Mike is hopefully on to something.... HHHHMMMm chooses words carefully ... I have often written on the win ugly or play with style and what gets crowds .... only at the start of this season were some posters willing to openly discuss the Nix playing style... most still hostile, maybe because I am an outsider .... but the confidence that you could criticise football or the playing style and not be attacking football to me seemed to be the key issue... my guess is countless years of negative mainstream press [as in Australia] developed almost a siege defence to any criticism...
I feel for you guys as I see the media in general give you little support and you don't have an SBS to help...
Facts are and they are important is the Nix by a long way rate the lowest of A-League teams .... your crowd average is the lowest by a similar margin to the ratings http://www.ultimatealeague.com/records.php?type=att ... [BTW do not have NZ rating to add to the Australian ratings which would improve your ratings]... Frank L will retire sometime in the next three years.... Frank has been the biggest supporter of NZ team in the A-League ..... why do I mention this well Australia lost a spot in the Asian Champions league one of the reasons we only have 9 teams ... Football is on a growth path in Australia that nothing can stop with A-League FTA TV and WCQ on FTA as well .... the derbies in Australia are growing .... at some point in the future the question of whether its worth having a NZ team in the A-League will be asked those that support you [there are many] need football and stats they can argue with...
However that you are starting to question the style of play and question this in numbers is a very welcome and pleasing ... as it shows that football has grown in that you can criticise play and that does not attack football...
I see a lot of our old coach LM in RH ... LM played a similar style to RH and so did we ..... I hope for his sake RH can change things time will tell ... but Fergie at PG has so anything is possible...
Now for the good part .... its only been two maybe three maybe five years ... when football folk in Australia starting talking the way you guys are now... I do think it has a lot to do with mainstream media .... and as I said when I look at media in NZ you get the idea that most people in power positions are in the employment of NZRU...
Good luck with the debate .... I hope you guys are still around for years ... how you overcome the lack of media I have no idea ...
Also and I know I am repeating myself .... but research in Australia by all major sporting codes is that the comfort of people when watching a sporting event is very important ... the ROF is poorly protected from the weather [OK easy to say] but a rectangular stadium with a roof and my guess shared with the SRU side is very important moving forward ...