If South Melbourne was playing in this semi you could add on 20,000+ spectators. The A League never learns that adding new franchises to big cities rarely works. City and WU have failed to engage any significant fan support in Melbourne This is not how football works.....its a tribal sport. Franchises only really work when there is one per city and the city engages with the club like Adelaide, AFC and the Nix
If South Melbourne was playing in this semi you could add on 20,000+ spectators. The A League never learns that adding new franchises to big cities rarely works. City and WU have failed to engage any significant fan support in Melbourne This is not how football works.....its a tribal sport. Franchises only really work when there is one per city and the city engages with the club like Adelaide, AFC and the Nix
They wanted more derbies and they got them. A classic case of 'be careful what you wish for'.
Finishes 3-0 to City. Disappointing for the neutral. Can't see WU turning that margin round. They will rue Grimaldi's butchered header from two yards out that should've made it 1-1.
Look at the crowd! For what is essentially a Melbourne derby in a semi final, is it even 5k?
Unless I somehow missed it they didn’t even announce the attendance tonight.
Respect to the Western support who kept up the noise to the bitter end, but they really were outclassed on the pitch - especially that beauty of a goal from Cohen.
If South Melbourne was playing in this semi you could add on 20,000+ spectators. The A League never learns that adding new franchises to big cities rarely works. City and WU have failed to engage any significant fan support in Melbourne This is not how football works.....its a tribal sport. Franchises only really work when there is one per city and the city engages with the club like Adelaide, AFC and the Nix
Yep and there are reasons why they havnt been given an APL spot. Not sure people want to revisit some of the shark from the NSL.
Unfortunate that not only was the second and more meaningful/decisive leg of this tie going to be in the same stadium next week, there was also going to be a much more exciting and well attended game the very next night at the same stadium. You can see why many people who may have had some interest in this tie might not have wanted to make the effort to attend this one. They may even have had the intention to go to the second leg, though they probably won't now given how little jeopardy there is after such a one sided result.
2nd Leg is gonna be pretty empty. Same venue, same teams, one clear winner, and the tickets will probably be expensive as hell
I think you’re right, I was talking to some Western supporters on the train afterwards saying hey there’s still another game to go, but understandably that didn’t exactly cheer them up.
Tickets for this weekend were A$75 a pop. The organisers obviously know the impact because a lot of the seating blocks weren’t even opened up for last night’s game - at the time I naively thought they must’ve already sold out for the derby, but now I look closely I was pax 985 for City-Western and 4751 for Victory-AFC (both purchased within half an hour of going on public sale).
One silver lining was that I was seated closer to the pitch last night, which helped me appreciate how much better the spectator experience is in a rectangular stadium - I think that’s one of the reasons I often enjoy the Wahinix games at Porirua Park more than the men’s at the RoF.
I’m glad I’m further back tonight though because it’s a rainy 13 degrees here today. It’ll be interesting to see if the Port get the south terrace or if they’re crammed into the southeast corner like we were for our Victory game.
Why was the WU v Melb city game played at AAMI Park and not Western United’s ground? They only got 5,000 people there. Surely WU’s ground would hold that? Was it WU’s decision or the A-League?
Why was the WU v Melb city game played at AAMI Park and not Western United’s ground? They only got 5,000 people there. Surely WU’s ground would hold that? Was it WU’s decision or the A-League?
Somebody (VicPol?) determined Ironbark was unfit to host derby matches, so they can't play the Melbourne teams there and instead must play it at AAMI, the home ground of the other Melbourne teams.
Pretty average turnout. I was quite disappointed by the turnout when i went over for the semi last year as well. And this is the biggest club in the league!
So with that poor turnout tonight, it is going to be 3 out of the 4 semifinal games with abysmal attendances. Aren't the TV rights going to be up for negotiation agaim soon? Have the APL shot themselves in the foot by massively overcharging for tickets for these games, making their product look terrible on TV?
Current deal expires at the end of next season. But yes you imagine negotiations will start well before then.
Overall the viewing numbers are up, both in Aus & NZ. For a TV deal that's more important than live crowd numbers, though yes no one wants half full stadiums or worse for finals football.
The pitiful annual disbursement from the APL this season, wasn't just a product of the current Channel 10 media rights deal, but also APL squandering away the Silver Lake cash, on the KeepUp debacle.
Why was the WU v Melb city game played at AAMI Park and not Western United’s ground? They only got 5,000 people there. Surely WU’s ground would hold that? Was it WU’s decision or the A-League?
