I will agree with you about watching games where I have no vested interest in either club, but just because they need the points to stay up. The last 6 rounds of the EPL where you watch what happened to Leeds, Newcastle, Everton etc, was really good TV. And seeing the elation of the Everton fans after securing their status, tells us everything we need to know.

I guess P/R does bring with it exciting football, both in the NSD as teams vie for that promotion spot and the teams fighting tooth and nail not to be relegated.

The whim I was referring to was with some fans, I have every confidence in the current administration is doing everything right, and due diligence is expected of them.

Andy, I hope you are right, give them NOTHING.

Well put Jordan, You may well be right about reading the ‘tea leafs’ I had forgotten that it is still the FA in charge of the expansion, having given it more thought, you are most likely right, P/R will be the FA’s preferred option.

It would be great to be able to look forward 5; 10 or 15 years to see where we will be.

With promotion and relegation, there are so many more variables that have to be considered. It isn’t straight as forward as we all think or would like it to be.

Even more of a conundrum is if they decide [the FA] that after a settling-in period the NSD becomes open to P/R then that does present a whole new can of worms.

Jordan, I’m glad you asked. Let’s start with just the basic Admin staff shall we, not volunteers but actual paid employees, Receptionists, I use the plural because you will need two, [they will end up organising your ticketing in-between answer the phones] a GM and his/her assistant, PR come spin merchant and social media guru and website nerd, sponsorship director and at least two other assistants, these people will have to go out and secure the big and the little dollars. You will also need office space and an actual office to work out of. Plus if you plan to keep your fans involved then I suggest you will need a fans coordinator. At a quick count that is 8 full-time staff and I will say that is a bare minimum unless they aren’t serious about being in a fully professional league.

Then you want to look at your coaching staff, assuming their first-team coach is already full-time and on 100+k you then have his assistant, his goalkeeper coach, his assistant, the medical staff, [massuse, physio, etc] all full time now, these guys or girls won’t come cheap. That’s just your first team in the ALM, we haven’t touched on the staff required for any teams underneath them, or their ALW, assuming that they will be required to field one. {But maybe not, I’m sure no one has given that too much thought just yet, as a whole we tend to neglect our women.} You can see where I’m going here.

Yes, I understand that a club promoted from the NSD will have most if not all of these people in place, but I am sure that just as the players will be expecting a pay rise, so will their staff. After all, it is a whole team effort.

As Towser says in his reply, we need ambitious clubs to push those above them, just as the NSD will need clubs in each states NPL to push those clubs in the NSD, [unless they expect their NSD to be a closed shop too] But IMO a simple P/R needs far more thought than just us fans wanting it to be so. I believe that all of the NSD should have to prove their financial commitment to gaining promotion well before it is introduced. I am not saying, never I am saying, we will only get one chance to get it right, so lets do it right, not just on a whim.

Jordan, I disagree. if these clubs who will make up the NSD next year have a lazy 20-mill sitting around, why haven’t they done better in the Cup?

Organic P/R in my mind is still ten years away unless you want the ALM to exist on the East Coast only. Do you?

Two more licenses have to be sold, and not in either NSW or Vic. I know I will get shouted down, but it is important to make these decisions not with your heart but after careful thought. Nothing anyone has put forward to support P/R [other than they want it] has shown us that a club from any of the NPLs have the finances to compete in the ALM.

Please, please every one take a step back and think it through.

@ Dennis – Having watched the Women’s Euro it is clear to me that the quality that is about to turn up next year is downright scary. Norway are no mugs, and they were lucky it was only 8.

We are a fair way off, atm, and our development is a few years behind them, hopefully, our girls will prove me wrong and bring home the WC. Austria has a development program that is regarded as the best in Europe, according to the Irish coach, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they too put Norway to the sword in their final game.

Seeing if we qualify for the next stage of the AFF tournament later tonight will be interesting, yes we have sent out a second or third-string team over there, playing against the first teams of other nations, but it is still the Matilda’s and these results reflect badly on us.

The quality at the Euro’s should be a real wake up call to the FA.

Towser, explain to me how you think P/R will help. Those clubs are going to need 20 mill just to compete from day 1.

Maybe I am missing something, but if these clubs have got a lazy 20-mill sitting around, why haven’t they put up a better performance in the Australia Cup? Having P/R just for the sake of it isn’t going to help us, in fact, it will harm us.

Grem, you hit the nail on the head mate.

I do live in Adelaide and I am a member of AUFC and have been from day one, proudly so. With all these names popping up as Marquees for the upcoming season, I will be disappointed if we haven’t put our hand up for one. However the fact is there isn’t the corporate support here in Adelaide for a Marquee player, I can remember talking to Kossie about it and that was the main reason the club has never seriously considered a Marquee player. Over here it is too hard to make money out of them.

I don’t want to point out the obvious error in your statement Andy, we are hosting a WC next year with New Zealand. But we know you meant the men’s sections of a WC.

@ Foot n’ Ball – For the life of me, why would anyone with a love of the game post something so stupid?

FIL – Wouldn’t have changed a thing back then, but I didn’t know any different. Now I am older and wiser {the Mrs debates that at times} yes the players were more loyal and they were still on a good wicket compared to the rest of us.

But we didn’t see some of the best players in the world week in and week out. The pitches were rubbish after the first month of wet weather and fullbacks never went over the halfway line and they could kick the living daylights out of you, with complete impunity, egged by their coaches and dragged if the winger went past them too many times.

My memory is pretty good, loved it back then but love today’s football more.

Good point, all it will take is a politician ‘mis-speaking’ over here and opps, where’s Aaron gone?

