R9 vs Victory | Sat 5th Dec 7:15pm | #FeverTour to QBE Stadium, pregame at The Merchant from 3pm

It is clear that Welnix do want JAFAs to back the team, and I would hazard that they were trying not to alienate the kind of people who hate yellow-and-black. I think it's a dumb move, though, considering that yellow-and-black is always what the Active Support are going to wear.

OK, thanks. Now we know who to blame, a clueless micromanaging Disco Damien. Who thinks you HAVE to play the away shirt when playing away and not seeing it as an alternative color when the home team color with your main kit color. Even overrule the match officials. What a brick.

I really don't get this anti yellow and black thing.

You would have to be an old hard core rugby head in the 70s and 80s, who thought Allan Hewsen was a poof because he pushed people out rather then tackling them, who loved Robbie Dean's and threw cans at the Springbok tour protesters, to be turned off by the yellow and black thing.

Those people are never going to be watching the Phoenix unless you changed the shape of the ball

I think Aucklanders are a bit more mature than this. The Nix should have played in their normal kit. It would have made it a damn sight easierfor viewers to distinguish thedifference between the teams. On  this I will agree with Muscat. If not in our  olours, they should have worn their dark blue. Just shows how out of touch the FFA man is. No common sense used.

Could possibly be something to do with Victory sponsorship deal. Different on blue and white kits.  Still awful experience trying to watch that. Even our shorts seemed a bit darker too to add to the general confusion. Can't have been easy for players and officials.

Can we rename this thread to "my life is miserable and I like to whinge so today I'm whinging about how much I hate Auckland and the people that live there" cause there is certainly not any football being talked about...

For fudges sake, even when we win, some people are not happy and need to moan about something

Why can't Auckland have trolley busses ffs!

Had them until 1980, then the wires were taken down. You can still ride an old one at MOTAT. However, they're talking about bringing in "light rail" (big trams) down Queen St/Dominion Road, which will be even better.

Quoted for truth. The pitch was atrocious, the kits were dumb and the croud was too small; but it was a great game for the Nix and the most fun I've ever had in the Zone.

Lol

Irony... old misery guts moaning about other people moaning. Genius.

Ok... on the actual game then...

Doyle's best performance?

I see you 'thissed' this Leggy.

So how many will the Roar get in Brisbane for the Nix next weekend you reckon? Out of your 2.3 mill?

NB Brisbane Roar v Melb City Nov 20    Att: 10,812

Also if true about De Bohun, why would he have done that? Wracking my brains for a sane reason, there isn't one? 

If they want to appeal to the rest of the country so much, why not just do something like this for the games they take away? And either call them the Auckland Phoenix and Christchurch Phoenix, or just Phoenix and remove any reference whatsoever to the city they actually come from. Then people will support them.

If Auckland miss out should we exist next season, I want another bus trip to Napier!

You are right, except that it's WE can't win in Auckland, I.e. The Phoenix. Except that game (and a few others)?

I, and I suspect most others, have absolutely nothing against the city or its people in truth. And I have absolute sympathy for fans who don't live in Welly, especially the committed and passionate ones like yourself- but guess what, that's football. There are more ManU fans in India than their total in the UK, and they have mostly zero chance of ever seeing their team live.

There's an old saying by Einstein along the lines of "if you keep repeating the same action over and over, expecting a different result, you will certainly end up as mad as a clowns trousers", or somethin like that.

Repeated attempts, over several decades, have been made to ignite football in Auckland. NONE of them were successful.

Albert would say it's time to give up. Who are we to disagree?

If you truly live for your football, there's only one solution- move to Welly, help build the crowd here. You will certainly be made very welcome.

Anyway. Anyone still in Fudgeland, come see me play in the Auckland women's semi at Western Springs AFC, behind the zoo. Kickoff in 15 mins. I'm the keeper in the Nix cap (duh).

Simon Hampton saying that the Nix had a kit that wouldn't have clashed, and wanted to change from their grey kit once they found out the Victory were in white, but were told that they had to wear it. Looks like this is solely on the FFA

Roys goal celebration. Runs over to the corner flag and takes the piss out of Berisha by copying his salute goal celebration. Amazing.

