30,000 fans in green and white hoops verse seven orange scarfed home supporters. The competition on the field was just as one sided, Celtic too fast, too strong, to clever by half for the shell shocked Roars, most of whom looked as if they had never seen anything like it, and to be fair, they probably hadn’t. As a large Scotsman at the urinal next to me explained “Oon y'r XBOX, Celtic are, like, a 4 star Te-am. Brisbane are, like arf. Arf a star. Shite.” He spat on my boot for emphasis and I meekly agreed.
Who would have dared argue with this huge, noisy army of madmen? I even found myself inadvertently bellowing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. What a spectacle. Who would have dared argue with this huge, noisy army of madmen. I even found myself inadvertently bellowing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. What a spectacle.
At a glance the day was a
roaring raging success for new football, the Roar and their new administration. However after the game, as the victorious green masses march up caxton st complete with full pipe band, a feeling of unease emerges. Below the surface, the very success of this event brings the A-League's failures into sharp focus and raises a couple of glaring questions.
1: Where were the Roar Fans?
Roughly 25,000 of the 30,000 in attendance were there to support Celtic – even accounting for the possibility that many of those fans may also be regular Roar supporters as well – were were the non-Celtic supporting Queensland public? Only a handful of the Roars’ supporters turned up to watch them play their most illustrious opponents even in their short history. The members’ side of the ground was bizarrely empty and given the phenomenal turn out for the Hoops, the total attendance figure must have been disappointing for the organisers. This does not bode well for the “blockbuster” opening round derby vs gold coast. Miron and the Clive Palmer have done a fantastic job at promoting their club through the media but they won’t be bringing 25,000 traveling supporters to Brisbane for the opening round.
2: Where are these all these Celtic fans every second weekend?
Are they all going to sit at home in front of ESPN for another thirty years waiting for Celtic to tour again? The A-League has clearly failed to capture the imagination of these football fanatics. Football in Australia faces stiff competition from the other less accurately named codes, to be financially viable the A-League must , at the very least, engage those fans who already love the game. New markets in asia and the battle with AFL can wait, first the league must appeal to the converted.
If there are 20,000 - 30,000 Celtic fans in Brisbane, it would safe to bet that there are at least as many rangers fans, 10,000+ Manchester Utd fans, 10,000+ Arsenal fans, 10,000+ Liverpool fans, countless fans of Milan, Inter, Juventus, Barcelona, Madrid, Ajax, Crystal Palace etc etc etc. Why have the Roar and most other A-League clubs, failed to tap into the vast footballing diaspora?
Compared to Celtic with there European Cups and multi million dollar transfer kitty, the Roar may well be "Shite", but when it comes to live football they are the best thing to hit this town since 1997 when the Strikers one the NSL in front of 40,000. So why the resistance? Is it the unnecessarily ugly strip or the ridiculously childish name? Are tickets too expensive or the games too boring? Is it the inevitably contrived vibe that surrounds the A-League as clubs struggle to forge an identity? Is it the ground announcer who sounds like he stuck in a perpetual audition for a gig on the Price is Right? Or are Brisbane's footballing public just too rusted on to their existing overseas clubs or local state league teams to care about the Roar?
Great blog. For me the FFA stuffed up the pricing. They believed their own hype that they were getting 50,000 plus and didn't need to get the members to pull in the crowd. I usually bring 10 plus to finals and special matches (such as we have had). But this time they priced me out of my seat and only allowed me to buy the same number of tickets as my family have season tickets. So I bought 2 tickets for $65 instead of $200 where I normally sit. And my seat was left empty. And guess what? All the people around me had done the same. And together we bought early and pushed all the non-member bought seats up into the nose bleeds. So a lot of people - who don't normally go - thought why bother?
By the way, who do you think the ground announcer at Gold Coast is?
Posted by: john | July 17, 2009 at 11:05 PM
I have no idea but he had some strange ideas about some off the players names... was a real wet blanket.
Interesting stuff re the tickets - we were wondering why all the members seats were empty it did spoil the atmosphere a bit by dispersing the crowd.
Posted by: Ed | July 17, 2009 at 11:26 PM
Ground announcer at GCU is Michael Palmer (clives son & politician) lol
Posted by: Gaz | August 05, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Hah Gaz - your joking... Jobs for the boys hey. Think he should stick to his day job... or perhaps not... woops, no lets not get political.
Posted by: Ed | August 05, 2009 at 10:16 PM