Soon: Musings on the future of the A-League. Now: A lesson in English.
Irony
What it is not: Good advice that you just didn't take, or a traffic jam when you're already late.
What it is: Writing a match preview based around your team's luck changing for the better, only for your team to lose in the final minutes because of a stroke of cruelly bad luck. Sigh.
With that out of the way, let's recap the Mariners-Glory encounter in the nation's capital. It goes something like this- periods of Glory dominance, the crossbar being struck, Perth falling asleep in the last five minutes and conceding a goal. Rinse, repeat with the addition of Glory scoring a penalty before conceding once more when Tando literally slips up. Shit. Neeeeext!
That said, before we move on, three home truths to take from the match:
- Perth Glory of 2009 are better than the team of 2008 (a 4-1 loss to CCM, anyone?)
- It wasn't Tando's fault.
- Three away losses alone isn't reason enough to 'ditch Mitch'
Problem
If you look at the Hyundai A-League at the moment, there's plenty of attention focused on the somewhat-disappointing crowds for the start of the season (nobody's bitching about Perth 'only' getting 8000 now, are they?). Then there's Clive Palmer, whom everyone seems to want a piece of and of course the performances of North Queensland and what that means for the new expansion teams... well, those that remain in the race, anyway.
Let's ignore franchises' on-field performances for a minute though, and think about some off-field problems. A good one might be say, "Where's all the money coming from?". Think about it for a second; apart from sponsors, members and the gate, what does an A-League club's income consist of, FFA handouts aside?
Does 'owning' a club simply mean supplying a constant cash flow whilst doing what the FFA says? Hell, clubs don't even own their own stadia, so money from the drastically overpriced food and beer doesn't even get to their balance sheet (for the most part anyway).
Now let us consider another problem - a fan's sense of belonging, AKA 'consumer engagement'. The more engaged your consumers are, the more likely they are to revisit your store or re-purchase your product; perhaps even feel in some way that it is a part of their lives. Sounds stupid, but how many of you wear Adidas or Billabong instead of something from Target or Big W? So on and so forth.
Now, think about how many days a month you visit or interact with your football club; that is, your A-League franchise. Let's call it twice a month, but that's only during the season; maybe there's fourteen home games in a year, and you go to a family fun day as well. Somewhere around fifteen times a year then, and most certainly under twenty or thirty. Yet think about how much passion you have for this sport and your team; surely you should be doing something with that more than fifteen times a year?
Of course, this is why many of us form supporter groups and have banner-painting days, informal meet-ups, or a barbecue or two. But what about the rest of the great unwashed who come along to A-League games; what are they to do?
Think back to your days at junior football; you had matches every weekend, you went to training during the week, parents would interact, sausage sizzles would be run, and there'd be a raffle or quiz night to do some club fund-raising. It would bring people together, form some little neighbourhood networks, and do the club's bank balance some good at the same time. It was, for want of a better description, a homely and friendly environment.
Why then does it seem that A-League franchises lack this same friendliness?
Reaction
Keyboard warriors, halt. This is not an article about the NSL and the A-League, it's an article about the current state of national football clubs in Australia. Okay? Right, let's continue.
Now that is out of the way, allow me to elaborate. If you go to a typical Glory game, you will buy a ticket through a system not controlled by the club. You'll have your bags checked by security guards the club does not direct. You will buy food and drink that the club does not profit from (to a useful extent). You will sit in a stadium that the club does not own, and in fact about the only thing you'll see that is the club per se is the team itself.
As a result, if a fan takes issue with something about their matchday experience other than the game itself, chances are it's not within the club's control. There are appropriate channels to available for feedback, but an irate fan is more likely to send an angry email to the CEO or club than they are to Skilled Hire, Allia Holdings, or the Town of Vincent. It's this sort of issue which lead to the formation of the Perth Glory Supporters Association, of which I am a part.
The PGSA provides a single point where fan opinion and feedback can be collected and passed to the club, saving them a whole bunch of emails and telephone calls. If you do have an issue on matchday, feel free to let myself or another PGSA member know about it. Alternatively, jump on to Gloryboys.net and raise it there.
It's no coincidence then that one of the items raised with Perth Glory's CEO by the PGSA was the issue of the 'fan experience'. It seems like you go to the game, you cheer or cry, then you go home. ME Bank Stadium is a ghost town two hours after the match, let alone on a weekend where the club is playing away. On top of this, you might have a family fun day, a charity event, and an awards night... in other words, there's not a lot on offer.
