Next Saturday looms as a landmark day for football in South Australia. For the first time since the dawn of the A-League, Adelaide City and West Adelaide will be back on the national stage.
The FFA and FFSA couldn’t have written a better script themselves.
Adelaide’s two exiled NSL clubs will compete for the Federation Cup in front of an expected bumper crowd at Hindmarsh Stadium, with the winner to progress to the round of 32 of the inaugural FFA Cup.
The nation’s new knockout competition has not yet begun, and yet this fixture is already validation of the FFA’s bold gamble to introduce it.
For as rosy as the outlook is now, it has always been a gamble. While a great idea in principle, the devil has always been in the detail. Australia has never had a consistent, truly national cup competition at the top level, and for good reason.
Firstly, given our love affair with grand finals and whatnot, there has never exactly been an aching need for more knockout football on the calendar. Secondly, owing to Australia’s geography, it’s pretty hard to get right and fairly expensive if you do.
The Australia Cup ran for seven seasons between 1962 and 1968 but was abolished because it was a financial and logistical headache. Years later there was the NSL Cup, but that only included NSL teams – none from outside the top-tier were involved. The numbers have never added up.
That is, until now.
Last week, the tournament’s inaugural sponsors were unveiled. Obligatory partners Westfield and Fox Sports are on board, but in a sign of the times, Harvey Norman and NAB – two companies that historically prefer to support rugby league and AFL – have also backed FFA’s investment and will help underwrite the cup.
Adding to the attraction for football hipsters, Umbro, the darling brand of style-over-results recalcitrants everywhere, will provide the match ball. Together, these sponsorships are worth $12 million over three years – enough to pay for the dream of a national cup competition to become a reality.
But while the FFA Cup itself is not going to pour millions of dollars of profit into the game’s coffers, it will make an enormous intangible contribution to the game. The return of the Adelaide derby is a prime example.
This is where football trumps the other codes. The FFA Cup emphasises the game’s universality and romance. There is room for everyone – the professionals at the top of their game, the state-leaguers trying to crack the big time, and the weekend warriors. No other Australian sport will shine as much attention to their state-league competitions and below than football will, from now on.
The tragic shame of the AFL’s two-team set-up in Adelaide is what was left behind. The South Australian National Football League (SANFL) is a proud old competition, made up of clubs that suffered a similar fate to those ex-NSL teams in the state leagues – becoming mere historical footnotes when the Adelaide Crows were formed to join the AFL in 1990.
It’s long been a source of schadenfreude for Port Adelaide supporters who often indulge in reminding Crows fans of the long-standing SANFL loyalties they abandoned. The Power, who rebadged from the Magpies to enter the top league in 1997, are the only non-Victorian AFL club that can lay claim to genuine suburban roots and a proper tradition.
This has meant no national exposure for the likes of Norwood, Glenelg and Sturt, these institutions of Adelaide that were pushed out of the picture by the VFL’s transformation into Australia’s competition of choice. It is the same deal in Western Australia and everywhere else in the country. The best they can hope for is the clearly soccer-inspired Foxtel Cup, a made-for-TV abomination played at low-intensity in front of empty stadiums on cold, lonely Tuesday nights. It means nothing to nobody, and is surely not long for this world.
Meanwhile, Adelaide City and West Adelaide are basking in the unique glory of football and on the cusp of national relevance once again. Their successor, Adelaide United, has brought everyone in South Australia together, but there remains a special place for the forerunners that blazed the trail in the NSL. Whoever wins could very well face an A-League side at their home ground, and through this prism, it’s an opportunity for meaningful engagement between the game’s newer supporters and one of the relics of yesteryear.
City are coached by the legendary Damien Mori and have dominated the local scene since the collapse of the old national league. They are the defending Federation Cup champions, three-time NSL champions and have long dreamed of returning one day to the big league. West Adelaide’s path to this point has been a tad more complicated, and a far sight more inspirational. The club was all but extinct at the end of the 1998-99 season, folding its NSL arm amid mounting debts and dreadful results.
But a Hellas senior team finally returned in 2008 after seven years of dormancy, and has slowly climbed from the bottom of the Adelaide football pyramid back up to state-league level. Their coach is former Socceroo Joel Porter, perhaps best known to A-League fans for his three-year stint with Gold Coast United. Porter took over from Ross Aloisi earlier this year and is so far doing a sterling job – Hellas have lost just one game and are clear on top of the NPL ladder.
