The A-League's battle of the suburbs

>>What does Tassie offer? An oval. I thought that the Nation Building Authority had given the go ahead to the Princess Mary Donaldson Arena in Ross.

In my opinion the A-league needs at least 12 teams...a 10 team comp is too few to show a differential between contenders and also-rans and fluctuating form can mean dramatic dips and rises on the table.I think a Wollongong team should be included, as well as Canberra (absurd that NZs capital is represented but not ours) and definitely Tassie....beats me why they are constantly ignored and it would be the only side in a national comp that they have (apart from that pyjama cricket team but they only play for a few weeks a year). Other prospects would be an Auckland team and maybe one from Darwin...call them 'Darwin Top End' (bit of a pun on Preston North End but still a very applicable name) and have them play out of an aircond stadium along the lines of what they are building in Qatar. Definitely no Geelong team, its AFL territory and the stadium there is too vacuous for football, akin to the MCG. As for existing teams, there could be some natural attrition. CCM are doing what NTH MELB do in the AFL, putting the feelers out to different areas/markets because they are not confident about their own. Newcastle seem to have stability/ownership issues. NIX have lost any lustre they had in recent times, Glory need to develop a winning culture. So one or two might go and be replaced, but lets hope the net result is a viable 12 team comp.

I'm worried about the NIX too JB , they seem to be struggling to get members every year no matter how well they play - Football NZ 's moves into Asia should be fast -tracked IMO - be interesting to see how the FIFA Under-20 World Cup impacts on the NZ psyche next year too -hope the Nix's fortunes turn around quickly -Merrick's face was quite serious on the press preview of their season -he might be thinking upon these things presently :-)

Keyless- Further to above, the game you are referring to was in the final series of that season and 11,201 were drawn to see Wolves progress to the Grand Final where 13,402 attended at Parramatta Stadium,Wolves again victorious to the tune of 2-1.Cheers jb

Keyless- In season 2000/2001 the NSL was in it's final years of existence.Expansion had been tried and in that year 15 teams were in the comp. but 2,Carlton and Easts, fell by the wayside during the year resulting in 'walkover " results every week.Wolves had had a very good season finishing second in the overall comp. but in 13 of their home games I cannot find a five figure crowd. Their biggest crowd was against South Melbourne as you suggest but the given figure was 8485,their second highest being against Sydney Olympic,7988 being attracted to the game. Is the fact that these two matches were against "Greek" teams of any significance???????The average gate Wolves had that season for 13 games was 5183.Hope this is of some interest. jb

RBB I don't see an immediate problem either,the salary cap was instigated to try and keep the "playing field" even and as you well know there are many ways to skin a cat (Del Piero) and when identities start to build up bigger and better bank balances there are always ways and means to change existing rules.just like WSW being allowed 6 imports in their first year for .example.It is the long term prognosis that troubles me,if the rich keep getting richer and the poor poorer we end up with a gulf that already is in existence in professional leagues overseas. I'm not so sure Australia is ready for that scenario yet. jb

Mid - The game is already at a level where it has never been before and no doubt that is in no short measure due to the work that has been done in the "high places" Do not isolate the 'Nix in your worries for the future for Perth,CCM and Heart (City)have all struggled these last 2 years to achieve that "magical figure of 12000 you cite and even Adelaide and Jets are dangerously close to that figure.thereby widening the league into almost 2 even groups of potential income from gates and fans sales etc. As you are aware there has been much talk of expnsion and how it will be achieved but if any of these teams mentioned suddenly find the going too tough as you seem to agree could happen,it is not expansion we will be looking at it will be replacement.That is the real problem facing the HAL at the moment.WSW has shown what can be achieved and we all wait to see what the Melb City will produce for if successful it could be a way for other clubs to follow. It is interesting to note Victory contemplating selling shares to fans,wouldn't it be nice if all the clubs in the HAL could offer that type of assurance that all was going well in their everyday operations.to their followings jb

One thing we have forgotton to mention is the vast population of sydneysiders that have relocated to the central coast and who simply see themselves as sydney people. There is no data im aware of, but id guess about half of tbe CC population were born in sydney. A sizeable group of people that live on the CC support sydney teams. I really dont think the mariners have 300k of people to draw from.

