Brisbane Strikers, Brisbane City, Ipswich and now Redcliffe are all possible contenders to be Brisbane’s next A-League club, but what about Olympic?
The recently released Stadiums Taskforce report makes it abundantly clear in its recommendations that the Queensland government should not be funding any new stadiums in Brisbane and should reduce Ballymore to a training centre for rugby union. So unless a wealthy consortium or rich foreigner puts up the money themselves, neither Brisbane Strikers nor Brisbane City will get their own stadium, forcing them to share Lang Park with the Roar.
The only other locations in Brisbane with existing stadiums that could be used in the A-League are Redcliffe, which has Dolphin Stadium, and South Brisbane, which has QSAC. The trouble with Dolphin Stadium is that it is shared with the Redcliffe Dolphins rugby league club and its catchment area in Moreton Bay Region has a population only about the size of the ACT.
By comparison, the southern suburbs of Brisbane are home to about half of the city’s population and QSAC could be reconfigured at minimal cost as a football-specific ground. The only questions are: who should play there and who should they represent?
During the bidding process in the last round of expansion Brisbane City were setting themselves up as a northern club, so you can rule them out of the idea of playing in ‘South Brisbane’ at QSAC. Brisbane Strikers, however, sought to represent the whole of Brisbane, much like the Roar, but they aren’t distinctly southern, it wouldn’t be as tribal as a purely southern club would be.
Would the Strikers even want to play at QSAC? I doubt it.
That then leads us to look to southern-based NPL clubs to see if any might be suitable. There are just four to choose from, those being Western Pride, Queensland Lions, Redlands United and Olympic.
Both Western Pride and Redlands United are on the south side of the river but both represent only small, distinct regions of Brisbane and neither are close to QSAC. The Queensland Lions might be able to make the move to QSAC, but the derby with the Roar might be a bit silly.
That leaves just Olympic, which might be able to move to QSAC if they were to change their name to South Brisbane Olympic. As a club that has always been on the south side of the river and is part of the South Brisbane region, QSAC might suit them. The second track with a 4000-seat grandstand next door would also work well for W-League matches.
The history of Brisbane’s north-south rivalry would make a good backdrop to form a derby around.
(Albert Perez/Getty Images)
From what I’ve heard, it goes back to when north and south Brisbane were two separate cities and when North Brisbane heavily taxed the southerners when they wanted to cross the river to bury their dead at North Brisbane Burial Ground, where Lang Park now stands. For a South Brisbane club, then, crossing the river to play another team at Lang Park would have special significance even without the need for any previous on-field history.
As long as Olympic can market themselves as a team for South Brisbane, people will find themselves drawn to the club, but they don’t need to abandon their heritage either. If they keep their colours, all they might have to do is change their name a bit and upgrade their logo. Olympic would simply become South Brisbane Olympic, and they could change their logo to look like that of Olympiacos but substituting their own name in English text.
Olympiacos has broad similarities to South Brisbane, like its history as a port, which mirrors South Brisbane’s history of having a similar role for Brisbane in the past, and South Brisbane’s more working-class suburbs mirror the more working-class fan-base of Olympiacos. Then you have the name, Olympic, which suits a team playing at a stadium like QSAC quite well.
If Olympic can promote themselves as a club for South Brisbane with a strong grassroots focus and with a close connection to the region’s history, identity and people, then the Brisbane derby could be similar in size to those in Sydney and Melbourne. One half of the city against the other, north versus south.
Overall, South Brisbane Olympic would make a good choice for Brisbane’s next A-League club. It’s just a matter of whether or not Olympic themselves would want to make that leap.
Roly
Guest
Facts not conspiracy 12 team comp and 6 teams are from Sydney and melborune that's half the comp how can that be paooaibly good for the game and its growth .crowds are down in both capital cities melb and Sydney and can not sustain two teams et alone three the proof is in the ver poor crowds of melb city WSW and Sydney fc they are attracting crowd s of small regional centres yet they boast populations of four million .get real no conspiracy but fact .growth is needed in regional centres that are not currently occupied by clubs like Wollongong south coast and Canberra act and a second Queensland team and so on proven footabll regions .whilst foxtel and FFA have power it will only ever be more Sydney and Melbourne teams which is bad for the game
M20
Guest
City pulled out of the NSL and United were cobbled together to replace them. FFA didn't create them
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
Who has the time? I guess we all differ but sports never been a time issue for me. It's my relief from the dreadful things in life. I go to the game, and it's just about football. And it's great. I too follow other sports and have never played football, being a rugby and league brat/fan. But football offers me so much more than the other codes - the AFC Cup for starters, the FFA Cup, the Asian CL, the World Cup, other leagues worldwide, other domestic leagues (my local team in the NPL) and the list goes on. It's a no-brainer.
Brisvegas
Guest
I think you are choosing to misconstrue the sentiment. Choosing to follow a football team is a personal choice. That choice isn't necessarily based on quality football. If you aren't born into supporterhood, you are presented with making a choice to commit or not. And that choice is based on any number of things. For instance, I moved to Brisbane a year before the A-League started. I had previously lived in Sydney but never really committed to a local team (for many reasons, too many to list here, but the main one being that I had no affiliation to any of them, mainly because I was not born here and arrived in my late teens and ... well, as I say, too many to list) However, the A-league started and I made a decision to support the Brisbane team, so bought a season ticket. Sight unseen. Quality wasn't an issue. Sure, you might have different criteria. We all have different ways of making decisions. But quality is a matter of comparison, so there must be some other criteria informing your decision. If so, be honest about what it is rather than relying on a cliche that it's about quality. Unless of course you aren't really interested in contributing to the debate and only wanted to make a veiled critique of the A-League.
coolncold
Roar Rookie
You are okay, Drew. Maybe, you are new here in "The Roar".