The Roar game is being played in Cairns - this sucks big time,  they should only take games on the road when they play that team twice at home.  Was looking forward to this game

That's a cop out, the only reason I have heard for the grey shirts is two or three people didn't really like yellow and black.  If we had just wanted to wear our home shirt from the get go there would have been no issue.

I don't live in Brisbane.

Close, Just A Further F............ Aucklander

I am sooooo happy! Couldnt watch the game as my work xmas party was last night. Very pleasing to wake up and see this result. What is the reaction from the Melbourne fans? eg blaming the pitch etc? 

Im stoked about that result but gutted about how it happened. I shifted house yesterday and my sky and internet aren't connected yet. So we went to 4 Kings to watch it but couldn't figure out which team was which except on close ups. If I concentratedreally hard then I could work out who had the ball but I had no sense of who the players around him were. My wife isnt as familiar with the players and couldnt follow the game at all. Then the Fight For Life came on and the pub played the commentary for that at ear bleeding volumes by where we were sitting and I just gave up. For me, that broadcast was unwatchable - literally. I went home and followed text updates from the comfort of my bed. #Notatruefan

So as awesome as the result was, that game left me pretty pissed off. As a spectacle or an ad for the "brand" of both the Nix and the A League it was abysmal. In the current context that sort of shambles of a broadcast is the last thing we need. No one who thought "maybe I'll watch the Phoenix game tonight" would have kept watching that, and if they did see any of it they probably won't go out of their way to see another Nix game for a while. 

If I was the sort of person who believed conspiracy theories I might even think that DDB told the Victree to wear that strip because he knew it would ruin the game for the TV audience, thus making people switch off the game and ruin our #metrics in the process.

As for the people defending the size of that crowd, I think what rankles me about it is that after the Adelaide game here there was a lot of momentum and goodwill in Wellington for the club. There were people talking about how gutted they were they missed the game and people who went who were asking when the next game was. I think if that match had been here last night instead of Auckland we would have got a bigger crowd than that. Maybe 12k plus. Of course, WelNix weren't to know that when they scheduled the game in Auckland, and it seems the FFA are right behind us taking games out of Wellington, but it shows the problem with the concept. The best way to build a fan base is to get people coming week-in, week-out, but the longer between games in town the harder it is to generate the sustained interest. 10800 isn't a bad crowd by Nix or Auckland football standards, or even compared to the rest of the league on a per capita basis, but in order to justify taking home games on the road you really want to see great crowds, not merely good crowds. The opportunity cost of road games means they have to deliver significantly more than a game in Wellington.

TL;DR - unwatchable on TV because of the uniform clash. Crowd wasn't big enough to justify a home game outside Welly.

Also, apologies for any typos. Big thumbs, small phone screen.

i didn't say this was the reason - i said this was the only reason i had heard - i have been calling for other reasons why they wouldn't play in their normal home strip but have heard none...

For those keeping track, my team won the Gaelic semifinal by 9 points (a solid win).

And the forecast for Cairns  next Saturday. is 32, so it will be pretty  hot for our boys.

We actually saw the grey kit at the beginning of the season (scroll to #499, second to last post):

http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/categories/wellington-phoenix-discussion/topics/new-home-kit/page/25.

Dewhurst said at the beginning of the second half that both teams agreed to keep the kits and that the Phoenix wanted to appeal to people outside of Wellington, and that the kit was specially commissioned... Of course, he said that about the away kit when playing Adelaide too so maybe not a reliable source.

Auckland population circa 1.2M, Wellington one third of that yet even for a one off, 11,000 Is short of the mark. Back to the game however cos metrics, smetrix it's all about substance and I thought the Phoenix pushed back on the 'kick em high' tactics of the Aussies. Gave em a taste of their own medicine!

No need for a referee when Berisha is playing as he spends half the game telling the ref and any one listening how to do it. Why he never gets carded for dissent is beyond me. Glad Manny got in his head last night.

Kevin Muscat, is that you?

I read in Stuff today that the ref wanted Melbourne to wear their navy blue strip but was overruled by the FFA

ok I must admit I was cooking dinner (us jaffas don't go out to dinner every night) and I may have not heard correctly but I swear I heard on prime news dome saying how pleased he was about the crowd and a mention of two games a season for Auckland?

Watch 3 news as that is a more reliable source