While the word “pride” featured prominently in the discourse about the desired culture of the new Western Sydney franchise, for a while yesterday it seemed the FFA had the word “culture” confused with the word “name”.
That was the only conclusion to draw after The World Game yesterday reported that Pride was among the FFA’s preferred name.
With the announcement of the club’s name and head coach reportedly scheduled for this week, Twitter yesterday became a frenzy of anti-Pride sentiment, with the hashtag #NoToPride featuring prominently and many jumping to condemn the thought of such an Americanisation.
Soon enough word echoed that it wasn’t likely. No doubt the backlash had an effect.
Earlier in the day I had tweeted how Sportsbet had framed a book which had “Strikers” as the favourite, ahead of “Wolves”, followed by “Wanderers” and “Athletic”.
I followed it up with a note that the option of Strikers hadn’t even popped up at the two fan forums I attended, in Rooty Hill and Castle Hill.
What became patently clear at these two forums is that the fans, almost unanimously, wanted a traditional football name, such as Wanderers, Athletic, Sporting, United, or, simply, FC.
They expressed, as passionately and eloquently as you are likely to see, how tired they were of the gimmicky, American-style sporting names.
There was the odd call for something akin to Stars or Mars, with legendary Socceroo Ray Richards even putting out Pride, but the majority of the sentiment was for a traditional name, with the Wanderers seemingly the most popular.
They also expressed a near unanimous desire to have the name West or Western featured.
What came across strongly is just how proud those from the western suburbs are of being from the region, and wanting the culture of the club to be based on the culture they exude on a daily basis.
It was a theme echoed consistently at both Rooty and Castle Hill, and no doubt the other forums at Mount Pritchard, Parramatta, Penrith, Campbelltown and Bankstown.
No doubt, when the FFA canvassed feedback via an online survey, this pride in the region resonated strongly in the responses, just as it had done at the forums.
Not only do they love where they are from, but they want their team to have a western flavour run through the ranks, from the manager to the playing staff, and even those in the head office.
While this pride in the region and team is undoubtedly strong, it is in no way a green light to name the team The Pride.
After all, fans had voiced their thoughts precisely against such a scenario.
If the FFA did go against these wishes, it would demonstrate the forums were nothing but a PR exercise. Perhaps this message finally sank through late yesterday.
Even now they have much convincing still to do.
If they are looking to embed some of the culture of the west into the name, the FFA could do a lot worse than focus on the youth in the region.
This was one of the themes that also resonated strongly in the talk about the culture of the organisation.
Primarily, the fans want a team featuring the best young talent in the region, giving the youngsters below them something to aspire to. They want the club to be a pathway for kids from the west, with much of the support base made up of young families and the youth of the region.
Given how sport and particularly football is such a big part of the lives of families in the west, with weekends often consumed driving from one game to another, the FFA could do a lot worse than add a reference to youth in the name.
My suggestion would be either West Sydney AJFC (Athletic Juniors FC) or West Sydney SJFC (Sporting Juniors FC).
Something like that would represent everything about the western suburbs and not lose any of the football tradition that fans crave.
After all, what the fans out west want, above all else, is a club and team that fills them with pride.
wayne
Guest
Western Mavericks FC
Evan Askew
Guest
They were Morwell Falcons initially. I have a poster of the team in an Australian soccer magazine from 1990 when they won the Victorian Premier league and they were called Morwell Falcons.
Juve 74
Guest
Guys lets keep it simple the name should be WEST CITY FC (west of the city of Sydney) Then have the kids pick a mascot, eagle, tiger, lion what ever. WEST CITY FC is what the name should be
Chris
Guest
I have to agree that while a region should be proud of its club, Pride is not the intended name of the club - I'm not aware of any sporting club in the world that is called the Pride. Having said that, I'm intrigued by the suggestion of inserting Junior into the name of the club. I feel it may be better used in the community and development arm of the club instead of with the club proper. Junior suggests young and immature, which is not what West Sydney is about. It is an established region. Just my two cents
Kasey
Guest
The Rovers lot also did not conduct the extensive fan forums that FFA did over the last 2 months in the lead up to launching the new team. Very important to ask your potential supporter base what they want before imposing from above - and the overwhelming desire from the fans was they wanted West or Western Sydney in the team name. full marks thus far for the community engagement aspect. withholding final judgement to see what the outcome is of course. Rovers also had that horrible mock up of a kit that looked Like St. Kilda had switched codes. only tassles on a jersey would have looked worse IMO.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
Let's not forget that the original stillborn West Sydney bid team chose to run with a name that excluded any mention of West or Western, for marketing purposes. A pity, because the Rovers nick name got a bit of traction at the time.