1/5/ 2001 Win stadium Wollongong - 2 South Melbourne - 1 Attendance - 11,205 There were a few other~10k crowds too

In reply to Terry ('Reply' link didn't seem to work on mobile template) Even if it has had some financial difficulties at times why kill an relatively successful A-League club and move it hundreds of kilometers away. Mariners fans won't follow the team that no longer represents it nor would a new town support a team thrust upon it from another region. Gallop said many things in his State of the Game address, but in relation to A-League clubs: 1 - each has its own environment and local variables (ie: you can't cookie cut the same setup across the country - at least the FFA realised that at some point from past experience) 2 - most are close to financial stability with some potholes to over come which the FFA will work with the clubs to help them (this last was an answer to a question on what the FFA were doing for clubs 'dragging the chain' at the presentation) This hardly suggests to me, reading between the lines, that the FFA would allow a club to relocate in that fashion and damage a community and a decade of work behind it.

Without being dramatic I am concerned about the hysteria that gets generated by the fans. People go to some of the games to get involved with the crowd mentality and nit the game in the Field - scary really scary

I have advocated before that SFC should be taking games to Brookvale/North Sydney not the Mariners. CCM are CCM - they should play all their games at Gosford

Im not saying I want an Auckland side, but it would certainly help the nix to have an actual proper rival!

The logic of expanding the league by removing a club from an area of 300,000 and moving it to an area of 300,000 is a little lost on me. I assume being South of Sydney instead of North makes it easier for away fans to travel from Sydney as they are going downhill.

An excellent article and I warmly congratulate the author for raising an important issue that I myself have raised on a number of occasions. The issue is threefold. First there is no proper city in the central coast just a collection of disperate villages which are mainly inhabited by rugby league supporting low income folks. There is nothing wrong with this but it is the reality. Secondly the British owner has no particular attachment to the location and is sick of losing money being based there. Thirdly Gallop has indicated that clubs should be based in areas with significant populations or in his words 'fish where the fish are. The writing is on the wall for the mariners - they must be relocated to Wollongong or Qld without delay. I suspect that some of these factors are already know at the FFA and the local council as the stadium has never been completed and is only 3 stands. Why else would the club allow the team to play in an unfinished stadium. 3,2,1 cue bondy

I dont see a problem JB. Thats what a salary cap is for.

JB Astute and also the marque system in itself effects teams... say I sign two marquees and overseas one and a local who are not counted in the salary cap. This means I have the same salary to pay 21 instead of 23 players ... which is about 9% more plus two marquee players... TBH I think teams that cannot draw crowds of at least 12K average will struggle... the club I fear for the most is the Nix because Football in Australia has entered the main stream media and commands today media coverage and mostly positive and there is a co-relationship between media and crowds and ratings... whereas NZ Football has hardly moved in a media and main stream acceptance and I wonder how long it can continue to drag behind before its owners who by nature are not Football folk will continue to fund them ... JB my reading of the tea leafs re Gallop's State of the Game Address and Lowey's Fox interview this week when he said Australia wanted to close the gap between us and Europe, and today's Damien de Bohun praise the evolution all point to a new status FFA is aiming for ... the current administration seem to want to take Football to where it has never been before and I expect a couple of casualties along the way ... Gallop seems determined to have a 100 million plus media deal and 12 teams... Life as we understood Football to be will be totally different and what's happening is we are being dragged sometimes cheering sometimes screaming sometimes in disbelief that it will work towards a new future ... I think NZ could struggle to keep up to the pace FFA is setting...