Earlier this year, 3000 fans watched the old Adelaide derby open the NPL season with a 1-1 draw at the Adelaide Shores football complex. A crowd anywhere up to 10,000 is expected at Hindmarsh on Saturday week. For a game involving state-league teams, that’s sensational. It’s the perfect storm. It will be a match for the ages.
And to think this is just the beginning. Forgotten NSL rivalries will reignite like this, over and over again, all over the country. New ones will emerge. Clubs and players will make names for themselves. At some point, David will slay Goliath.
The importance of the FFA Cup will be repeated ad nauseam over the weeks, months and years ahead, but it simply can’t be overstated. This is football at its most pure. Bring it on.
Adam
Guest
Does anybody know what the final crowd figures are? If there were few AUFC fans there, it certainly shows room for a second Adelaide team in the A-League down the track. It would make it hard for people like me who followed City until they went under (or became the Force) and switched to United when they formed just a few months after City folded.
mahonjt
Guest
Agree.
Midfielder
Guest
Great story about the Gong ... They are a very real chance to be one of the next expansion teams... decent history close to south western sydney and southern sydney ... http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/advent-of-ffa-cup-gives-wolves-of-wollongong-new-hope-and-inspiration-20140523-zrlob.html As the mist descended on Melita Stadium, piercing the gloom came a cry we have not heard for what seems an eternity. ''C'mon you Wolves, c'mon you Wolves." There, on the embankment, were half a dozen Wolves fans who haven't given up. And now, a decade after the demise of the NSL, the two-times national champions from Wollongong are back in the big time, having qualified for the main draw of the FFA Cup thanks to an epic extra-time victory over another former NSL club, Parramatta Eagles. Such is the romance of our resurrected knockout competition that another giant fallen on relatively hard times, Sydney Olympic, also qualified this week for the last 32. It's why the cup was resurrected after a 17-year absence, and why it offers such hope, and inspiration, for those who have drifted to the fringes of the game since the arrival of the A-League. For the Wolves, it provides a special incentive. This is perhaps the only state league club in Australia that can genuinely aspire to join the A-League. Expansion of our professional competition is back on the agenda, and including a team from one of football's greatest nurseries, the Illawarra, remains a popular choice. Wolves president Bobby Mazevski is not getting ahead of himself, except to say: ''We deserve a bit of luck.'' Luck, certainly, has deserted the Wolves since they fell out of the national spotlight after declining to bid for a place in the A-League. Caught in a pincer movement between the interests of the local council, the local university and St George Illawarra, they lost their way when they lost their home ground, Brandon Park. It's been a hard job simply surviving, but finally they are starting to do a bit better than that. A decade on the Wolves have become one of the biggest crowd-pullers in the NSW National Premier League, drawing an average of about 1000 fans to their Sunday afternoon home matches at WIN Stadium. That might not sound like much, but for a club that not long ago flirted with extinction it is a lifeline. Such has been the rejuvenation under new coach Nahuel Arrarte there's talk of a crowd of 1200 for the next home game, the local derby against Sutherland Sharks. One step at a time. What reaching the main draw of the FFA Cup does most of all is give the club a priceless opportunity to promote itself, and its plans. Drawing an A-League team out of the hat, which would virtually guarantee a home game, could result in the club pulling its biggest crowd since the heady days of Scott Chipperfield and Matt Horsley. Drawing either Sydney FC or Western Sydney Wanderers, Mazevski believes, could bring up to 10,000 spectators to WIN Stadium. ''If we can pick up a big team, and maybe get the Fox Sports cameras down here, things start to get very exciting,'' says Mazevski. Even more exciting are plans to develop a new home ground at either Cringila or Kembla Grange, and to ditch the "South Coast" prefix and return to their original name, Wollongong Wolves. With a squad made up of 90 per cent locals – teenager Jordan Murray was the two-goal hero against Parramatta – it is the right time for the club to return to its roots. Everyone talks about the magic of the cup, well, here it is. Five state league clubs are now into the main draw (South Coast Wolves, Sydney Olympic, Manly United, Blacktown City and ACT Cup holders Tuggeranong United) as the FFA Cup starts to take shape. Former A-League side North Queensland Fury could join them if they win the derby against Far North Queensland Heat this weekend, while another derby – the blockbuster between Adelaide City and West Adelaide – will decide South Australia's representatives. Football might have its faults, but rival codes can only dream of a cup competition so deep and so wide it kicked off in February with 631 teams. For the Wolves, it's a dream come true to still be in the mix.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Slowly the AUS football community is merging. When all factions finally come together, the power of football will be overwhelming. "A-League returns to Townsville" A-League action will return to Townsville for the first time since Nth Qld Fury were axed from the ALeague, with Brisbane Roar, Sydney FC and Newcastle Jets agreeing to play a round robin pre-season tournament at the Townsville Sports Reserve on 24, 27 & 30 August 2014. Northern Fury, based in Townville & playing in the NPL, have a 5-year plan to re-enter the ALeague. Full story: http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/aleague-returns-to-townsville/story-fnjfzs4b-1226928865019
Kasey
Guest
The A-League has far from leveled out in its growth trajectory, but there is some serious boom potential for the NPL and FFA Cup to ramp up the 'interest' in football below the A-League level in the coming years. Officially including 'old Soccer' back into the fold as it were via the FFA Cup and NPL is a brilliant move from FFA and not before time:) Regardless of the financial cost...having the ex-NSL clubs and their history 'with' the game instead of agitating away frustrated behind the scenes will drastically improve the sense of unity of football in Australia:)
keyless sky blues fan
Guest
It's next Saturday at 3pm i believe according to FFSA :) Should be great, get along!
