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Western United FC is the right name for the A-League's newest club

Roar Rookie
14th February, 2019
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Roar Rookie
14th February, 2019
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In case you missed it, the name and colours of the A-League’s newest team were officially confirmed early on Thursday morning.

Western United FC was born, with the club’s colours being green, black and white. Personally, I’m not fond of the name but I do like the colour scheme. But does my opinion really matter on this topic? No it shouldn’t.

Not to those in charge of the new club anyway. I’m not the target market, I’m already a fan of an A-League team. I’m a Melbourne Victory supporter, my approval should not be their highest priority.

I can’t comprehend the motive behind the social media backlash the announcement attracted. Comments left on the official A-League Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages were extremely negative.

This is before I looked on the new club’s social pages, where the same trend continued. But the majority of these comments were coming from fans who already supported another A-League team.

Why are already affiliated A-League supporters so outraged by the name of the new club? Does it really matter to you? It’s fine to have an opinion on the new team, but there’s no point getting so worked up about an entity that you won’t support.

The social media reaction suggested that the team’s name was too ‘general’ and ‘vague’. That’s a fair criticism. However, it was noted that club chiefs didn’t really want to include Melbourne in the name.

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You can understand that notion, as the club will play its first two seasons mostly in Geelong and regional Victoria. Will those in Geelong identify with a team that has Melbourne in their name? Probably not.

So why not use Victoria in the name you say? Sounds awfully close to Victory. Why not use a gimmicky name such as Roar, Jets or Glory? Whether that’s any better than a traditional moniker such as ‘United’ is up for debate.

A Facebook group titled ‘We Are West’ is the official active supporter group for the new club. The group has over 1200 members and anecdotally the most popular names that supporters claimed they had voted for was Western United FC and Western Athletic FC.

One of those names eventually won out from the News Limited poll, leaving the members content with the final decision. Isn’t that what is important here? Keeping those who will actually support the team relatively happy?

The ‘general’ name that outsiders have criticised, was actually the one that garnered the most support. Others might think it’s boring, but supporters of the new club may find it uniting.

Western United FC will follow the path of sporting teams such as the Western Bulldogs and Wests Tigers and frankly it’s not the prerogative for others to intervene, if the fans of the club have got what they wanted.

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