FIL – go back further mate, when there was only one match ‘replayed’ in black and white on a Monday night. Match of the Day with Brian Moore.

Back then if you wanted to watch a match you had to go to a ground, stand in the pouring rain, freezing your [you know what’s off] and hope like hell you don’t miss the 5:10 bus because mum will not keep your dinner hot. As far as keeping up to date with the other scores, you’d remember the old scoreboards with the alphabet on them and having to buy a match day program so you knew which game was which. Match Z 3-1 oh yeah, Oxford vs Luton. You’d then ask your mate, are they in the 3rd or 4th Div. Oh yeah, those were the days. No thanks. Rather love it the way it is right now. Greedy players and their managers and all.

A fair bit of difference in the weekly pay packet. Not sure I would have changed jobs for less money, pretty sure the Mrs wouldn’t have been too happy either.

Personally, it will affect the King household, we love our A-League so will miss it. We will also watch most matches during the WC, no matter how we feel about where it is and how they got it, and the many souls who lost their lives building the stadia, All of that will be forgotten by the time the games KO.

An interesting discussion took place around the dinner table about the Premier League, will they be taking a break too? I mean it is likely to be more disruptive for those clubs than ours.

So are you telling us that SFC are about to sign both players, or it is just a thought bubble by them?

An interesting article Andy, You seemed to be in the know. In the article, you stated that [In your opinion] Adelaide has underachieved, yet often you tell us that you feel we are doing wonders on the little money and small budget available. Like you on other occasions I feel finishing top 4 is no mean feat. It will only get tougher for us to keep doing that.

It seems Friday there may be a big announcement, have you heard anything along those lines yet?

@ Andrew01 – Hi mate, welcome back to football. Tell me how can we make you feel more welcome and what will it take to get you to 5 or 6 A League games next season?

FiL – what a great little piece of writing there. It deserves to be on the back page of every bloody newspaper in the country. Including the Australian [Do they write about sport in their paper yet?] Unfortunately though you are preaching to the converted, we, or most of us, agree wholeheartedly with you.

Like many who have been around for a fair while, I am happy to be the sport ‘bullied’ buy the VFL/AFL in Melbourne and the NRL in Sydney. Why you ask, because being the under dog is the Australian way, we fight, we scrap, we defy the odds and come up trumps.
Do not be surprised by the results we get in the WC.

These blokes may not be household names to the general sporting public but to those of us who follow the game closely, we know who they are, we know what they are capable of. So if a jurno in a small local paper doesn’t know who they are, more shame on him.

I do sympathize with WSW fans, IMO Mark Rudan is overrated as a coach so far, like a lot of our younger players, “he showed some early signs of being great, but never reached his full potential.”

I fear for Yengi, [I was going to say young Yengi, but at 23 he isn’t so young] I think he will stand out in the early part of next season, but as his goals to game ratio isn’t fantastic, I think by round 6 he will find himself on the bench if he’s not injured of course.

MR will be expecting results from day one, if these boys get a run, they will have to maintain their level of performance to earn Rudan’s trust. We all know the problem with young players.

This match has gone largely unreported. Not sure why. It was a good performance from the young lads. Also, live on Paramount+. Next match Saturday night at 10.30 pm U23 Asian Cup

Grem, you have opened a can of worms with the statement “we just need the best-funded and most competitive teams in the A-League” to hint or suggest that a local NPL club is better funded than an A-League side is just not right.

Yes, an NSD but those clubs would need to show they can match it, financially, with current A-League clubs. I doubt they can.

Joyed that no ONE found the back of the net resulting in a winner, hence the tension, [which was the whole point of the statement]

Sure City had their chances, and either ‘fluffed’ them or didn’t get them on target. While Adelaide got them on target but with no fire in any of their shots bar the odd 1 or 2.

Trust me the tension in the crowd was very very evident if you were there.

Thank you JB. We are in agreeance, with each other.

One of the many reasons the NSL fell on hard times is, as you have quite rightly pointed out, the lack of a strong revenue-raising formula. {The NSL were chasing their tails and had run out of ideas} and at the base of it, all was the lack of money.

This brings us to today, and why the ALM & W need a broadcast deal and why those broadcasters have to have a say in how the league [not the game] is run. So when the likes of myself whine about fixtures that are biased towards a certain market, I have to suck it up and be grateful for what we have.

I know there will be a mountain of people who will disagree with this last statement, and I am sure they will tell me that it is the fans who should be put before any commercial deal, and if they have a strong argument, then all I can add to their argument is why can’t the fans fund it all then?

First the minor semi-final and no crystal ball in the Kings household, plenty of discussions though. She, who must be obeyed, is steadfast that Victory must never be given a leg up by us picking them [she should have seen my record before saying this I think] as she is looking over my shoulder I am told WE are picking Western Utd to pull off the biggest comeback since Lazarus.
Now for the main event. This will be a ripper of a BIG match. Unlike Wednesday’s tension-filled nil-all battle, this will become a free-scoring affair, with all those goals both sides missed in their first encounter finding the back of the net. After a 2 all 90 minute feast of football, the following 30 minutes provide both drama, controversy and a 90 + 3-minute penalty that rescues City to drag them into a nerve-racking penalty shoot-out. at 7 all with no goal-keeper getting close to any of the goals so far, young Socceroo goal-keeper in waiting Joe Gauci, pulls off a blinder and as young Nestor Irukunda steps up to the spot with the crowd holding their breath, the silence is deafening, and with the calmness of a seasoned pro, sends the Might REDS into the Grand-Final against their most hated of rivals Victory Western Utd.
edited by Mrs King.