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In most cases, you would be a fool for agreeing with the heading above, but listen to my reasoning and I hope you’ll agree with it.
The sixth season didn’t start out with much optimism; most things out of the control of the game created havoc where possible, as more things went wrong than went right
In the first case the Australian pin-up boys didn’t deliver on an exciting World Cup promise that they’d made to us four years earlier with a berth in the top 16. After 2006, the public expected to match the results, but with coach Pim Verbeek under the gun, the team seemed to fall, in the public eye, despite scoring the same number of points as in Germany.
The FFA, while trying to ride a wave of possible public support, put out a World Cup bid tailored to our laconic ‘she’ll be right’ style and put all their eggs into one basket. At the same time they published one of the most half-hearted promotional campaigns of ‘fan-made’ to the public and a fan competition barely noticed by anyone outside of their office.
The final result of only one vote for the bid was overshadowed by the corruption and in-fighting inside FIFA, but still the bid was trounced by the naysayers whenever they could. The fan made competition barely made a ripple in the news.
In the A-League itself, one of the newest clubs, North Queensland Fury, were under siege with minimal financial support and all of its players, coaches and administration signed for only single year contracts. The team stepped up quite admirably with one of the most animated sideline appearances, some impressive on-field antics, and a belated community drive that unfortunately fell short of the intended target (whatever the FFA apparently decided).
At this time they were also suffering some of the worst storms and natural disasters before being scuttled for financial reasons by the FFA in March.
The other new club in Queensland, Gold Coast, were fighting against their crowds by boldly (or stupidly) shutting out three quarters of the stadium to save on costs, but ending up damaging its tenuous connection to the fan base – halving it’s average attendance to NZ Knights levels.
And lastly what should have been the biggest news story for the league almost turned into the biggest nightmare of game with the Victory versus Heart derby attracting oversized crowds to see Muscat pull off a much-replayed foul on a young candy striped winger, Adrian Zahra, that brought every AFL passionate reporter into the world game’s press pack to attack the brutality of the game.
What should have been an exciting match report about a vigorous game became a story about broken ankles, thuggery and the game no-one should be playing.
Despite all this, despite crowd numbers being down from the season before, and despite so much doom and gloom from media agencies, the league kept going.
A team that was said to be mired in infighting became the team to play against. Brisbane Roar, with an ex-Socceroo coach, ended on top of the ladder and went into a final at Suncorp with a highly dramatic finish to the match. I still remember watching the Energizer man, Matt McKay, sprinting around the ground in excitement after the score was equalised.
The Melbourne derby became, in one season, the three must-see games for any non-converted football fan out there. The enthusiastic supporter groups’ chants and the atmosphere eclipsed almost every other match in the fixture list. I’m still looking forward to heading down to the matches and am happy to cancel birthdays or anniversaries if they get in the way.
Importantly, the games still were exciting, the real fans still kept attending and the final still had 50,000 bums on seats. In most cases, people look at the 2006-2007 season as having the best results both crowds and teams, but with everything that was thrown at the league, at the club and at the fans, 2010-2011 was the season that the game and the league survived.
In fact, under some of the worst possible conditions, a league built only six years has survived and thrived.
Roll on 2011-2012.
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