Evidently then the FFA has done a David Byrne and we're on the Road To Nowhere, right? Well, it doesn't have to be that way.
Solution
The answer to pretty much every problem raised above (including the issue of income, at least partly) would seem to me to be pretty obvious, and actually rather simple. Of course, things are never as easy as they seem, especially with administrative bodies, and I doubt the FFA would appreciate what I'm about to say. But, here goes... the franchise model needs to be ditched in favour of proper football clubs. You there, reaching for the caps lock on your keyboard- don't you dare!
Yes, I know... it's the same old argument. But I'm not approaching this from the view of an old-school "my club didn't make it and it's not fair" style argument. Far from it, I'm approaching this from the point of view of someone who loves the game but sees themselves as neither an NSL Diehard TM or a New Dawner TM. I'm approaching this from the perspective of growing up with sporting clubs and not only their contribution to the lives of my friends and I, but our (or our parents'!) contributions to them.
A 'proper club' would have not only a matchday experience, but something else as well. It might mean a clubhouse where one can have a beer or a meal during the week, and have a look at old trophies. People don't go to the local Italian Club or RSL simply because they like the light entertainment or conversation; they go there because it makes them feel that they belong to something.
It could also mean opening the members' bar on the weekend of away games to watch the boys play on the big screen. It might even be a club owning their own stadium or training facility, and leasing that out to local clubs. Hell, it could be all of the above or a million more... but the fact of the matter is the kind of persistence (and cash) needed for those options isn't available in a system that threatens to not renew your owner's licence every few years.
Think for example about the National Youth League. Despite having some of the most talented youngsters in the land last year, Perth were initially reluctant to go along with the NYL idea because of the huge costs involved. In fact, it was those extra costs that caused two of the club's three owners to depart from the scene. If the clubs were then told that they had to run a reserves team in addition to their Youth and Women's teams, imagine the uproar! You're telling a Clive Partner or Tony Sage that they'll have to inject even more money into a venture that a) isn't returning a profit anyway and b) they have no guarantee of owning in three years time anyway. What kind of business decision is that?
If the clubs had some kind of permanence however, they could go much further than this. Each club could set up teams right down to U8's if they wanted to, and have them play off against other local juniors. They could provide a training place for the best young kids and talented young coaches. Parents would pitch in as volunteers, ala a 'normal' club, registration fees could be paid, raffles run, fund-raising barbecues held, and a sense of community and 'belonging' fostered from a very young age. It would also assist the FFA in the long run, too.
State League teams are currently reaping the rich rewards of talented youngsters who jump overseas before they've even had a chance to star in the national competition. Using my local club ECU Joondalup as an example, it seems we're about to lose sixteen year old brothers Aryn and Ryan Williams (the younger brothers of Socceroo Rhys) to Burnley and Portsmouth respectively. I don't think either has ever so much as touched a Perth Glory jersey.
If the club had a best-of-the-best youth development program however, sort of like a localised AIS, these kids might have been classed as 'Glory players' when transfer fees were handed out. Due to the club's respective size, they'd probably be able to negotiate better terms than Joondalup would have, and in turn some of that money would have flowed to the FFA and the lads' youth clubs (including ECU, I would hope).
Some may ask what the point is then of state league teams; but I see no difference between this proposed system and the current WAIS/AIS/NTC systems in place. The Glory Youth team can only hold so many players at the moment, and most of those spots are used on players who can make the step up in the next year or so, not long-term investments in the future. Besides which, you still need to employ the hundreds of other amateur, semi-professional, and professional footballers that reside in your state. Simple mathematics states that not everyone can pull on the purple.
Put simply, if we want to grow our national league and its clubs, we need to make them more like the clubs of our youth. Get down to the grass-roots level, and get people involved early. Look at making kids grow up with Perth Glory or Melborune Victory, and don't just try to put on the hard sell through "value-for-money family entertainment". What cock; this isn't 'entertainment' like going to the theatre or seeing a concert; this is something we want to make a permanent fixture of a person's life, surely?
Get people involved, make them feel loved, and they'll love you back. Cheesy and expensive marketing campaigns for "Version X" of the A-League won't make people keep coming back for the next ten years if all they're going to do is sit quietly and clap politely. Quiz nights, clubrooms, whatever- make people feel like they belong to something.
In my eyes, the long-term future of the game depends on it.
