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It’s the story that I hoped would simply go away, but now it’s starting to scare me, with Tim Cahill and Cronulla Sharks chairman Lyall Gorman giving the proposal their backing.
The idea that a third Sydney A-League side should be placed in the Sutherland Shire is farcical.
Being someone that’s lived in the area most of my life, with my family a part of the Menai Hawks and having had an involvement with the Sutherland Sharks in the NSW Premier League, I speak from considerable expertise.
Plus, this idea isn’t exactly a new one.
Sydney Olympic became the ‘Olympic Sharks’ for two seasons in the old National Soccer League, playing their home games out of Shark Park and moving their youth teams to Bates Drive at Kirrawee.
The Olympic Sharks even won the NSL title in the 2001-02 season, and were minor premiers in 2002-03, only to lose in the grand final. The Olympic Sharks were as successful as can be on-field, but still, no one in the Shire seemed to care too much.
Sure it was a repackaged Sydney Olympic, and that could have been the issue, but my father and I still went and watched, despite being Marconi fans. Unfortunately not too many of the other locals got on board.
Now the region does have the largest junior participation, and back in the day, the Menai Hawks and Lilli Pilli regularly battled it out for the honours of being the biggest junior club in the southern hemisphere.
But the demographic of the area is changing.
Families are being priced out and those that grew up in the area, such as myself, can’t afford to hang around the area, and even those who pay the lofty house prices, a day at the A-League may just be a stretch too far when the weekly budget is calculated.
Why do we need to expand to a third team in Sydney?
Sydney FC are only just finding some solid ground after a few lean years before the arrival of Alessandro Del Piero, and while the Wanderers have made a stunning start to life, we cannot get too complacent, with the Western Sydney market only expected to become more competitive.
Why not have both Sydney teams averaging 25,000 a week? Why introduce a third team which will only take fans away from the existing franchises.
The Newcastle Jets are in disarray, with the Hunter Sports Group seemingly running the franchise into the ground and the Central Coast Mariners are experiencing similar economic issues. How about ensuring the solidity of the existing franchises before we start adding anymore?
We saw what happened with Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury, which the league has only really recovered from in the shape of the Wanderers.
Let’s get all the current A-League sides to an economically sustainable level. I know many have a ‘dream’ of Australia having a second-tier and therefore promotion and relegation, but I don’t think people understand how far away that day actually is.
Just having 10 A-League teams competing is a task for Football Federation Australia, both economically and logistically, especially when sharing infrastructure and stadiums with other sports.
If we built our own stadiums and academies then great, but it’s been hard enough for A-League clubs to break even, let alone look too far ahead. That’s not to say that there aren’t realistic options to expand to when the times is right.
I’d be looking towards Canberra and Tasmania as possible expansion targets.
The ACT are crying out for football and while it was tried previously with the Canberra Cosmos, recent attendances to significant football matches in the region, such as the FFA Cup and Socceroos highlight the potential.
Locals haven’t really warmed to the Greater Western Sydney Giants’ attempts at embracing the place and the Canberra Raiders aren’t exactly setting the world on fire at the moment and I wouldn’t expect them to return to their glory days anytime soon.
Canberra United has built a solid foundation through the W-League and Canberra Stadium and the AIS facilities provide a solid base to build an A-League club from.
Tasmania has long been a dream of mine. The argument is always that it is not ‘commercially viable’, but I don’t know how that argument has weight when you have teams in Newcastle and Gosford.
The Apple Isle is crying out for national sport and they have shown their appetite in supporting the AFL games taken to the state in recent times. No other sport will bite the bullet in the region, and football showed what can be achieved through initiative with the Wanderers.
But expose the game to a new market, rather than diluting one to provide for another.
I’ve regularly attended Sydney FC games, catching the train from the Sutherland Shire into Central Station and making the walk up to the Sydney Football Stadium.
The trains are regularly filled with Sydney FC fans and almost every football person I come across in the area calls themselves a Sky Blue.
There’s talk of bringing the South Coast into the proposed side, but again, we’ve seen the challenges that the Wollongong Wolves faced and the continued economic challenges facing the ‘rebirth’ South Coast Wolves.
The Cronulla Sharks have long been a financial basket case, which hasn’t been helped by recent events. Commercially the region isn’t strong and the Sharks are regularly chasing sponsors, a sign that the area isn’t exactly the gold mine many believe it to be.
While David Gallop hasn’t explicitly come out and said he supports a move to the Sutherland Shire, the media coverage and discussion continues to grow.
I just hope someone from head office actually looks at the bigger picture and doesn’t expect that the success of the Wanderers can be replicated in any market they choose.
As someone who has lived, played and followed football in the area for most of my life, I believe bringing an A-League team to the region would only undo a lot of the positives steps the A-League has made in recent times.
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