' argument. baseball, basketball and cricket still are all team that have no tackling and reasonable numbers in australia and they are still miles off footballs numbers.