@Ali - So whats more important? The quality of football or the volume of noise the fans make? I am losing site of your point....or whatever it was. You could put u5s curling on in front of loud crowd of 30k (or similarly, this darts bandwagon everyone has jumped on, which I think is a complete waste of time) The noise wont make me go 'I need to watch this'. If you want me to watch, make it a quality product. The instant its not, I'll switch off and chances are extremely high, I wont watch the Warriors this weekend. This year, it only took 2 weeks where as last year, it took 4.
@Ali I think also in respect of what Patrick was saying, its probably time for you lads to jog on for a bit. What do you reckon? You are very quick to lob stones in here but when you get some back, you cry? Come on man. Grow a set.
@BM if TW had won yesterday, I would still have called it what it was. An ordinary game of football that did zero to enhance the national league as a product in the mind of the passive followers.
I have no comment to make about the active supporters because that's not what I am taking aim at nor have a problem with.
Fair enough. By this you mean unless any game of football is a cracker you "switch off" and walk away. That to me is being much too negative. Every football game can't be a classic but we've had some very good ones in the ASBP over the years. I also love the atmosphere, humour, friendship as well as the football. I guess if you don't enjoy that then the football alone won't be enough. I'm sure the YF regulars feel the same way and they have their detractors too.
I've watched lots of really bad A League games. But I am a self-confessed saddo.
I think Jeff's point was more that a casual fan who decided to watch the final because it was on tele would be unlikely to be hooked in to being a regular fan by that game. And I think he's right in that.
Again, I go back a couple of posts to my opening line - I am already engaged. I will watch shit football because I am engaged. Just because I am engaged, does not make me overstate the quality of whats going on and as I said, Sundays game was rather ordinary. Jeremy Ruane does that because every womens game he has ever seen has been the best ever - read his reports. You are trying to link points to suit something in your own mind but there is no correlation. I can go watch a thousand shit football games and still go because I am engaged. I can't do that with the Warriors thus they need to put out a quality product to keep me engaged. You can rightly say I am a football fan but not necessarily a Warriors fan. I will watch good rugby league though but only if its good cause I am not so engaged in the sport to waste my time watching shit rugby league....Correlate that to your average joe that maybe keeps a lazy eye on ASBP and when they tune in, just sees rubbish. That wont make them pay anymore attention. Martin Devlin had a great assessment of the Warriors on the radio this morning. They are like that old mistress that comes past once in a while in the great dress and gives you a nod and a wink. You fool yourself to thinking that this time is different but when you wake up the following morning, you remember why you ditched the tart in the first place (or words to that effect)
The reasons you go to games are different from why others go to games so you can not say 'I go to games for this reason and if you don't go for those same reasons, that can't be enough'. Read it, you just said that. I think you need a massive reality check or to remove the stick from your backside mate. I can go to a game and sit, watch and enjoy quietly on my own and that more than satisfies me. Every person supports the game in their own way. Are you like pissed drunk whisky guy and his bucket being a dero and letting crackers off? Thats how he supports the game. Does he rag on your ass for not being blind drunk by half time and being a tool? Do you knock him for how he supports your ACFC? Hell I doubt he could remember his own name by half time he is that pissed but he is a fan and he supports in his own way. Not my cup of tea but good on him and he is not exactly running past people recruiting going 'you're all cunts for not supporting this team the way I do'
I respect every football game can't be a classic. As I said, if its shit, I'll call it shit but when over half the games on the league are marginal quality, you can't sit there and say the league has a massive bias and injustice against if for being unfairly supported when the last 3-4 televised ASBP games have been poor. As you said yourself - 'some classics'. The league needs at least half of the games to be quality to engage the passive fan. (So you don't go over this again, I am already engaged)
What we were talking about, and as Smithy correctly mentioned is how do you get the casual/passive fan engaged? I don't have the answer and I suspect you nor others don't but I can tell you that yesterdays game would not have made people go 'fuck I have to go out each Sunday and watch this'. If it was working, crowds would have been huge after last years televised games. They are not, but I suspect you knew the answer to that already.