Melbourne doesn't have the heart for two teams

the reality if you think about carefully heart are doing well ,a team with no success is the bottom line ,if they were doing a western sydney then regular crowds of 15k would be seen .i really think that all of the clubs can keep working on growing in every aspect .sometimes the answers are under their noses ,as for melbourne 3 teams achievable same goes for sydney ,2 for brisbane and also adelaide with 2 but hind marsh although great venue its in the wrong part of adelaide .peerth got to lift as does newcastle and welligton .central coast has to move to north sydney tasmania is there for the picking ,canberra,wollongong and nz number 2 can do it good .a path of slow steady planned path will work and stop listening to the crap of knockers just give the punters what they want great football belief ,ownership of a club in spirit just like anywhere in the world

Because you so put an end to it the first time. Flog.

1. And Victory will stop this from happening how exactly? By your logic im sure Victory weren't happy with Heart coming into Melbourne full stop but there's nothing they can do because the market positioning of clubs is ultimately approved by the FFA. 2. Fans that previously supported neither team may begin to support Heart which really is the largest potential area of growth. After all, melb is 4 mil ppl, only 18,000 a week turn up to Victory and 7,000 to Heart so that's a lot of ppl who are still unaccounted for. A lot of ppl whom may potentially jump on the bandwagon should they 'identify' with the club. As we've mentioned geography is the easiest and most ubiquitous way to do this. 3. Whoever started supporting a team because they had better facilities?! North Melbourne have good facilities now, and they still only have 3 supporters.

cute

Terrible piece. Its clear the author is from Sydney! First of all, lets get these figures interpreted in the correct way. 2 seasons ago, the Heart hosted 2 derbies, which is why their average attendance was over 9k. Last season their crowds dropped to 8560, but they only had 1 home derby. So automatically, thats an extra 27k people they missed out on last season, yet their average crowds were only down about 500 people per game. If they had 2 home derbies last season, those figures would've been in growth. So in effect, their small but loyal fan base is actually growing, very slowly, but still growing. But lets not let the facts get in the way of a good story!! Then there is their membership base. Victory has almost 22k season ticket holders right now. The Heart had about 5k in year one, about 6k last season, and today they have 6990 paid up season ticket holders. If they had a least a couple of wins on the board up to now, and were higher up the ladder this season, they would've broken 7000 members easily. To put this into perspective, its taken Brisbane Roar 9 seasons, to sign up 7000 members, and yet their crowds are around the 15k mark. And only last season, after 8 years, did Sydney FC get over 10k members, because they spent $2m and signed ADP. There's also a reason why the Heart will be bought this season by a consortium of rich amd successful businessman, because despite their terrible season so far and their poor 3-4 seasons overall, their potential is huge. They also made a profit last season despite being so poor both and off the field. I seriously think that if football people take over this club, and run it like a club not a rabble, if they sign a decent coach, and recruit a decent side, there there's no reason why they cant get 10k a game in the short term, and 12-15k in the medium to longer term. Coz being from Melbourne myself, and a 9 year Victory member, i know, that there's more than enough room for 2 well-supported teams in Melbourne. Now I'm not even a Heart fan, never even been to one of their games, but the terrible innacuracies in your article need to be called out.

Melbourne Heart should be given to the south Melbourne Team

Heart fans have no intention of remaining the underdog and no attraction to the title. As soon as we have owners with ambition we want to be top dog

And just on the underdog thing. If I ecard correctly, did victory only just overtake Heart as far as derbies go with their last win? Not bad for underdogs

Scott, this is a Crowd article. The Roar just publishes what it gets sent by readers. The red column has the expert pieces, the blue column comes from Roarers. There's no deliberate trend, it's up to readers to write and submit pieces on interesting topics.

To be honest,i really like Roar's articles and this one is not a bad piece itself.This was written from a neutral perspective,someone from Sydney writing about a team from Melbourne.Plus this is a sports opinion site so i don't think you can blame anyone for expressing their opinion.If you don't like the article,don't read them.

I see, so Vicvtory is going to give up south east Melbourne and all its fans who live there will suddenly change to Heart because its 'branding' has changed? Not a chance, Heart is growing even with the mediocrity policy of the current regime, 7000 members now. Imagine what might happen with a good coach and good training facilities?

How exactly would you 'mix' Heart and SM? Every Heart fan would leave if there was a SM takeover. Why would it be ideal? Heart have owners with no ambition, they still have ice bath wheelie bins and no training ground after 4 seasons - that is the problem, change the ownership to someone who is prepared to invest in success.

Now that WSW are the flavour of the month let's move SFC to Bathurst or maybe Taree, that'll really give them an identity. LOL

No, no, and no to South Melbourne. If they are good enough they will get in via the NPL/A-League pathway one day, rather than a parasitic takeover of a host body.

Agree completely on the intrigue as underdog. There's also no suggestion that they will fold. Apart from a season of on-field struggle they actually appear to be very well run. It's a decent size if, but IF they get the right coach and have a degree of success (ie finals) then we'll see what they are capable of

exactly! Every man and his dog bang on about "Heart have no identity" and "what do they stand for?". What does any team stand for? They have seven, that's SEVEN thousand people who are nailed on, despite appalling on field performances. What does SFC "stand for" (apart from woeful football and a demonstration of how not to select coaches)? They don't really represent a specific area of the city do they (non-Sydney-sider here)?

(eye roll)

+1,000,000

It's a weird thing and somewhat gratifying that people outside Heart and its supporter base are so concerned by its apparent 'lack of identity'. In their ignorance from their Sydney office they offer glib 'solutions' that just don't apply in Melbourne but rather than worry about the facts they write authoritatively about it anyway. Heart has an identity, it's the same as every other HAL team, it's a manufactured franchise that exists to play professional football. Supporters can identify with these entities in their open way but that is the identity whether you like it or not, they aren't clubs, they don't have members, they have season ticket holders that they call members. Heart's problem is not 'identity', it is ownership. It's owned by a group of people who for they own reasons have chosen to minimally capitalise the club and to chase off-field 'success' over on-field success. They slashed the football budget, had the smallest list in the league last season, have abandoned the founding goals of possession based football and youth development and filled the team with cheap players with a long injury history or at the end of their careers and then appointed a rookie coach and assistant coach. Sell the club to someone who understands football and wants to establish a winning culture and these inane articles will stop. Suggesting that somehow there is something so unique about Melbourne that a city of 4 million people can't support 2 football teams is ridiculous, suggesting that moving the team to a marginal periphery of Melbourne or a small regional centre to increase support is also ridiculous and poorly considered. Fix the ownership problem and the off-field support will follow the on-field success.

Ideally a mix of Heart and SM would have been the most ideal outcome, South Melbourne have one of the best womens teams in Victoria so thats instant W league entry something that Heart dont have, they have a home base at Albert Park and along with the stadium all its junior teams are based there along with the Seniors...what did i hear 8 different training venues for Heart this season? thats absurd really, Heart have the license, South have the actual football structure....its a shame they didnt join forces and become South Melb Heart or something. Heart as a standalone club simply doesnt appear to have the ambition and truth be told they have been like that since day dot, its like they're just happy to be alive and make up the numbers, a stark contrast to SM where winning itself was a religion back in the day. Heart ran a good pre season campaign with the whole "believe" slogan and also hyping Kewell and leading people to believe that Harry would have a big season to get into the WC spot, is the return of JVS enough to repair the damage? probably not as lets face it they never had a winning record with him in charge anyway. Any goodwill that Heart generated before the season started has been lost, i personally know many ppl that are only still going because they decided to get a membership this yr but they will be out next season. Its a long road back from here.