The Socceroos need to do more than just participate in the World Cup

This is the most sensible discussion I’ve seen on this. Tim is one of Aust greatest sportsmen but not really helping the build up when he came on, good volley that hit a defender. Arzani wasn’t really effective either, I would have started him, but I think Bert was right, Kruse was a better option. I think Bert did an amazing job in a few months, I’m not sure how long Ange needed before the team would be winning games, but Foster and Co think he’s the Messiah. I thought it was disgraceful how Craig laid into Bert when the final whistle had barely died. It’s a pity we didn’t seek Bert for longer, I think you need an international coach for international football as Ange showed. But I do like his passion for having a go and pressing teams. We need to look at how other countries develop these sharp skills and it may be that the resistance by the media other than SBS to give football appropriate news time is to blame, as kids aren’t driven to master their craft through media hype that we see for NRL and AFL.

Not only have i not changed the narrative but everything i said is correct and has gone unchallenged. According to the ABS more people born in other countries and non English speaking countries attend Australian rules football games than soccer. Just goes to show what happens when new Australians are given options. But according to you none of this ever happens in your neck of the woods. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/4156.0.55.001~Dec+2009~Main+Features~Migrants+and+Sport?OpenDocument

Wow hold the presses Australia was settled by the British, i never knew.... haha mate you've veered of track abit from sports/class haven't you. I thought we were talking about 10 pound poms and thereafter not hundreds of years ago, you've managed to go back to the original convicts! Talk about changing the narrative . I think my argument has been laid out quite simply if you aren't comprehending it i don't know what to tell ya.

Traditional working class Poms are and have been coming to Australia for a couple of hundred years, hundreds of thousands of them are here now. I am not even sure what you you are arguing quite frankly. Thats why in the older suburbs we have pubs on every corner, that is part of British working class culture, thats why unIons are still quite strong, thats how the Labour party got in power etc etc etc More recently Traditional working class Poms settled Elizabeth in Adelaide, Rockingham, Armidale and even more recently Joondalup in Perth. Traditional working class London Poms were a huge component of the original convicts as well as guards , they made up a big component of miners during our gold rush, a generation in they moved our National game around the country on the back of mining to Broken Hill, Kalgoorlie, Newcastle etc etc etc Please do some research.

Recent article in SA saying that 171 more ovals are required for AFL. Similar in WA. Female football explosion puts the pinch on South Australian facilities with 171 ovals required. An explosion in the number of female football players in South Australia is forecast to put the pinch on existing facilities, as the state league estimates 171 new ovals will be required over the next eight years in response. South Australian National Football (SANFL) figures released this month show there are 6,602 females playing football this year, up 140 per cent from 2,741 in 2016. The SANFL Women's league increased from four to six teams last year, with prize money now increasing to $20,000, which it says is "the largest prize money pool of any women's state league competition in Australia". The league's juniors have grown from 16 female teams in 2016 to a staggering 98 teams this year, while four new regional women's leagues have been launched in the Mid North, the Lower Eyre Peninsula, Yorke Peninsula and the Riverland. Glenelg plays North Adelaide during round two in February Photo: The women's teams are reportedly pushing for a winter season rather than beginning in summer. (Website: Glenelgfc.com.au) More teams have joined existing women's leagues in the Limestone Coast, in the Barossa-Gawler and Great Southern regions. The skyrocketing participation rates have left the SANFL eyeing the future for demands on facilities. It calculates it will need 171 new ovals across metropolitan Adelaide by 2026 for a projected 13,500 new female players. The SANFL believes this will cost more than $220 million to address. Chief executive Jake Parkinson said the league hoped to work with schools and government to achieve "the best use of existing green space". "We are also hopeful that local councils will continue to prioritise investment in green space and facilities," he said. Change rooms require investment for female use The participation statistics, put together in consultation with the University of Adelaide and Footyweb, also found more than 90 per cent of change rooms were not suitable for female players, and 87 per cent were unsuitable for female umpires. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-25/female-football-in-sa-puts-the-pinch-on-afl-facilities/9905956

And adding to that there is actually 7 social classes in England Elite Established Middle Class Technical Middle Class New Affluent Workers Traditional Working Class (who you claim are here in the thousands) Emergency Service sector Precariat Basically the vast majority of migrants to Australia fall into every other category other than working class. In the time of the 10 pound pom the working classes where actually doing well due to the steel industry and mining etc which are basically no more. Even in those times football was the chosen sport and it wasn't due to lacking opportunities or whatever you've made up in your head.

nope the opportunity is there in the UK as well. they have choices and they choose football more often than not you can keep sprouting your nonsense but it's not true. Please educate yourself on the working classes in Englandhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKssICPUUJs

Absolute rubbish, the working class poms live by the thousands in Perth particularly the Northern Suburbs. And how wrong are you - precisely why they were called 10 pound poms means that is all it cost them to get out here. Thousands of kids born in the UK or their parents were play, umpire, coach and are involved in the Australian game in Perth, thousands more have the opportunity to play sports, join life saving clubs or surf, play hockey, tennis, etc etc than they would.