nordster
Guest
haha Police United, no Rasta flags on those terraces
nordster
Guest
"too hard to think of something else" as they're blowins from Victoria who wouldn't know their Casula's from their Toongabbie's ... :D
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Thailand has some beauties due to corporate/government foundations. I've always been fond of Bangkok Glass.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
True Fuss, everything sounds like a gimmick until you get used to it, then it is just part of the furniture. The fear of names that are not traditional smacks of insecurity to me.
mack
Guest
Eintracht can mean "agreement" or "accord". In the term of football it means a merged team and as such a translation in context would actually be "Frankfurt United". Most teams with Eintracht in their name are a result of mergers and bringing in other non-football clubs into the competition. Go look up "Eintracht" on wikipedia and see how many of the clubs are the result of merges.
mack
Guest
I was the one who started the #NoToPride hash-tag, it got a lot of play very quickly, I was surprised it didn't trend actually. It was shocking that it was even thought of as potential name to the point that TWG could report it as 'preferred'. I was at the Mounties, Penrith and Parramatta fan forums, and the only time "Pride" came up was once by Ray Richards and the fans there disliked it to say the least. From the first moment the name was mentioned, at the mounties forum, it has been a nearly unanimous desire to see a traditional name. Wanderers, Athletic and Sporting Club were the main three. As the owner of westsydneyfootball.com site I've spoken to the FFA on several occasions, including one at length discussion with several of their staff. The name Pride never came up, and I passed on the wishes of my forum members for those traditional names. Hopefully it was a misunderstanding (or TWG shoddy reporting), as it wasn't in any of the actual survey's.
Realfootball
Guest
If you are taking a break, Mid, all the best. But perhaps you mean you are just not going to bother to reply to QSAF's humbug, pointless posts.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
Speaking of MV, I think I heard this evening that Carlos and MV have parted ways, could not come to a mutual agreement re money. Not sure what he is planning to do next.
Midfielder
Guest
Tony, Fuss Titus, Gweeds, Bondy, Bret, TC, ICR, Ben, Cappa, Tom, Kasey, Rob, Real opps and sorry to anyone I left out... Have a read of this article from MV forum.... http://www.melbournevictory.net/forum/showthread.php?60252-A-League-confidence-stems-from-comparisons-with-US-development&p=3241269#post3241269
ItsCalled AussieRules
Roar Rookie
http://soccerlens.com/funny-football-club-names/17309/
The Cattery
Roar Guru
In fairness, it's soccer fans all over who constantly talk about engaging with the community, etc, etc. I don't pretend that that is an easy thing to do, nor would I be able to explain to you in two sentences what that means exactly - I doubt anyone can. But as for listening to fans, and this goes for any sport, sit still for five minutes and read through the vast array of ideas that pop up, and you will soon see why listening to fans is not a panacea. True, you have to do things in such away that put the least amount of people offside as you can manage, but otherwise, no organisation can ever make a decision that appeals to 100% of potential fans - it's impossible. I can tell you straight out that if the VFL had listened to fans circa 1980-81, there would not be an AFL today, and to this day, even on this site, you will hear from fans bitter about the fact that things had to change. So on the one hand, you need to appeal to as many fans as possible to remain relevant, but on the other hand, never, ever leave the important decisions to the fans - they will screw it up every single time. AS fo the FFA never getting it right, when they decided to replace GCU with a West Sydney franchise, I wrote immediately that it was an obvious call: http://www.theroar.com.au/2012/04/05/new-sydney-a-league-team-an-obvious-choice/ Why? Primarily because of commercial considerations. At the end of the day, appealing to fans, and commercial viability, must march together hand-in-hand.
ItsCalled AussieRules
Roar Rookie
Football Australia have trumped the FFA and are using teamnames.net and their random team name generator to come up with a better name and keep the FFA honest: http://www.teamnames.net/fantasy/random-team-name-generator Just type in West Sydney or Western Sydney and your favourite colours and hit the generate button.
Midfielder
Guest
My vote was for Strikers ...
ItsCalled AussieRules
Roar Rookie
Yes and no respect for anyone else. The West Sydney Giants is the name of a west Sydney baseball team and they stole their colours from Western Suburbs rugby league club too. The AFL are arrogant pr1cks and no example of how to name and market a team. Look how many enemies they have made in Sydney and no wonder they only got about 3,000 members who are actually from Sydney, out of a city with 5 million inhabitants.