Growing Crowds - Engaging with the Wellington Indian Community

From time to time, Silly I know, I have a quick scan through the Nix Facebook Page comments.

A fairly significant percentage of the comments in there are from people from the Indian / Fijian Indian  Community going potty over the exploits of Roy Krishna.

I know Facebook is far from Scientific or representative, but their does not seem to be a large number of Indian folk at the Cake Tin on a match day. Is this a market that the Nix are missing out on? Is there anyway to increase patronage from the large Indian community in Wellington?

Actually I see a fair few (and other Asian faces).  

Just bear in mind that there is a reason why ethnic minorities are called "ethnic minorities" - there's not a lot of us compared with the majority, so you don't often see us even if we are there...

Is the Indian community in Wellington overly large?

Just a feeling that ethnic minority does seem a little under represented. Obviously far from Scientific and based solely on a gut feel.

S'all good.  There was talk about this with Gao and Jiang.

Mind you Krishna is actually good...

Around 4% of population in Wellington Identify as Indian based on last Census. That obviously excludes "kiwi Indian". Not a huge percentage granted but about the same as British and Irish which are probably over represented at Nix Games

lol forgot about that, mind you, they were recruited with that specifically in mind I think. Footballing ability was secondary!

If you look at the amount of indian resturants as a percentage of overall resturants I would say that its quite large.

Perhaps Southern Mainlanders are under-represented based on the number of places that sell cheese rolls?

One of the guys I nearly gave my Brandon's Random Act of Kindness ticket too for the last home game was an Indian guy. He refused the ticket, because (in his words) he was definitely going, was willing and able to pay, and would rather I gave the ticket to someone who wouldn't otherwise go.

He said he had never been to a live Phoenix match. It was going to be his first time. He lived in Upper Hutt and played seniors football for Wainuiomata - he used to live there - and still played there because he was involved in the club with his mates (many of whom were thenically Indian too). He said they all followed the Phoenix, but that none of them had been to a game before, but they were all going as a team this time and were all really excited about it.

I have a large number of Indian friends who are sports mad. I play in a cricket team where I am the token white guy and the rest are all Indians. I am working on getting them along to the Phoenix... we've NEARLY got there a couple of times...

I work with two indians. One from India, one from Fiji. Just asked them and they both said they tend to like to hang out at home most of the time and watch sport where they can eat lots of indian food with their friends and families. Unless its sunny and hot, and the name of the game is cricket, then they will often make a day of it.

Could this be a cool chant at Westpac? I reckon it would sound awesome going around the inside of the stadium.

Crowd scene chanting.

Remember also the Auckland Indian and Indo-Fijian market. A couple of clubs (Mangere Utd, Otahuhu, S.A.R.) are predominately Indian,at least for the men's game. In the subcontinent countries, they go as potty over football as they do over cricket, except that their own leagues are pretty shark so they tend to follow EPL etc. I read a funny story recently how Auckland Rugby League were trying to get those communities into their sport, but they weren't keen on being jumped by large Samoan lads, so they started their own "Ethnic Rugby League" and some of them are now good enough to play with the big Pakeha and Polynesians.

I will also note that I was very impressed at the several little knots of young East Asian people, male and female, at the Eden Park game.

But I think the issue is that YF culture is quite based on Brit and, to a lesser extent, other Euro fandom, so I can see why other ethnicities would not find it easy to get involved.

Next time the Spurs group from daan Saarf come up to a match, can we have them next to the WHam group?  

Would make for great atmosphere.  I'll supply the bottle caps.

I took an Indian workmate to a home game and he loved- never been before. Next time he's bringing his brother

My great-great-great-grandmother (give or take a great-) was Indian, but I reckon it would be a bit of a stretch for me to claim it as my ethnicity. I think Krishna is pretty awesome though.