More teams in the A-league

More teams in the A-league

Its encouraging to hear that gold coast and townsville possibly might be added to the a-league, if anyone has not read it, its on the main page on this website or you can click below, this would make more rounds in the a-league from 21 to 27 which means the season is longer, which means more footie to enjoy!!!

more infor from the a-league offical site

"Northern Thunder" is such an embarrassing name that it tarnishes the rest of the league.

Its better than Victory or Roar IMO

could be worse -

could be Southern Thunder from the Ring of fire

I think Roar already has that prize.

Dont want to be too picky here but I couldnt find this on the official A League site, which makes it unofficial to me. Can you provide a link to it?


However agree it looks good for this season, but 2 points from the Sydney Morning Herald today

1. maybe not so good for Wynton Rufer

2. the name may be changed slightly, but still has the "thunder" element in it

Quote "In A-League news, it is believed officials of a Townsville-based consortium hoping to join the competition next season have agreed to a change of name from Northern Thunder to North Queensland Thunder after the FFA made it clear it wanted a more specific regional identity. Former New Zealand international Wynton Rufer's position as head coach of the new franchise could also be in doubt.

A decision on whether to admit North Queensland and Gold Coast Galaxy in time for next season is due to be made by the FFA board next week. Former French international Laurent Robert - now with English premier league strugglers Derby County - has already been linked to the Thunder as their inaugural marquee player."

Hard News2008-02-13 13:33:29

My edit above was to fix the quote.

Gatt is one of the Melbourne papers.  I'll find it for you.

Can you URL the SMH piece for me ?  Cheers.

No probs with your housework!

Is this what u mean with URL?

http://www.smh.com.au/news/a-league/ffa-opts-for-sfs-grand-final/2008/02/12/1202760301508.html?page=2

Would the Thai winger there be worth a look?
Cheers

Yes.

Both article on the front page.  Sorry, work has got in the way for most of us this week.

I'd have thought the Thai winger is exactly what we're looking for if Leo Bertos is one side and Elrich isn't the other.  Was Tampine where Cole Tinkler was playing ?  He might know how good the lad is.

Jag2008-02-13 13:54:34

NQT might have a ready made anthem  in "Thunderstruck" the old acca dacca number

Read somewhere that the Northern Thunder is to be renamed North Queensland Thunder but that could be a lot of clap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXdRoM07Rs4

I wonder if the FFA would have the foresight (and do us a favour) by staging the Phoenix away to Queensland one week and away to Gold Coast the next.... that would be one hell of a 10 day "tour".... mind you I guess the same could be said for  Sydney one week and Central Coast or Newcastle the next?

Even if they do change the name to North Queensland thunder its not going to be much better. I wonder what name the supporters will come up with?

North Queensland Heat

as long as they take all our thundersticks, I don't really care.

Nice link tks. While on there I found one of him, Sutee, taking a penalty for Thailand. Smooth, very well struck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOuWrOtaVY0&feature=related

It's a lot better. If they were just called "Northern Thunder" they would be called "thunder" all of the time because you can't call them "northern". If they are called North Queensland then we can just ignore the thunder part..

  The official announcement is reportedly to be on the 21st of Feb. 

I am looking forward to this as it makes the season six weeks longer which means three more home games for all and sundry.  I'm more concerned about the team's competitiveness in the first year or two as opposed to their name.  The 'Nix have shown that it can be done however it certainly isn't easy and I hope some valuable lessons from the success in Wellington have been taken on board.

Now to work on the next two entrants

Even harder with two sides recruiting and neither of them having the NZ player loophole...

Fair enough. Still thunder is a ridiculous name

Well, does it "Thunder" that much in Townsville? Is the weather that bad?

Well I guess I better make some A-league club history to their names to make some sense to their seemingly nonsense names.

Why are we called Phoenix? Well that is obvious, it has to do with our NZ club Participation history in the NSL/A-league and the failure of that Auckland Group. So the other A-league clubs has history written in their name as well.

Queensland Roar was the name chosen by the Brisbane Lion football club that won the A-league bid from their less wealth rivals Brisbane Strikers, and since there they couldn't use Queensland Lions because that is taken already and they wanted to indicate their state rather than Brisbane urban centre to gain support of the whole state as well as player catchment. So Queensland Roar was chosen to indicate region and the former club name "Lions".

