The highlight of the opening fortnight of the A-League has been the turnout of the fans of the Newcastle Jets.
While A-League crowds across the board have taken a hit, Newcastle has bucked the trend.
Jets fans have good reason to be turning out in numbers. It’s early days but the club has started the season with some eye-catching performances.
The opening round F3 derby was a personal triumph for striker Roy O’Donovan who bagged a hat-trick against his former club in a 5-1 win.
It seems that football support is in the blood in the Hunter. The noise from the south-east corner at Central Coast stadium helped make the first round F3 derby a memorable day.
Newcastle’s first home game at McDonald Jones stadium against Perth Glory finished in a 2-2 draw. Only a late goal by former Jets hotshot, Adam Taggart, prevented them from having a perfect record.
Still, four points and seven goals from the first two games with O’Donovan’s personal tally of four is something Novocastrians should be excited about.
To ice the feel-good cake that is Newcastle, this year marks the Australian return of Ernie Merrick, everyone’s favourite taciturn coach. With the combination of Merrick, O’Donovan, Ronny Vargas and Dimi Petratos, the Jets have the potential to go far this season.
The crowd at McDonald Jones stadium of 16,633 was bigger than Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers and Brisbane Roar. Not that Newcastle’s crowds have ever been terrible but this is a superb start considering Perth Glory are not one of the competition’s drawcards.
Newcastle Jets have the potential to be Australia’s best community club and if the fans can unite around their team it can only be good news for football. It could bring a feel good story to the A-League that the FFA desperately needs. It might even rub-off on fans of other clubs.
Elsewhere, A-League crowds have been below par. Melbourne Victory’s two-game average of 30,298 is impressive but these matches featured two of Victory’s biggest rivals. There were more empty seats at the Melbourne derby than I’ve seen in a long time.
Surely there’s a case for moving most of Victory’s home games to the smaller AAMI Park. With a capacity of around 27,000 it seems like a perfect fit and the rectangular shape would provide a better atmosphere.
Speaking of crowds and stadiums, some life has been thrown into the near-dead expansion debate with the announcement of plans to build a football-specific stadium at Loftus in Sydney’s south.
(AAP Image/Darren England)
It would hold 25,000 fans and be the home base of the proposed Southern Expansion club.
The man behind the Southern Expansion bid, Craig Foster, has been touring Europe sending back pics of himself at various famous clubs.
You have to admire Fozzie’s enthusiasm. He knows football. He knows the media. If there’s any individual who could get an expansion team across the line it is Craig Foster.
I’m not a big fan of the St George, Sutherland and Wollongong regions being represented by one club but money talks. If the stadium does get up you can be certain Southern Expansion will be in the A-League. I hope they change the name though.
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The political situation in Spain is at an intriguing stage. Catalonians overwhelmingly voted for independence although the vote was deemed illegal by Spain. There have been protests and strikes across the region, words traded in the Spanish parliament.
If independence happens, Spanish football officials have threatened Catalonian clubs such as Barcelona and Espanyol with expulsion from La Liga.
Where would these clubs go? France suggested they could play in Ligue 1 but I’m not sure Barcelona’s collective ego would cope with that.
A Catalonian sports official said they might go to the English Premier League. With the looming Brexit, I can’t see that happening either.
(Photo by Joan Cros Garcia/Corbis via Getty Images)
Maybe they need to look outside Europe. So what league is desperate for expansion teams and has experience hosting cross-federation clubs? I know. Our little league down under.
Maybe the opening day of the 2022 A-Liga will feature the ‘expansion’ derby between the Southern Fozzies and Barcelona at Loftus stadium.
It would certainly bolster the attendance figures.
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In the World Cup qualifiers, Barcelona’s Lionel Messi single-handedly saved Argentina’s skin by scoring a hat-trick in their 3-1 victory over Ecuador.
Our own talisman, Tim Cahill, single-headedly kept Australia in the running with his brace against Syria. We now travel to the world’s ‘murder capital’ in Honduras. Ooh, scary! Luckily they’re not playing on Halloween.
There were amazing scenes in Cairo when Egypt qualified for the first time in 28 years. Boy, those Egyptians know how to celebrate.
Iceland continued their stunning Euro 2016 form by qualifying for the World Cup for the first time, the smallest country ever to do so.
Look at that line-up: Argentina, Ecuador, Australia, Syria, Honduras, Egypt and Iceland. It’s not called the world game for nothing.
I missed a week so the awards are backdated.
Personality of last week: Roy O’Donovan
Team of last week: Newcastle Jets
Personality of this week: Lionel Messi
Team of this week: Iceland
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