It was the end of AFL and the end of NRL, and we were faced with the stark reality of the off season. What could we do? Cricket. Well, of course, but is this enough to satisfy out lust for live sport. No, not really.
I had to come up with the solution.
In truth, it came to me after playing FIFA 11, and I tentatively broke it to my circle of friends: football via the A-League. This received mixed reactions.
One screwed up his nose and said “what, wog ball?” I took that as a no.
Another said: “I can’t waste my time watching a game for 90 minutes where no one scores.” Also a no.
I received various non-committal replies, until finally one of my mates thought it was a great idea, which wasn’t a huge surprise as he has Scottish origins and is a Celtic fan.
So I bought two memberships to Sydney FC at a bargain price and eagerly awaited our goodies.
We announced our achievement to our other friends and got a lot of jibes about having to slick back our hair and grow a rat’s tail, be careful not to get stabbed and to get our riot and car-flipping skills up to scratch, and so on.
So with a tiny bit of nerves, but mostly excitement, I attended my first game between Sydney FC and Brisbane Roar, donned in my new membership gear.
Of course, the stereotypes and media representation of football were put down: there was nothing to fear as the crowd was very friendly and well behaved.
Although Sydney FC lost 2-0, largely in my limited opinion due to their inability to finish, I had a great time.
I felt the atmosphere was excellent and the tireless efforts of ‘the cove’ added immensely to this.
We attended the next game against Gold Coast United and what can I say, it was a fantastic game, had everything, many attempts on goal, a handful of yellow cards, the odd time wasting dive, five goals scored and the final via a penalty to give SFC the win in injury-time.
I was barely seated the whole game and, needless to say, we left extremely entertained and can’t wait to attend the next home game against Central Coast Mariners.
So, to sum up, do I regret buying a membership to Sydney FC? No way!
Do I now understand why so many people follow the game? Yes.
What do I have to say to my friends who weren’t interested? I say you should come along and see for yourself and you will be pleasantly surprised and will discover a whole new sport to keep you entertained during the off-season.
More sport can’t be a bad thing.
abdullgafar
Roar Rookie
I want to play with u. Really believe me I am a player. Many people say that i play like ‘ZIDANE.very interested to me, but this is my opportunity to be the best football player as like the famous football players of the world. I am sure that If I get this opportunity then I can make myself as a famous player but there is no facility in our country for a football player.that is why i want to join you club.that it my oppotunity to be best football players.Don’t worry about me.I am a best football player. I need just a right opportunity for that I can bring more reword for your club and improve in my life. So I will hope that you will give the right opportunity to me please contact me now.so i will like to see u in my country to take me out to you country.please help me.god bless u . you faitfull thank you sir.
Zac Zavos
Editor
Hi guys, Just addressing the issue regarding paged comments. The key reason for breaking the comments up relates to speed. The old site was quite slow and we wanted to address this with the new build. One thing which makes a page slow is the amount of content it needs to send to your browser. On the old site, most of the content was the comments. So breaking the comments to pages should make each page faster to load. (Aside: The Roar receives over 30,000 comments each month. The equivalent of War & Peace - 560,000 words - is written on the site by Roarers every 5 days.) Having said this, I've heard a bit of feedback about pages comments and so will look to see what we can do to enable the 'Load more' feature we had before. Any feedback at all - please send to us: http://www.theroar.com.au/about/ Thanks, Zac The Roar
Tristan Rayner
Editor
Hi All-Codes, Good news - your article is Fan Article of the Week - We Are Football. You're also in the running for winning the most read football article over the last week, although Katie has a big lead into the last day of the competition. Well done again - Tristan. Roar Ed.
Griffo
Roar Guru
Have to agree with Cpaaa on the comments: having just 5 top-level comments per page means a lot of button clicking if there are no sub-replies. Scrolling is easier and it doesn't interrupt the users 'flow of reading' by waiting for the page to load. There is no advertising below the fold or the end of the page to avoid a long page of comments...similar story on the mobile platform. ...just my 5 cents worth.
asanchez
Roar Guru
Welcome All-Codes. Great to see a genuine good news story! Welcome to the beautiful game! It really is 90 emotions in 90 minutes and I'm sure you will experience that. I'm sure you'll find that the A-league entertaining and very competitive. I congratulate you for giving it a go. This is half the battle for our code, getting people to even give it a chance. Of course, the game may not be for everyone. But most people don't even give it that chance to be able to make their own independent decision. Which is a shame!! It also really shows the negative impact of the media on our game. Their lack of or zero coverage is a joke and shows that without mainstream media coverage a sport will never reach it's full potential. Enjoy the A-league my friend, and enjoy Football.
