Memo to Mick Malthouse: Fans do not want shorter games

While Mick Malthouse once preached that it was ok for the ox to be slow because the earth was patient, he obviously doesn’t think the average footy fan possesses the same tolerances as our gentle planet.

Coaching’s elder statesman made sweeping claims earlier this week that today’s footy fans were time poor and wanted to do more on game day than just sit at an oval watching their favourite sport.

“What people want now,” according to Mick, “is to say ‘I’m going to Southbank at 6pm, I’ll have a beer or wine, go to the football, then I want to come back and go out for a late dinner.”

Unfortunately though, that game we have been waiting for all week long, goes too long, impinging on our ability to socialise outside of our beloved football environment.

But Mick, in his caring way, has the perfect solution.

“…we’ve got to reduce the length (of a match) so that people can go to a game, but still do something on either end of it. Or on Saturday afternoons with their kids, they can go and have lunch, go to the game, but still get home and watch a movie.”

Ah, yes, must make time for the movies. That 50 Shades of Grey film might be a good one to take the kids to!

Seriously Mick, if there are any true football fans out there who want shorter games, then I am yet to find them. A quick poll at my workplace certainly failed to unearth any.

But wait a moment, Mick’s talking again. Better listen.

“Today’s public are not what they were in the 1950s and ’60s when football was get there, watch the under 19s, watch the reserves, watch the seniors, go home exhausted then sit up Sunday and watch World of Sport. That’s gone.”

Yes, that has gone, but it wasn’t because we lost interest or became ‘time poor’. It was because the AFL in its infinite wisdom disbanded its reserves competition and forced clubs into awkward affiliations with state league counterparts. They killed off the ‘curtain raiser’, not us!

And, I guarantee that if World of Sport still aired on Channel Seven, footy fans would still be tuning in for their weekly dose of ‘Coaches Corner’ and the handball competition (not to mention the woodchop), just as they do now for the Sunday Footy Show.

But that’s another story.

The point is, footy fans want to watch footy. If they wanted to spend their day at the local multiplex or over at Southbank quietly drinking their noses red, they wouldn’t be at the footy in the first place.

Footy fans go to the footy to watch footy. It is not a difficult concept to grasp. Most of them want to cram as much footy as possible into their day.

But over the past couple of seasons they have had to put up with a lot. The effect of ticket prices, food prices, exorbitant parking fees, bizarre scheduling and a stubborn administration were all reflected in last year’s attendance figures, especially in the Victorian heartland where attendance growth stalled.

Shortening games would further disenfranchise an already fragile supporter base, especially if there was a major time cut.

According to a graphic which appeared in The Age on Wednesday, average game time peaked at almost 124 minutes in 2011. The last two seasons however have seen game times hover around 120 minutes, the lowest it has been for the last seven years, and pretty much the benchmark time since before Barassi was a boy.

But it is still too much for Malthouse who suggests that the game needs major streamlining.

“We’ve got to look at our game and say: ‘Soccer is 90 minutes and rugby is 80 minutes, is there somewhere in between where we can get our game to about 90 minutes all up?”

That is a 30 minute reduction. A whole half hour per game. That works out to 4.5 hours of football lost over all games for a full nine match round. Or if you prefer, 99 hours over the course of a 198 game season. Over 22 rounds, your club will spend 11 hours less on the field than they currently do.

That’s a lot of marks, goals and inspirational play stolen from us!

But as we know, Malthouse never does anything by halves. Not only does he have the playing time of our great game in his sights, but also the length of the half time break.

“That 20 minutes at half time, I can’t tell you how quickly that goes as a coach. But I’ve sat in the stands watching those 20 minutes and just thought: Jeez, come on, get back down the race for Christ’s sake. If they cut it to 15 minutes, we’ll adjust to 15 minutes.”

Mick might be able to adjust to a 15 minute break, but the parent who has to take two kids to the toilet and then queue up to buy a bucket of chips may struggle.

But really, if ever there was a case of the elite end of the sport forgetting about its grass roots, here it is.

Auskick might not seem important to some, but for the hundreds of kids who get the opportunity to run out onto league grounds and play their mini games during the half time break, it is truly a remarkable experience. Reduce the half time break and these kids miss out.

For those who may have forgotten – and Mick appears to be one of them – those highly rated draft picks we rave about each year probably started their careers as Auskickers, possibly inspired to continue with the sport after a taste of half time action at a major ground.

Engagement with these kids is vital, especially in an era where so many sports are open to them. Fail to inspire them and they will be gone.

Mick Malthouse has been involved in elite football for the best part of 50 years. He has proven that he is one of the game’s best thinkers. As a player he was a determined, unfashionable competitor who got the best out of himself through effort alone and as a coach he has lead two teams to ultimate glory and missed narrowly with a third.

His longevity in the game is testament to his standing within it. On this occasion though he seems to have dropped the ball.

There may be legitimate reasons to shorten the length of games. Player welfare could be one of them.

But to suggest that reducing game time would be doing the ticket paying footy fan a favour, is just plain wrong.