Satire
Not satisfied with horning in on an NPL club’s ground, the A-League’s not-so-loveable nomads Western United have set their sights on a new home.
In keeping with the theme of making it significantly more difficult than necessary for their fans to attend matches, United have announced a floating pitch located 200 nautical miles south of the Cook Islands as their 29th home venue.
With the sod-turning ceremony for their state-of-the-art new stadium in Tarneit delayed until 2052, the decision to further alienate their fledgling fan-base was not made lightly, according to a Western Melbourne Group spokesperson.
“In all of the club’s proud three-year history, we have been striving to piss off our fans and confuse the Australian football community as much as possible,” they said.
“It’s something we pride ourselves on, and this latest move should really do the trick.”
The news was met with shock at first, but then it all started to make sense. After all, we’re talking about an aimlessly nomadic club with no identity backed by a big-talking ownership group that says all the right things, but importantly, never follows through on any of them.
(Photo by Graham Denholm/Getty Images)
Back in 2018, the largest hurdle to clear was convincing the FFA to grant Western a licence. It seemed a difficult task, but one suit – who had just learnt the word ‘innovation’ that morning while struggling with the crossword in the Herald Sun – came up with the brilliant idea of being the first club in the league to boast their very own stadium.
It was a pitch any governing body would be dazzled by. Everything else about United – including their horrific home kit and a crest that looked like it was produced by a five-year-old kid in Paint – was now irrelevant.
The stadium, the stadium! The first of its kind!
Yes, it was all about the shiny new stadium.
“Honestly, whenever I speak to you chumps in the media, it’s hard to keep a straight face,” said the spokesperson.
“I’m getting a little bit bored now, to be honest. At first, it was fun. We’d take games to the most obscure, irrelevant oval grounds we could find that were somewhat in the vicinity of where we initially said we’d be basing the club.
“We got a decent number of angry reactions on Twitter, and Fox Sports kept indulging us, so we decided to see how far we could push the morons who actually like football.
“We thought going down to Tassie would’ve been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but that move just wasn’t stupid enough.
“Hopefully setting up shop just off the Pacific Islands will finally get our crowds down to zero, and it’ll be pretty difficult for Paramount to get their cameras over to the floating pitch.”
But does the club think this bold move will spell the end for the embattled expansion side?
“Nah, mate. Not even close. We’ve had a word with Elon about putting a pitch up on the moon – he seems keen.
“As long as we keep saying there’s been a delay caused by COVID, we can stretch this out for years, maybe even decades, I reckon.
“It’s all about the townhouses, mate.
“You don’t make money through owning a bloody football club. Who even watches this? A whole quarter of the game can come and go without either of the sides kicking a bloody goal.
“Wait… forget what I said about the townhouses.”
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