Need to check your facts re. crowd figures. Not that I want to get into a slanging match, however I think you'll find (if my memory serves me correct) the Wolves halcyon days saw them average the 4-5K mark for crowds. This is when they were back to back champions. Also, to say all clubs had poor crowds, well again, I beg to differ. Perth, Newcastle, Adelaide, South Melbourne regularly drew 7000 + crowds (in N/C and Perths cases even much higher) while sprinkled with high crowds at the blockbuster matches for other clubs (derbies etc). I honestly don't recall Wolves ever exceeding 5000 crowds, definitely not 9000 or one offs of 11000. I would be happy to be proven wrong. I do clearly remember days of 2-2500 crowds and if we got 4000 + would be absolutely stoked. I also witnessed crowds of less than 1500 to see the matches agains't Urawa and Penarol. I cannot be bothered trawling for the info, however if you have time, check this site http://www.ozfootball.net/ark/NSL/NSL.shtml Yes, I believe the landscape is different now, and I would be more than happy, as an ex Wolves supporter and club volunteer, to see them on the premier stage. However, the motivation of my comment is to show the disparity in the perception of so called 'potential' of areas in the eyes of some people. Also, I was not at the FFA cup match however one must beg the answer as to why a crowd would be understated for an area trying to sell itself to the FFA for their own team?

There is much hinting and innuendo in this article and following comments but everyone appears to have forgotten the potential problem that the HAL is facing inasmuch as there is a huge differential emerging within the league itself.Much is being made of 5 and 6000 crowds that have been attracted to FFA Cup matches and that of course is heartening news for that embryo competition but in the major competition the crowd differantial between top and bottom clubs has remained static for the last 2 years and with the differential sitting at 22,000 average for Melb.Vic down to 7000 average for Wellington it is patently obvious that the HAL "bottom" teams cannot hope to compete with the 'top" teams for very much longer or we will have an EPL situation being achieved,money will rule who get the "top" players and who gets the "also rans". That problem is one that the FFA must face up to before talking of expansion into new areas and solving it will take much more than kind words in blogs such as this one.jb

Just some local input re the CC.. Population of 300K... also it is a huge area from North to South resulting in many CC folk having to travel a reasonable distance to games ... Without doubt our best crowds by light years are Saturday night, then Friday night, Saturday Afternoon and Sunday afternoon. When Gallop has his talk to the fans my huge suggestion is no game on Saturday start before 6:00, as getting the kids ready for a 5:00 kick off is hard especially when most live within 10 minutes of either a beach, lake or river.. and during the football season the AA, U35, U45 games that start at 3:00 are still being played at kick off.. Aside from all this the CC is still [tis changing] a RL heartland, and the language from Charlesworth of in a sense threats if fans don't come, and moving some home games has not gone down very well on the Coast at all, in fact many see another Northern Eagles where a RL team on the CC when back to Manly to play. Moreover, the almost constant articles by the Sour Bitter S***s about our location and moving to South Melbourne etc even the latest article by a SBS person in QLD say we should play in a northern Sydney location [where there is no stadium which is funny] .. The investment in the COE which is expected to have another 26 million of private money soon is huge. People need to understand the Mariners have always said we cannot compete with capital city teams for crowds and sponsors, but to bridge the funding gap we will create other forms of revenue and the COE is this. It will provide rental and club income as well provide hopefully Australia's best juniors to both play in our side and be latter sold. Charlesworth needs to tread carefully as we have a core base of around 8K where on any given day 90% of this 8K turn up. The balance is locals coming to matches. Each year it is increasing but don't push them as they see another Northern Eagles team and people will stop coming. Just as an aside we have two juniors this year from the academy side who we think are just as special as Musty, Rogic, Ryan, Abini, Ryan, Sainsbury, Olly Bas, Caceraes ... they are Liam Rose [brother of Josh a Def Mid, and Kalik an Att Mid. So the Mariners will never from a population base of 300K in a RL heart land draw massive crowds... however each day it changes and with the COE and Australian's first private Football school it is changing... also remember both state and federal governments hope to move lots of folk to the CC so our population will rise ...However the COE and junior academies are in place or being finished to make up the revenue shortfall... In closing WSW are arguably the most important team in the laegue because they play in the heartland... The CC is the only area without a prior NSL team and in a non Football area... If the Mariners can survive the league will as well for totally different reasons the Mariners are almost as important as WSW to prove the A-League can work grow and convert non Football areas.