Sorry, hit submit too early: The players I mention are backs. Built for speed and evasive running while still having to absorb the physical contact. Not fat. In fact Billy Slater won 'Australia's fittest athlete' twice in a row against players from all codes. The show was a bit superficial, but Slater is certainly not fat.

Funny Nemesis how you call someone "quite ignorant" and then say "big fat guys go to rugby & league". Google 'Valentine-Holmes, Billy Slater, Israel Folau, Corey Oates" just to name a few. Rugby forwards are heavily built as they have to withstand physical collision pressure and hold their ground - a key stat in the Rugby codes is post contact metres gained. They are not built to run 10km per game, because that is not their roles, but they are not fat.

Completely different not easier. It's like arguing a good baseballer can become elite at MMA. and vice versa. It's a rare thing. Football requires excellent foot skills, speed, balance, stamina, decision making under pressure, precision and 360 degree view. AFL requires similar skills, foot (although a different style), speed, stamina, precision, decision making under pressure and a 360 degree view, with a bit higher collision resistance Rugby codes require hand skills, less stamina and a different type, power and acceleration, and the ability to execute while absorbing physical hits, no 360 degree awareness, but also not having the 360 degrees available to execute plays. To be elite at any of them requires someone to be a very good athlete and 'footballer' (of whatever stripe).

Completely different not easier. It's like arguing a good baseballer can become elite at MMA. and vice versa. It's a rare thing. Football requires excellent foot skills, speed, balance, stamina, decision making under pressure, precision and 360 degree view. AFL requires similar skills, foot (although a different style), speed, stamina, precision, decision making under pressure and a 360 degree view, with a bit higher collision resistance Rugby codes require hand skills, less stamina and a different type, power and acceleration, and the ability to execute while absorbing physical hits, no 360 degree awareness, but also not having the 360 degrees available to execute plays. To be elite at any of them requires someone to be a very good athlete and 'footballer' (of whatever stripe).

The working class Brit hasn't got the money to pack everything in and move to Australia so the majority of those who come here are the ones are a little better off, so again your talking out of your backside. I understand totally the class divides in England firstly because my fathers side were 10 pound poms and i spend 3 years there in my mid 20's...so if you think you're giving me some education on how things work there you're sadly mistaken.

@ Post hoc 28.6 10.17am What "very different categories to other codes" are you referring to, that Australian Football should not count in its total 2017 Registered Participant numbers of 1,596,660? And sources? If you are referring to AusKick, all codes have junior introductory programs, and count these numbers as participants. AusKick is the AFL's official introductory program for Australian Football ie skills' sessions, followed by a match. Parents sign up kids for the programs, usually 6-18 weeks in duration. This attack on AusKick (which has direct comparisons to soccer's MiniRoos) was comprehensively demolished in the Comments Section of the M.Tuckermam Roar Article of 23.3.2018. You, and other soccer fans, retreated from the discussion, after being presented with the raw data etc. https://www.theroar.com.au/2018/03/23/fact-football-global-game-drives-critics-crazy/ (See approximate final 1/3 of comments in the Comments Section) Virtually everyone would accept that the FFA 2017 Official Registered Participants (1,631,041) are the most reliable and accurate soccer source. I assume you also accept this now. It is my understanding that the FFA do NOT do widespread tests of its players for illicit non-performance enhancing drugs in the players' HOLIDAY season. Nor do any other Australian (excluding the AFL) or foreign sporting organizations. Why dont the FFA, and other Australian and foreign sporting organizations, conduct similar holiday season tests for illicit drugs? Why don't Chile and Argentina, other southern hemisphere countries, play their main national soccer Leagues in the summer? You argue a summer season offers so many advantages for the A League -it is not primarily to avoid direct competition with the AFL and NRL.

And yet football remains the most popular playing sport in Australia.

I have quoted sporting pulse figures - nothing to do with the AFL. They show quite big increases in Sydney year on year for club football. Fact not fiction

All those Greek, Italian and Slav kids grew up, some nw approaching retirement, plenty married into Anglo/Irish Australian families who had been here for 3,4,5,6 generations who had a different outlook on sports. As living standards rose they put their kids into tennis and swimming and other football codes mostly via private schools, they moved out into the burbs away from families. That's where they went,just like every previous migrant wave.

'At least the English championship reserve league has 20 full time professional clubs competing in it and it would be a tougher competition then the Swiss League' Ok mate, your opinion, can't argue with that!!! But you could not be more wrong.

Well I guess that explains why we all don't speak Gaelic!! Seriously the British empire was the biggest the world has ever seen, it totally exported its sports not Irish ones who in the main were considered second class citizens. Hurling was played prior to the formation of Aussie rules in this country - where is it now ?. The Irish in the end played mainstream ( read English) or Australian sports. However back in Ireland they formed the GAA to attempt to keep Irish sports alive in the face of soccer, rugby etc during the English subjugation of the country.

The vast majority of ten pound poms and many recent arrivals are of the working class variety and tennis, hockey, cricket, swimming even rugby unless you are from Wales are not working class sports, in this country those sports are available nearly all. Class still defines sport in the UK that we fail to understand in this country. They may have invented plenty of games but only the rich/royalty played most of them.