Somebody (VicPol?) determined Ironbark was unfit to host derby matches, so they can't play the Melbourne teams there and instead must play it at AAMI, the home ground of the other Melbourne teams.
An utter joke. The ALM is shooting itself in the foot so much it's not even funny.
They allow a team into the comp with no home ground, then they promise a stadium (that never happens) then play at a training ground with a capacity of 5k but deem it not fit for derby matches... I don't think there were much more than 5k at AAMI park anyway. So they'll dish the same thing up next weekend and expect fans to turn up? Same teams, stadium, empty stands... It belittles the integrity of the competition. No wonder its all going down hill.
Western and MacArthur joining has added massively to the negativity re poor attendances. It's totally fine to have smaller clubs with smaller stadiums, fewer fans etc, the same happens in every country. I find the difference here is some of these clubs feel soulless.
The crowds for the Melbourne semis are a disaster for a city of 5 million. The city has a large dynamic football community. I talked to some if my mates there and they said the poor turnouts are the local football fans giving the AL the middle finger. The AL have managed to alienate just about everyone on the city. The fans hated having Heart/City and WU forced on them. Those two franchises have never worked. There is resentment that old established clubs have been shut out. The narrative is because there was ethnic troubles back in the 60s and 70s then these clubs will forever but shut out if the ALeague. In actual fact the kids and grand kids of the 60s migrants are now fair dinkum Aussies. Clubs like Sth Melbourne have their own stadium and get crowds up to 18,000 and there are no acts of violence. They could walk into next seasons A League and add to the comp. No fan of an established Melbourne club is ever going to switch support to a plastic A League franchise
The crowds for the Melbourne semis are a disaster for a city of 5 million. The city has a large dynamic football community. I talked to some if my mates there and they said the poor turnouts are the local football fans giving the AL the middle finger. The AL have managed to alienate just about everyone on the city. The fans hated having Heart/City and WU forced on them. Those two franchises have never worked. There is resentment that old established clubs have been shut out. The narrative is because there was ethnic troubles back in the 60s and 70s then these clubs will forever but shut out if the ALeague. In actual fact the kids and grand kids of the 60s migrants are now fair dinkum Aussies. Clubs like Sth Melbourne have their own stadium and get crowds up to 18,000 and there are no acts of violence. They could walk into next seasons A League and add to the comp. No fan of an established Melbourne club is ever going to switch support to a plastic A League franchise
A quick google search says South play at Lakeside stadium and has a max capacity ok 12k. How and when do they get 18k?
The crowds for the Melbourne semis are a disaster for a city of 5 million. The city has a large dynamic football community. I talked to some if my mates there and they said the poor turnouts are the local football fans giving the AL the middle finger. The AL have managed to alienate just about everyone on the city. The fans hated having Heart/City and WU forced on them. Those two franchises have never worked. There is resentment that old established clubs have been shut out. The narrative is because there was ethnic troubles back in the 60s and 70s then these clubs will forever but shut out if the ALeague. In actual fact the kids and grand kids of the 60s migrants are now fair dinkum Aussies. Clubs like Sth Melbourne have their own stadium and get crowds up to 18,000 and there are no acts of violence. They could walk into next seasons A League and add to the comp. No fan of an established Melbourne club is ever going to switch support to a plastic A League franchise
That is still tragic if you have regular crowds of multiple thousands in the state leagues and if many of those are not attending A-League games, is anything being done or can anything be done to heal the rift between "proper soccer" and the A-League?
Re Imanix above, the new NSD is definitely an effort by Football Australia to bridge some of that disconnection between the old NPL/NSL clubs, and the A League.
Will some of those NSD clubs then later on get admitted to the ALM? Who knows.
To be honest, I think the AFC crowd this weekend are going to be an embarrassment to the A League. Why? Because there'll be 25+k there unlike their "Big Gun" Melbourne City Crowd. In 1 game AFC will have more fans there than in the other 3 semi final games had in total.
I understand a lot of the politics causing this but $75 for a frigging ticket? The A League are taking the piss out of fans for wanting that much money. Greed, Greed, Greed on their part. It would have looked better to have full stands on TV at $10 tickets than almost empty stadiums at $75.
Proud to have attended the first 175 Consecutive "Home" Wellington Phoenix "A League" Games !!
Thats because pro football these days is all about money and less about the fans. Funny how NZ got shiite from Australia for years now a NZ team is going to contribute 3 or 4 times $$ to the comp than the 3 other semifinalists combined.
