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“Welcome to a heaving AAMI Park, don’t doubt it, this is a pivotal game.”
These are the words of a certain Mike Cockerill as he began his broadcast of last weekends Melbourne Victory versus Western Sydney match, and indeed the stadium was heaving in front of what was technically a sellout crowd, which sadly still saw 5000 seats empty due to absent season ticketholders.
Their non-attendance was their loss. If there was a buzzword one would have to apply it would have to be ‘potential’, in terms of the potential of what this could be.
What is striking about the fledgling rivalry between Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney is how the atmosphere at the ground is a purely organic creation of the fans voting with their feet, catching administrators and the football media on the hop.
The Melbourne Victory administration were able to think sufficiently ahead to see that the Melbourne Victory versus Sydney ‘Del Piero’ FC may be a sellout, and switched to fully allocated seating with members required to confirm their presence.
They weren’t able to foresee the demand from both home and away fans for the Wanderers match, however.
Listening to the discourse from the Sydney media, one could be mistaken that it was merely the away fans responsible for the sellout signs for this fixture. But the other side of this coin was the unfortunate sight of some fans being turned back because they could not get in.
One hopes this is a mistake that isn’t made next season.
What is secondly striking about the fledgling rivalry is its implications for the cross-city relationship.
The FFA decided to fixture the Western Sydney versus Melbourne Heart game in the same round as the so-called ‘big-blue’ between Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC.
Dubbed the ‘big red’ by the football media, one can’t help but get the impression that the football media and administrators think it would be a great idea to manufacture Western Sydney versus Heart as the alternative cross-city rivalry.
The big question is whether the actual fans on the ground care for this dynamic any more than they care for the meaningless trinket cups they are trying to handout at some of the rivalry games.
One big indication will be to compare the away contingent who makes the trip to Victory versus Sydney FC games to that which makes it down to the same venue against the Heart at the same venue.
So what does the rivalry mean?
At one level we have the team from the country’s sporting capital steeped in football history and culture, responsible for such stars as Mark Viduka and coaching progressives like Ange Postecoglu.
On the other side is the club representing the highest mass of youth participation in the country and a cradle for some of the greatest Aussie players like Harry Kewell and Lucas Neill, with Popovic doing himself a great deal of credit.
At another level we have the largest club in the country up against the club from the grassroots heartland with all the potential that brings, and the ambition too.
While Sydney FC were seen as the major glamour club in the city representing the easern CBD and commercial areas; with Western Sydney as a more suburban club, the possibility has been opened up that Western Sydney may overtake Sydney FC as the city’s biggest club.
If that situation were to eventuate, the next step would be to attempt to match Melbourne’s yearly attendances and membership numbers, were they to ever have ambitions to be the biggest in the country.
What would that mean for the Melbourne versus Sydney FC rivalry?
The next level concerns the active fans.
A precise comparison is problematic, firstly because Western Sydney have one end encompassing one style of active support while Melbourne Victory have two ends encompassing two styles.
Secondly because of the age difference between the clubs and respective active supporter communities, both are at entirely different stages of evolution and face different challenges.
So we are talking apples and oranges.
Nevertheless, there is a genuine feeling that the active supporters of Melbourne and Western Sydney are battling it out for the reputation as the highest quality active fans in the country.
It is to the active fans that this fixture in particular appeals, with Melbourne being in the incumbency position and having set the pace, and Western Sydney being the new upstart in top form and with a sense of momentum.
The story for this weekend was that while there is a feel Western Sydney have swept all before them this season, with many considering them to have outperformed the Cove at the second derby at Allianz, they met their match with the Victory fans moving out of their third gear slumber into fourth and holding the line.
Melbourne fans have preserved their benchmark status for now but the gap has been closed and there is an intriguing “to be continued” feel to it all.
It will be very intriguing to see how it pans out over the coming years.
And the league is all the better for it as active fans are kept on their toes and are strongly challenged to lift their game to another level.
In my experience the atmosphere and competitiveness in the stands on the weekend had more edge to it than for other matches, including the Melbourne derbies.
I can’t speak for the Sydney derbies of course, but having the Melbourne versus Western Sydney play in more compact rectangular stadiums in both Melbourne and Parramatta gives the fixture an extra element of enjoyability.
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