Melbourne Victory name was chosen because it indicated Melbourne, Victoria. "Victoria" was simply changed to "Victory"

Perth Glory started in 1995 in the NSL after many years of NSL rejection (since 1977) because of logistic problems of having a western australian side. In 1995, From a relatively unheralded start, the club would develop beyond all expectations and establish the game in a state where Australian rules football dominated and Rugby league was about to fail. The club is one of three NSL clubs that continues in the A-League along with Adelaide United FC and Newcastle United FC. But if it wasn't for the defunct Perth Kangaroos IFC (International Football Club) winning in the 1994 Singapore Premier League undefeated in their only season (while hoping to be in an proposed Asia-Pacific Super League) and despite the financial bankrupt the defunct club had half-way though the season, the NSL would have not be interested in an Western Australian team. This is the situation where "Glory" have acquired their name. As a reference to the former club that was the forerunner in gaining NSL entry after 18 years of rejection, it was the undefeated 1994 "Glory" season in the Singapore Premier League (defunct for the S-league) that caught the NSL eye. The "Glory" fans opposed the FFA proposal to a possible change to the name during their administration of their club in 2006-07 season.

Central Coast Mariners. . . that is obvious with their coastline next to their      Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium.

Newcastle United was renamed as Newcastle United Jets when it joined the A-League in its inaugral 2005-06 season. The club was renamed to project a new image and to prevent confusion with the English Premier League club Newcastle United F.C. The name "Jets" is a reference to RAAF Base Williamtown, located just 20 kilometres north of Newcastle. The club's logo depicts three F/A-18 Hornets, which the Royal Australian Air Force has based at Williamtown.

As you should know, the defunct club New Zealand Knights underwent a name change from Football Kingz (Kingz still was better on hindsight than Knights) before the 2005 season and became known as New Zealand Knights in preparation for the A-League. This was the end result of market research to determine the viability of a new identity for the team; reportedly 76% of people polled were in favour of the name change. So that never made sense, go figure, what does the ordinary Aucklander who doesn't care a toss about Football know? It was the beginning of the end of course because it showed how desperate the club was to attract interest. Changing "Auckland" to "New Zealand" was all too late and embarassing as well. They were never a traditional club name changing but an unsuccessful marketing ploy.

Anyway, that is the history of the names of the other A-league teams outside the obvious "united" name that indicate the merging of smaller clubs feeders, etc.

The possible newcomers Gold Coast Galaxy will have ties to American Major League Soccer club Los Angeles Galaxy and hence the similar name.

Yes "Thunder" seems dumb compare to the other team names until there is a traditional reason why. That is yet to understand.

I will be calling them the North Queensland Chunder, and I challenge you to all do the same (I'm in a very 'telethon' kind of mood at the moment...).

North Queensland Rash

or if they stick with "Thunder"

they could play at the Thunderdome - and Tina Turner could sing at the away games because they would, logically, be beyond the Thunderdome

this means that our season tickets will go up because there will be a minum extra 2 home games  - its worth it!!!

  You have answered your own question, Allwhitebelievr.  The North of Australia is in the tropics however with the desert behind it you get very much a monsoon effect.  At the end of the dry season you can get clear days with thunder as the weather in the distance rolls in.  Quite amazing and it very much dominates the landscape. 

As none of us are Thunder supporters we shouldn't concern ourselves about the name.  It makes as much sense as any of the names and just like "Phoenix" it will come to be accepted in no time at all, despite initial sniping from opposition fans.

The rumours that Galaxy are after Kanu, now that is a topic with far more substance.

Interest maybe, not sure about substance.

He's just the latest in a long line, including Michael Bridges, Kevin Phillips...  this league thrives on unsubstantiated rumours, about 5% actually come true.

I reckon next years Yellow Fever tour has to be to the Gold Coast, should give us opportuntiy to chase plenty of skirt

Coxey is the official wing man santy2008-02-14 15:53:12

I hear he'll be playing there for the Wharfies One-Toners.