FFA Cup - R1 vs Adelaide | 5 Aug | Marden Sports Complex | 10pm

that's a cool idea then. 

But in that case we should definetely be playing other A league clubs at home, as Patrick said. 

We've drawn Adelaide, and we are suppsoed to be playing it at home according to the draw. Will be interesting to see if it gets moved to Adelaide or not.

Watches with interest. "We're gonna win the cup, we're gonna win the cup....

We should be at home, but the FFA (Football Fuckups Assosciation) already stated we cannot play at home, so it will be at Hindmarsh.

Adelaide United tweeted saying we will be travelling to Wellington for our opening round match.

Even the clubs don't know what they are doing, well trained by the FFA I see!!!

We don't know what we're doing!

I thought I read in that FFA Cup Q&A article that the FFA were paying for flights and accomodation for all participating clubs (correct me if I'm wrong) which would mean regardless of whether we were playing at home or away the FFA would have to fork out the same amount. Which begs the question, why must we play all our games away?

So that they would let us into the competition.

@patrick478 There won't be any #FFACup games in NZ this season.

— Wellington Phoenix (@WgtnPhoenixFC) June 27, 2014

Such a shame really. I know why they do it, but we are drawn against another A-league club first up, why can't we get it at home. Silly

Yeah but the reason is obviously not financial then like some people were stating earlier.

Maybe they will let the club decide where in Aussie we will play? Plenty of expats in Aussie, I'm sure we could find somewhere good to host it.

I'd suggest the reason is around tv rights, with sky not getting them and fox not able to broadcast here. Will be interesting. 

Its complete bs anyway, we should be treated the same as every other club, and if it is TV the FFA shouldn't allow their competition to be compromised in such a serious way by TV. 

Why is there so much ridiculous structure to the draw? I just fail too see why all 32 are not just put in a hat and drawn?

We have these pots, and as a result 6 A-League teams can only play one another? Thought this tournament was about getting some variety of fixtures?!

It's so there is a non A-league team in the semis. I agree though. With only 10 A-League teams and 22 NPL teams there is a good chance with just 1 or 2 upsets that NPL teams are going to go far.

Ah, yeah I do remember reading that.

Yeah, still don't agree. A normal draw could still result in a NPL team getting that far anyway.

FFA just can't seem to allow anything to play out without undue interference.

Has kind of soured the 'magic' of the cup just having us playing an A-League club without even having had a chance of drawing a lower league club.

This is about Australian grass roots football, nothing else (OK maybe there is something deeper but if you lived here you'd no how much ground the FFA has lost with the old clubs of Oz football & how it hurt the continued sustained growth of the A-League).

Only change to your draw if technically a "home" one I'd like to see would be if you management had the right to play your Aussie based home game at a ground of your choosing.

So if you drew us, you might like to play us at Parra or somewhere (Tardistan?) you might maximize some anti Sydney FC feeling....

Play it in Perth. Plenty of kiwis there

More South Africans in Perth.

Wellington?

I get why the smaller Aussie clubs might struggle to come here, but it's beyond me why Adelaide Utd can't play us here.

I highly doubt any FFA Cup game would be played in Wellington. We get to see other A-League teams at home at least once a year already. The public wouldn't care about the game in Wellington. It would be taken around the country somewhere. 

It still doesn't seem fair but I'm just happy to be in the comeptition.

Why would 'the public' care any more or less about a cup tie? We'd get our usual sort of crowd. We were drawn at home, we should play at home.

If we're not going to put in a serious title challenge, we should really be looking at putting in a serious effort at winning this cup. Otherwise, what's the point?

Do you reckon we would? Even in the UK it seems a lot of teams draw less for FA Cup games (except the really big teams). I think the cup tie would just be seen as a pre season game.

I think the further we progress in it the more interest there will be. Higher stakes = higher crowd. 

I think if we do well once that might spark some interest in subsequent seasons, but until that happens I agree we might struggle to capture much interest from the general public.

How many people did we get along to that Pre-Season Cup final against the Victory?

about 9000 iirc.

You'd expect this final to draw more, since it isn't just a preseason cup. But who knows. 

FA Cup draws quite high crowds all over as far as I can tell??

If this cup is treated like some pre season tournament then it's going to fail. Would probably rather it's timing was a little better I guess. Having the first game before the season starts is a little strange.

It depends on what you consider high. FA Cup crowds at least in the initial rounds generally seem to be lower than for a Premier League game between those same two clubs.

I think the tournament will definitely be successful in that it will add more interest to the league and provide pathways for teams and players. I don't think the all A-League clashes will see very big crowds in round 1. If we had a Sydney derby in the semis/finals then it will go off. I think this will be the sort of competition fans suddenly care about when they pop up in a final. Even if crowds aren't great it will be better than regular pre-season games. This competition will also take time to grow.

The problem is that the NPL is a winter league. If there was an NPL team making a final on Australia Day then it would be really tough for them.

I think sometimes there may be slightly lower crowds purely for the reason that season tickets don't count for cup ties in the UK. So, money is a factor.

When some NPL games draw 3-4k crowds how can any FFA Cup game not be good. 

You sometimes get 2k in Kiwitea for an ACFC game. What's your point?

If only the Knightz or Kingz could have got crowds like that instead of 900 in a population of football players and fans that must exceed at least 20,000 in Auckland. I think the poi t being made is that these smaller clubs in Aussie are getting reaso able gates considering the level at which it is being played.

I was at Mount Smart Stadium for Kingz games with 8,500 people there.

I am not being smart about this, but am geninely interested. Depite the string of suck results, just why did the crowd number dwindle up there? I myself would love to have a team from there and chch in the Aleague. I think the league would be a lot better if teams only played each other twice - home and away and it would stop the travelling circus. I doubt if it would ever happen but it would be fun. If only there were crowds to support it.

There were a number of factors that all converged, in my opinion.

The crowd numbers peaked in Wynton Rufer's last season. His retirement in and of itself certainly was a significant lost draw card.

The club then was also stressed financially... which had an effect, both on marketing and signings.

They then signed a cadre of South Melbourne folks, players and coaches... and, well it didn't work out very well. It had a significant impact (in a number of ways) on crowd numbers. 

Performances suffered, and crowd numbers dropped further.

The Kingz then went under, and the Knightz were founded... 

....and for all sorts of reasons they were never really embraced en masse. A number of die hard Kingz fans were actually offended that the Knightz seemed to assume that they would automatically become Knightz fans when they felt they were Kingz fans... either way, the trials and tribulations of the final two years were pretty much a train wreck. Poor results just reinforced the disillusionment, and by then the downward spiral had become self reinforcing.