No A-League Team for Canberra

justbands said :

> the Canberra Kookaburras (rugby)

Errrr…whilst I agree with your post in general (how can they expect an A-League team if nobody turns up), you’re wrong about the Kookaburras/Vikings. They actually had higher crowd averages than the Sydney teams….& when they had the ARC a couple of seasons back, they were the only team not to make a massive loss.

The Kookas & Vikings after them were kicked out of the Sydney comp for one reason & one reason alone….they kept beating the Sydney teams…ditto for Eddies & Marist from the Waratah Shield.

too true!!

> the Canberra Kookaburras (rugby)

Errrr…whilst I agree with your post in general (how can they expect an A-League team if nobody turns up), you’re wrong about the Kookaburras/Vikings. They actually had higher crowd averages than the Sydney teams….& when they had the ARC a couple of seasons back, they were the only team not to make a massive loss. The Kookas & Vikings after them were kicked out of the Sydney comp for one reason & one reason alone….they kept beating the Sydney teams…ditto for Eddies & Marist from the Waratah Shield.

If the low crowd at the Central Coast game was a contributing factor (and it wasn’t ‘essentially a trial game’, sb14, it was essentially a ‘proper’ A-League match)in this decision,then the team behind the Canberra bid have to shoulder some of the blame. My son plays first grade football for Marist, yet at his game the day after the match, some of the parents had no idea a game (an A-League game) had even been played in Canberra. Why were the bid team not visiting schools and Football clubs in the fortnight leading up to the game handing out free tickets for the players and their parents?
Running a top flight football team is a big, big job. Maybe the people in charge of the Canberra bid, whilst keen to read about themselves and see their pictures in the paper, aren’t interested in the sheer hard yakka such an undertaking demands. So perhaps its best the bid has failed at this stage – if indeed it has. The FFA are still this morning denying a decision has been made, so… However I think they will note that as there seems to be no appetite in Canberra for the more mundane aspects of the competition (you can’t play Sydney or Melbourne every week, even in the artificial, made-for-TV, entertainment-driven world of the A-League)the twelfth license will be awarded elsewhere.

I understand the attendance at a A league match the week after the game in canberra was only a thousand more, despite one of the teams being at home. But agree, Western Sydney was always going to win..

Oh, and just for the record, it wasn’t lack of support that killed off the Kookaburras, it was that they were too successful for the parochial State competitions they played in to stomach!

Anna Key said :

Why is 5,000 turning up for a game with limited supporter attachment held against us? Ditto the poor attendance at the recent AFL game. Less than twice that turn up for a Raiders game who supposedly have strong local support and receive plenty of media coverage.

But people are living in a dream world if they think an A league team would be a long term proposition in Canberra, as much as I would love to see it.

Raiders v St. George…..nigh on 20,000. Raiders get 10,000 on a bad day. Raiders also have a small company supporting them names News Corp. You may have heard of them. Some guy named Rupert owned or used to own it

And Canberra Kookaburras? What a ridiculous example. We chose to no longer play in Sydney after making the GF in the 1st year

Gungahlin Al said :

What Swaggie said. Stupid comment by TS. I wouldn’t bother going to a league game between 2 Sydney teams either – same thing.

That said, I think soccer badly needs a bit of the one-day-cricket treatment. Make the goal mouth wider and reduce the team size. Get some scoring happening. A whole game with no score?…yawn.

Agreed there.

Also, why would the A league want a team destined to fail? Canberrans don’t turn out and support any team that is not succeed, and generally most (male) teams based here don’t. The Raiders get a couple of people, which these days is fewer than a decent AFL game at Manuka. Though having a team in a competition that is run mostly in the warmer months may have helped the soccer team, Canberrans also don’t show up if it’s freezing cold and wet, as the AFL game between Sydney and Melbourne found out a couple of months back.

They simply realised that any soccer team based here would be the Cosmos MkII.

I hope the crowd attendance at that game had no baring on the decision. If it did, it was completely hypocritical by the A-League.

The owner of the new Gold Coast team wants to cap attendance at 5000 to limit losses. So an established team in a parochial area can have 5000 attending, but the same attendance at a game featuring no local team, in what is essentially a trial match is a poor showing?

What Swaggie said. Stupid comment by TS. I wouldn’t bother going to a league game between 2 Sydney teams either – same thing.

That said, I think soccer badly needs a bit of the one-day-cricket treatment. Make the goal mouth wider and reduce the team size. Get some scoring happening. A whole game with no score?…yawn.

Trunk mate, it was more than 5000 for a match between 2 teams we have no interest in. Try putting on Perth Glory v Brisbane Roar in West Sydney and see how many people rock up for that one. At no time did FFA say that the attendance for the match the other week was a test of Canberra support except after the event. They did say this was the case for the Socceroos match v Kuwait and consequently 20,000 people turned out. You are unbelievably naive if you think the attendance for Central Coast v Perth had any bearing on this decision.

Why is 5,000 turning up for a game with limited supporter attachment held against us? Ditto the poor attendance at the recent AFL game. Less than twice that turn up for a Raiders game who supposedly have strong local support and receive plenty of media coverage.

But people are living in a dream world if they think an A league team would be a long term proposition in Canberra, as much as I would love to see it.

That quote is from a piece by Mike Cockerill, who is often so desperate for a scoop that he doesn’t actually bother checking his facts before running his story. Tribal football reports that, although the bid is going to Western Sydney, and will possibly be awarded by the end of the month, it isn’t necessarily going to the bid mentioned above.

Yes it was a really fair race, Lowy wants a Western Sydney Team so Lowy gets a Western Sydney Team. All the other applicants for the licence were really just wasting their time as the goal posts were moved every time we looked like being on target. They can bring back the NSL with all their grubby little ethnic teams and bigoted supporters for all I care now.

wait until they start getting local derbys. For some reason soccer seems to bring with it more crowd trouble than all the rugby codes combined, if that is the UK is anything to go by. That aside, I for one am a little disapointed at this decission. soccer, love it or loath it is rapidly gaining in popularity in Australia. It’s a good game, so why not? Once again, Canberra is kicked into touch!

Well you can blame those so-called “fans” who failed to turn up at the A-League game at Canberra Stadium a few weeks back. Despite politicians, local soccer officials and countless posts on this board urging people to turn up at the game to give a good impression, less than 5,000 bothered to show. Who can blame the soccer heirarchy for deciding not to bother with Canberra. Add this to the roll of dishonour which includes the Canberra Cannons (basketball), the Canberra Kookaburras (rugby) and the Canberra Bushrangers (baseball). This time we’ve actually broken new ground in that the team in question hadn’t even played their first game before people didn’t bother turning up.