AZ_RBB
Guest
Blacktown City have taken the 4th of 7 NSW spots. The team is currently 2nd in the NSW NPL
DinoWeb
Guest
Vince, I am sure you are more than aware that neither West Adelaide or Adelaide City were exiled from the A-League. As mentioned, West Adelaide dropped out of the NSL in 1999, but Adelaide City withdrew from the NSL of their own accored prior to the start of the last season in 2003. This derby was off the national stage six years prior to the start of the A-League. Adelaide United replaced City in the NSL for 2003-04, and were the only realistic choice for the A-League.
Paul Nicholls
Roar Guru
Thanks Wisey - perfect answer to my question. So it really does cater for grassroots then. If there are 10 or so Shire entrants next year I hope they put on all the matches over a weekend at Seymour Shaw. That would be awesome (especially seeing the bombers getting smashed by the mighty magpies!) :-)
The Auteur
Guest
It's called the free market. Deal with it.
mahonjt
Guest
"South Coast Wolves beat Parra FC in extra time after scoring 4 goals after the 90min mark and winning 6-2 in the end. " WTF!!!!!
wisey_9
Roar Guru
Hey 70s Mo - I'm a shire boy myself. All of our local clubs were invited to register a team for the cup. Those that participated were Loftus and Bonnet Bay (Go the Bombers!). I'd imagine that most clubs will get on board for year two of the cup - someone said above that they are expecting double the amount of entrants next year - so pencil the shire down for an additional 10 teams or so!
Paul Nicholls
Roar Guru
Thanks Luke
c
Guest
count me in i use to watch these teams play back in the 19 seventy's can you tell me the date the time of this match
AZ_RBB
Guest
Quick wrap of tonight's action in NSW. Each winner is in the final 32 for the FFA Cup now. South Coast Wolves beat Parra FC in extra time after scoring 4 goals after the 90min mark and winning 6-2 in the end. Many beat Northern Tigers on penalties after it finished 1-1 after 120mins. Olympic beat United in an absolute classic. Hakoah play Blacktown City tomorrow night for the 4th of the 7 NSW spots in the final 32.
Brick Tamland of the pants party
Guest
.....and Chris Herd,Shane Lowry
Griffo
Roar Guru
Reginald Bomber? Whoever did that site did a top job and wouldn't be surprise if the FFA end up deferring to it as an example of grassroots support...
Griffo
Roar Guru
Is that the same Joondalup that sprang Adam Taggart and the (IIRC) Williams brothers?
Stevo
Guest
Yes, those are the sports that I refer to. They may only be played by 10 or so countries (or in the case of AFL only us) but that does not make them lesser sports.
mahonjt
Guest
"Early stages" - if by this you mean the qualification rounds via State cups, then no - as A-League clubs don't join the FFA Cup until the national Group of 32 in two separate pots. If you mean the games following the national draw, I would expect (i.e. hope): - the bottom six (on the last national league results) play one another so they will be fielding their best available; and - the top four will do so also so as to avoid underestimating the four lowest ranked, but qualified NPL/non-league teams who they will be playing. I want Melbourne Victory to win something this year, but wouldn't be upset to see a few A-League clubs get knocked out!