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Joined March 2011
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Football Federation Australia (FFA) has confirmed its intention to enter each of their National Youth League (NYL) teams into their respective local state leagues.…
We saw early last A-League season that Adelaide United had just 13 fit players at one stage, which lead them to sign Cam Watson…
For the first time in history, we may see two English sides competing in Europe from the second division. This comes after both Birmingham and…
While we may have seen a decline in attendances across the board in the most recent A-League season, the two Melbourne clubs have managed…
Again this was something I was unable to elaborate on, due to the word-count restrictions.
By having the Reserves and Youth playing in the premier state competition, you are virtually creating a faux affiliation club. It opens up a window to receive sponsorship for these sides and also the ground they play on.
For an investor or sponsor it may be appalling for them to sponsor the Reserves and Youth sides who are connected to the Heart for a few reasons. Local or smaller sponsors may only want to reach a certain demographic, others may want to support Melbourne Heart as a whole but cant afford the heft price tag and so on.
How the ladder to A-League should look
These clubs do not want to be babied, they would rather be playing against us then ‘teaming-up’ with us. The end product is grassroots engagement, local growth and expansion of the game.
Affiliations don’t work so well, just look at the AFL whom destroyed the VFA.
Having a direct affiliation wont work as it will help the ‘powerhouses’ to create even stronger sides, whilst discouraging others. Then by splitting the teams in half it leaves nothing for expansion and you have too look at relegation and promotion.
If something like that was to happen I think you’d find Heart in the North/West (considering they are based in Bundoura) and Victory in the South/East considering they are based in RichmondAlso I don’t know if you follow the VPL to closely as some of those clubs you have grouped don’t particularly like each other,
How the ladder to A-League should look
In regards to the ‘clinics and academies’, clubs are getting out there but have very limited budgets due to minimal subsidies/budget allocations from the FFA. It is also something that doesn’t get publicised to often either.
In my state I know Melbourne Heart Have been doing plenty of work in the grass roots. They formed a partnership with SEDA before Victory (even with a 5 year ‘head-start’), they have held extensive ‘Keeper clinics, ‘Little Terra’s’ school holiday program, ‘Westpac community festival’ in regional areas like Geelong, Sheperton, Ballarat and Morwell amongst others.
In the future we can only hope these clubs break away from the ‘franchise’ tags and build on some real club culture. This means from Seniors right down to the Under-9s
Bigger benches are a must, it can really take away from the spectacle at times.
How the ladder to A-League should look
Absolutely agree, I had a whole paragraph on club culture, but had to take it out as the article was over 1000 words long.
How the ladder to A-League should look
I thought the were now revising the 5th round, because if they were to continue with the current format they would end up with 3 sides at… Anyone herd anything new?
Mirabella Cup - round five preview
S*** has really hit the fan, social mediums are going insane at the moment. The FFA have once again sucked the history out of our game and slapped ‘old soccer’ in the face. I cant comprehend why it’s happened. Both clubs are independently owned, why can’t they enter whichever pre-season comp they like? It is essentially like organizing a pre-season game. Considering we have an 8 month wait from the end of last season to the start of the next, it would have been a great lead into the season, plenty of hype, exposure and promotion.
Lowy, Gorman, Buckley, Reilly and Hallum OUT! While were at it get rid of that godforsaken anti-terrorism group, Hatamoto, with you. FFA needs a complete overhaul, hopefully the current ‘Smith Review’ will highlight this.
A bit of a silerlining to todays outcome; a great initiative from Melbourne Heart, who has offered to play winner of Mirabella Cup at their home ground with all proceeds going into the coffers of that club. A true gentleman and a great ambassador for our game, Well done! In my opinion, Victory should do the same with the runner-up.
I sincerely believe all fans should unite at the final in protest to the FFA. But, make sure to get to as many of these FFV Cup as well as local games and throw your support behind our clubs, which is the most important thing.
Our future is our past!
FFA exclude Victory, Heart from Mirabella Cup
Your missing the point. Anyway, if you look deep enough those stats actually support me. In In the two season which Victory won the league the attendances were up above 25%. What a surprise? This league is attendances are driven by on field success, as in many other sports.
If you take away the Hearts attendances for this season the Victory are down to 16% but this is miss leading because there is one extra side in the comp as compared to the previous season. Victory’s attendances dropped by 60,000 but that could be on the back of a bad campaign where they finished 5th as well as fan protests, after two successful on-field seasons. The Heart brought 125,000 through the gates and along with the Victory’s attendance helped set a state record for football attendances in the A-League of over 350,000 attendees.
There is now doubt the hearts introduction will help football in the state short, medium and long term.
Football really gathering pace in Melbourne
I could have gone into so much more detail, but it it would have ended up being 2000 words of rambling.
Hopefully this can be the start for each Club fielding a Reserves and U21 side in each respective state league comp, then hopefully everything from U19 to U7
Ideally we need to slowly work on it over the next few years to build up the sport, having each club standing on their own to feet and ultimately having the right foundations to shift all leagues to run aligned from August to May, in conjunction with they Euro leagues.
Youth development moves in right direction