Fewer moments are more powerful than a rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone, the anthem of Liverpool Football Club. I was lucky enough to experience this with over 95,000 others at the Melbourne Cricket Ground last week.
Add to this the 83,000 who were privileged to see Manchester United play in Sydney only days before and you will see Australians have a healthy appetite for football.
Liverpool and Manchester United are two of the world’s biggest clubs and to see them in Australia within the space of a week is any football fan’s dream.
But now the planes have left the tarmac and names like Gerrard, Giggs, Van Persie and Suarez bid us farewell. We should ask, what is next for the game in this country?
The phrase ‘Eurosnob’ is thrown around. myself I’m not a fan of that slang term and think it puts a further divide between those who use it and those who passionately follow European football.
I see it as those who want to watch the best available players plying their trade in some of the biggest leagues in the world. Am I a ‘USA snob’ because I choose to watch the NBA over the NBL?
I think not.
My question is how do we attract those who attended the two exhibition matches and choose not to attend the A-League. That is where the game will grow and continue to move forward.
These fans need to identify with either a team or individual player they can relate to, who can exude the same passion from them as their ‘local’ team 12,000 kilometres away.
Whether it be the grace of a Del Piero, the never say die attitude of Jacob Burns or the untapped potential of a Mitchell Duke only the supporter can provide the answer.
Non A-League fans need to realise the game has made some great improvements over the last eight seasons, and will further improve in the future.
Sure it will never meet the standards of the bigger leagues in Europe (hey Chippers) but this is our local league and we need to engage all football fans.
For those who say “I’ve been once and didn’t enjoy it” give it another go, and choose your game wisely.
Choose a game against a local rival, or when a particular player is in town. Be smart about your choices, and you will be rewarded.
Don’t attend a game where you don’t have an interest in, take your kids to see how Socceroos stars Archie Thompson or Dario Vidosic go about their business, or see the brilliance of Shinji Ono or Emile Heskey.
Those without the luxury item that is Foxtel, tune into SBS on a Friday night this season.
For years Les Murray and the team have treated football fans to some great moments, and free-to-air coverage of the A-League can only add to this. As the tagline says “football is coming home”.
When the league first was announced I’ll put my hand up and say I failed to identify with it.
I had more interest in what was going on at 3pm London time than that 10 kilometres down the road, but over time I managed to find identify with my local league and haven’t looked back.
I’m not asking you to go every week, just choose a few games to attend or watch throughout the season and give the league another chance, you won’t be disappointed.
Hopefully I’ll see some of you in the stands.
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