Roger
Guest
I know right??? Great stuff.
Roger
Guest
Good article All Codes. Welcome to Football. Trust me, you won't look back :)
Cpaaa
Guest
ALL Codes be careful of attending any european or south american matches...you just might be attempted to break the rules here in Australia. From one Sydney FC fan to another.....I Salute U. Roar Modirators, Im really not liking this new load " more comments " button, what was wrong with all comments displayed in one row.
Bondy
Guest
Enjoyable read All Codes . That thrilling win you watched between Sydney FC and GCFC was great to watch it's a pitty that channels 7,9 and 10 didn't show the score or highlight the game but he thats hoarding in the modern era . Welcome All Codes .
Griffo
Roar Guru
Haharr! Ah geez...if it was my phone I'd by crying... Yeah at least the phone didn't die by its owner throwing it to the ground in disgust at his team letting one in ;-)
BES
Guest
Wow! 2 positive, informative and entertaining articles on 1 football site in one day! Great stuff All-Codes. Welcome to the World Game and hope every future game is as entertaining for you.
Ben G
Guest
Actually, I ran down the front and reached in my pocket to grab my iPhone and take a video.... iPhone nowhere to be seen. I was halfway between celebrating and having a cry when the ball went in. Thankfully, I just happened to mention that I lost my iPhone to a friend of a friend and he pulled out a rather shattered looking phone and said, "is this yours?" I will definitely remember to throw my hat around next time.... The poor phone was so new to this world too. At least he went out for a good cause!
All-Codes
Roar Rookie
Thanks for the invite Steve, Im not sure we are ready for the cove just yet I would be exhausted after the first 5mins. We are similar in that I come from WA and my mate from Vic, so I guess we should have supported glory and Victory but we figured we live in Sydney now and its here we are starting our interest in HAL. Plus as you say more games to watch.
All-Codes
Roar Rookie
Thanks Griffo, The others are coming around to the idea they had to put up with us talking about how good the last game was so I think it has peaked their interest, we have one definate coming along to a game and another will be easy to drag along.
All-Codes
Roar Rookie
I can assure you they were just jokes
All-Codes
Roar Rookie
Thanks, Not alot of prior knowledge when i was very young I played soccer but I can barely remember, I have watched some games of the last couple of world cups, most of my limited knowledge is from FIFA 11 great game haha, so yea pretty much none. I have no idea about the Europe Leagues their structure or how they operate. As for players not as yet, I get frustrated watching Carle seems very unpredictable in the two home games I saw, some shots at goal are fantastic some rather ordinary or some not even getting of the boot. But thats prob my lack of knowledge. I am interested to see how Emerton goes I expected big things. We took a shine to Hiro Moriyasu we had to look up his name in the break, as we thought it was rather inappropriate to keep yelling out "go little asian guy" we thought he was playing well but he didnt get on in the second half so maybe we were wrong.
All-Codes
Roar Rookie
Thanks, I think you are right, I did have a poor perception of Football, largely because of the media showing riots overseas and opposing fans punching on and such. And of course being brought up on another code tends to make u bias. But yes everyone should attend a game with an openmind and try and form their own opinion. If they dont like it fine, but they shouldnt make unjustified statements/opinions until they have the experience to back it up, IMO.
Gweeds
Guest
Well All-Codes, unlike some of your friends you have a higher intellectual ability to understand and appreciate different codes of football! Welcome to the football family. If you want atmosphere though come to Melbourne Australia Day next year. AAMI Park will be rocking!!
mahony
Guest
Great article - and what you may know realise is that there is no "off season" - not in football thats for sure....... Welcome!
Simon Boegheim
Guest
Welcome to the beautiful game 'All Codes'. Keep spreading the word. Even after 40+ years involvement with football, I still love it and still get butterflies in my stomach before most games. It's good to see a vastly improved Sydney this season and you have had plenty of reasons to celebrate. Be passionate, be loud and proud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!