Drew
Guest
If you want to watch sport only for quality, you’re definitely not the fan the ALeague needs to chase because you’ll always be complaining. What a bizarre thing to say. So the A league is only for die hard fans who don't care what the play is like but are there because they love the game? Surely they already attend games? Hence the need for the A League to actually chase non die hard fans? Casual fans like myself? I think I am exactly the fan the ALeague should be appealing to. I played soccer as a kid, I have a very young son and can pretty much choose whether he becomes an A League fan or not. I have a reasonable disposable income and like attending live sports events.
con tripodis
Guest
interesting this article you written about fan so if any of you remember Adelaide city what a great club, full history lots of socceroos,a quality club and i am a Melbourne man saying this all destroyed by the ffa creating instead the Adelaide united reds i don't know WHY when A city had the third too fourth best fan base in the NSL given the fox publicity we now get i am a firm believer that A city would have far more fans now than the A United reds have customers
Nemesis
Guest
Quality of product is subjective. I think NRL & AFL product is very low quality. Yes, millions of Aussies like to watch it. I think The Block, The Bachelor/ette, Ninja Warriors is very low quality. Yet, millions of Aussies like to watch it. If people only watched top quality sport, then the world would only be watching a few teams in football each year. No one would be watching ManUnited, or any of the lower teams in EPL. No one would watch football in Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina, etc. etc. If you want to watch sport only for quality, you're definitely not the fan the ALeague needs to chase because you'll always be complaining.
Drew
Guest
Really depends, is there a moral obligation to support any sport? I can like soccer and want to watch high quality competitive games. However I also like a range of other sports that offer that. I have limited time and money, so as much as I'd like an expanded A league with a range of teams, local derbies and a quality product I'm not prepared to wait for that. Attending any professional sports team these days isn't cheap. I would argue that a poor product is very much the reason to not actively support a team. And that is for existing teams - not proposed future sucky teams.
Brisvegas
Guest
It seems to me that the issue (or at least one of them) is that people think along these lines and regard it as a valid reason for not supporting or following your local football team.
Drew
Guest
That's the issue though. Who has the time to support and follow a product that isn't up to standard?
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
Good comment Drew. It's easy to disengage when your team is not winning. We all want a better League, highest quality, better refs, better stadiums etc. We've got to start somewhere and ideal just isn't achievable on the first step. We'll get there one day, but not if we don't support the League from infancy.
jbinnie
Guest
Jordan - Careful my friend. Melbourne City's match average crowd figure is always heavily affected by "derby " crowds when in fact probably at least 15,000 of those present are actually Melbourne Victory supporters. If this fact is remembered then considering their connections Melbourne City still have a problem attracting people to their games. In the 4 home games they have played this season ,2 have attracted just over 6,500 to the games against Wellington and Jets.not good for what should be a "big" club. Cheers jb.
Drew O'BRIEN
Guest
*disengaged.
Drew
Guest
I'm a casual A-league fan and from Brisbane. Nominal roar supporter. Probably the fan the game actually wants to attend games and follow more closely. I have been very engaged for the last few years or attended a game. Creating spurious teams to drive fake rivalry won't get me to a game. There also isn't really a North /South divide that would drive any meaningful rivalry. Have you been to QEII stadium? It is a dog of a thing. Rough, dated, soulless, no atmosphere. Hard to get to as well. Basically a relic from the previous commonwealth games that should be put out of its misery.
Waz
Roar Rookie
Nail on head. If football wants stadiums the government will just say “have we got a deal for you ... in Townsville and Gold Coast”
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
I remember as a kid in the days before national competition, the north-south divide was highly visible in Brisbane’s rugby league and union competitions. But it disappeared with national competitions and the introduction of regional teams into new State competitions, ie. the demise of Brisbane leagues. I don’t know if it was present in football. My family still think I’m a traitor, from the northside but played for and now live on the south side, so there’s some residual there. Certainly the south side seems to have produced the majority of A League players out of Brisbane. Waz is right about stadium cost to clubs, a major shortcoming of the recent review which was supposed to address cost but didn’t, but maybe your analysis for this article should’ve considered clubs in the other Leagues too. Redlands, my local NPL club, aims to reach the second division (AAFC, Championship as they call it). Our council is developing a new sports complex, green field site, and are looking for tenants so this is an ideal opportunity for them, and realistic expectation. They could end up with a home not vastly different to Roar’s training fields but with a small open stadium suitable for the B League. Let’s hope so anyway.
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
which is where Stadiums Qld want expansion to occur. You want new teams, put them near our under-utilised stadiums.
Waz
Roar Rookie
The Derby of the Dead ???? That’s GCU v Fury surely?
Blubber
Guest
The only problem with Olympic is that it will be a Southside team and we already have the Roar from the Southside but otherwise a great idea.