A long time supporter and reader of the forum here.
What prompted me to post is Kiwi Hatters earlier post.
These days my wife’s got me by the balls, so I don’t go out much, but one day I‘ll have to have a chat to Dave (aka Hard News) about what changed towards the end of that season with Ernie where we were top for a while. He is certain to know!
Sometime that season we got found out tactically, but something also happened where there was a drop in passion amongst the players, and we never recovered. The back office had already been stagnating, most likely to a marketer being asked to step up, but something also changed in the supporters. One indicator is the pod. Listening to Dave, Smithy, Boxy and Dale was like having a drinking session with Ozzy and Lemmy; now it’s more like having one with Michael Jackson and Boy George.
Anyway, we now attend games as three generations (my old man, myself and my son), but I have been buying my season tickets at the last minute for the last few seasons, because I am not sure why I bother anymore.
Actually, the biggest thing is not seeing the PASSION in the players.
Here are some observations, if anyone is interested, particularly the Phoenix management:
1. I would drink my own urine for a week if we won the league (i.e. I don’t give a flying fudge what beer is on offer at the stadium).
2. I would stand bare feet in cow shark in a paddock to see MY team WIN at HOME in WELLINGTON (i.e. loosing at home should be a rare occasion, and if so one of those fabled losses, not a meek surrender. Also, the stadium is least of our worries right now and has always been. As long as it is in Wellington, I'm fine with a paddock.).
3. I want to see players sooner come off the field on a stretcher than as a looser (i.e. often I feel that we show more passion playing social league football/futsal/indoor that our players do playing for OUR team).
4. If times are bare and we have to field severely limited players, I want to see OUR severely limited players who make up for lack of skill with heart, not some Aussies or imports who don’t care.
5. If you spend time and money to focus on getting on field personnel to achieve the above, rather than discussing beer and food options, cartoonish marketing and dumb rebranding exercise, you will eventually NOT need a marketing department as all you’d have to do is let people know when and on which paddock we are playing and they will come.
