April 25th, 2018. The Imperial Hotel, Melbourne. 4:45am. I have never been one to spring out of bed early to get to the gym or go for a morning run. Yet this morning, the event makes the exception.
To my surprise, I was surrounded by like-minded people dressed in red, singing with unbridled passion.
The occasion is Liverpool FC against AS Roma in the Champions League semi-final. An English club against an Italian club. A match taking place over 17,000 kilometres away at the famous Anfield. And it’s freaking 4:45am!
It’s as if we all had been transported to chilly Liverpool, and had passed beneath the Bill Shankly gates, made our way through to the middle of the Kop, and were singing all round the fields of Anfield Road.
But no. This was in Melbourne, with garbage trucks and those finishing their nights out the only others disturbing the peace.
The logical question to ask, which my girlfriend does on a weekly basis, is why? Why do you support a team on the other side of the world? Why do you pour money into the club’s merchandise, and make the pilgrimages to Anfield Road, just for a game of football?
To be fair, it’s a decent question. All the money, lost sleep, triumph and heartbreak. And all for a club that you can generally only support from a distance.
And why do all this when there are two professional clubs down the road? It felt as though there were more people in this pub than at Melbourne City’s elimination final.
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What it comes down to is that you can’t just invent culture. History doesn’t appear overnight. City play at the same stadium as Melbourne Victory. Despite all of City Group’s resources, the brand of the club has failed to successfully capture the imagination of Melbourne’s football public.
On the other hand, Victory plays on its standing as being a foundation club in the A-League. It attracts supporters by marketing itself as the league’s ‘big club’ as a result of its sustained success over 13 years of history. Sydney FC have a similar strategy.
For city-based clubs, success breeds support.
Any new expansion club must learn from City’s experience. The club must have strong connections to its local community and present a brand that represents its supporters.
The $170 million proposal for a club in Dandenong to have its own 15,000 seat stadium is a great start.
So too is the bid to bring back the Wollongong Wolves. As stated by their CEO Chris Papakosmas, “We’re about filling in a geographical footprint that hasn’t had representation for a long time.”
The Wolves already have the history and the existing local fan-base, while being community-funded gives the fans a sense of its ownership. “Sport is built around tribalism, loyalty and pride in your area,” Papakosmas says.
But why stop there? Geelong is an underutilised market, a city with a proud sports history and the ability to draw fans in from the country.
Create a second South Australian team in Sturt or Glenelg potentially, building another boutique stadium to create a rowdy atmosphere for any away team.
The FFA has the opportunity to beat the AFL by establishing a team in the sports-starved state of Tasmania, allowing FFA to take the lead over the AFL for once.
There are plenty of opportunities out there. Football has the highest participation rates in the country, all these people involved in the game just need a club that they can truly relate to, one that represents them.
The product is already there. Two exciting and drama-packed semi-finals and a grand final that promises all that and more between two clubs with strong local support.
An A-League expansion and creation of a second-division has this potential.
The Imperial will be packed again on Thursday morning. As it hopefully will be again for Saturday night’s grand final in Newcastle, a 30,000 packed house.
Let’s see it more often.
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