Everybody likes a winner - Charlie Sheen does, we Aussies do, and over in Perth we really, really, do. Watch us turn on brilliant-but-out-of-form cricketers like Ricky Ponting in our opinion columns. Marvel as we suddenly remember who the Wildcats, Heat, or Warriors are when they win a title. And gaze in wonder as we give those sokkah morons Perth Glory a kicking when they're down, despite the fact that we flocked to their grand finals under a decade ago. But not to worry - all will be forgiven when we're WINNING! again.
You'll know you've won life when you end up in a straightjacket, Charlie.
Yes, that's right. Perhaps you're not aware, but Charlie Sheen has been busy WINNING! ‘teh interwebs' whilst his sad, deluded life disintegrates around him. Using the services of his Goddesses and a bottle or two of Tiger Blood, he is single-handedly WINNING! the fight for... er, something. Unfortunately, last time I was there I noticed that the fridge in the Glory clubrooms was rather empty of the blood of large carnivorous felines - and there seems to be a slight difficulty in procuring some more in Australia. So it looks like we'll have to look at things ourselves, and attempt to find a way to bring people back to the Glory - because after all, everybody likes a winner.
Method I: Slay Some Giants
Over here in the UK, the FA Cup provides some fantastic opportunities for upsets. This year has been no exception, as we witnessed Stevenage and Crawley pull off some big shocks that gained them national media attention. Such runs in the cup give the club much-needed local exposure; some more cash and the attentions of some new fans. The big results against even bigger opposition just increases this effect, and it also causes neutrals to get behind your team - everybody likes the underdog!
Sadly for Glory though, there are few (if any) giants to slay in the A-League landscape. The centralised, franchise-based format of the league means that each club starts from a blank and equally sized slate; and as such it is difficult to breed a Real Madrid or Manchester United of Australia. Even if you do somehow manage to become a club smaller than the rest, it is through your own mismanagement or financial conservatism that this has happened - essentially you have only yourself to blame. No team has truly demonstrated that it can start a dynasty in this league; and at present it remains to be seen whether that's even possible.
This simply means that the normal way of giant killing - a conference club playing pretty basic football but knocking out a top-tier team - simply gets reduced back to two teams in the same division, one playing shite football and the other possibly not. That's the situation Perth have found themselves in all year, and it hasn't got them any closer to more fans.
Method II: Always Win
Ah, now this is a slightly more difficult way to bring people through the gate; though it has been shown to work in the past. Glory fans of yore will recall that, put simply, the team never seemed to lose at home. This meant that you were practically guaranteed a victory when you walked through the gate, and that seemed to appeal to a good many people. It's not surprising to find that a team gets higher crowds when it's managing a string of wins - even low scoring ones - than it does when they're losing. That's just Perth (and Australian) sporting culture for you (or the attitude of the general public).
So, the way to success seems pretty straightforward for the club then - just win! Well unfortunately, as Glory have shown this season past, that's not exactly something that they seem to be especially good at doing. What's more, there are pertinent examples from our past (and the A-League's present) that show this is nothing more than a short-term way of raising crowd numbers. When Mich d'Avray was coaching Perth in the NSL, they had their most successful period in history - he was, as Mr Sheen may put it, the most WINNINGEST! manager that Glory have ever had. Yet his popularity was never as great as his predecessor, the charismatic Bernd Stange, and Perth's crowds never hit the levels that they reached under he or inaugural coach Gary Marocchi.
The recent A-League example I mentioned is of course Ernie Merrick. Here is someone who took Melbourne Victory to finals football just about every year; who won two championships and became the first Australian team to do the double in the new league. But still this wasn't enough; there was no pleasing some Victorians who felt Merrick's side was playing a hackish, uninspiring version of football. They wanted their team to be prettier - but in Merrick's defence, if you put a dress and lipstick on Muscat and Brebner, they're still going to look like, well - Muscat and Brebner. It is clear then that fans of both Mich's Glory and Merrick's Melbourne were demanding something more than just getting 3 points each game - they wanted WINNING! football.
Method III: Play WINNING! Football
I'm an EPL neutral - or really, as close to one as you can get. I've been lucky enough to see teams like Manchester United, Man City, Aston Villa, Wolves, Blackburn, Tottenham... all on the big stage surrounded by tens of thousands of screaming fans. If you were to look at the above teams and ask which one was the most successful, the answer is simple - Manchester United are, by far and away, the team in the Premier League. They're top of the table and at the moment are still alive in three different competitions. It would be simple to say then that they play the best football, too - but you'd be wrong.
When you sit at Old Trafford, as I have now done, and you watch United play without all the verbal fappery of Sky, ITV, or BBC commentators, you suddenly realise that whilst they have some very good players, they're not actually all that pretty to watch. I lost track of the number of times that Vidic or O'Shea just hoofed the ball up over the midfield to Hernandez, at this stage playing as a lone striker. It was surprisingly awful compared to what I had expected; and Wolverhampton actually played a ‘prettier' game due to the excellent daring runs of their wingers.
Spurs on the other hand played a beautifully open game in their match against Blackburn, with the full complement of their stars - Bale, van der Vaart, Crouch, Modric - all firing. Not only did they play well as individuals, but they played a beautiful team game; clever passes, blistering runs, mazy dribbling, insanely good vision from Modric and VDV - it was probably the best display of EPL football I've seen yet in the flesh, and White Hart Lane showed their appreciation by making Old Trafford look like a morgue in terms of atmosphere.
So here in lies the rub - if you took away the fact that ‘the big four' gain fans simply for being ‘the big four' and you simply were to base your judgement on entertainment from a cold beginning like the A-League had, I'd hazard a guess that teams like Arsenal, Tottenham, and Blackpool would attract bigger crowds than the Man Uniteds, Chelseas, and Man Cities - all other things being equal. Case in point - Perth Glory. Let's face it, Glory weren't just getting poor results last year - they were playing an awful brand of football while doing so. The club actually had bigger crowds under Stange and Marocchi, two attacking coaches who never won a championship, than they did when Perth won back-to-back titles under d'Avray. Mich's team were the champions; but you couldn't call them (in respect to his predecessors) the entertainers.
Which brings us to the final way of WINNING! - not just entertaining on the field; but also doing so off it.
Method IV: Create a WINNING! Atmosphere
Bob goes to the game. He takes his seat. His team wins 1-0. He claps. He goes home.
Steve goes to the game. He's greeted by clowns, street performers, an oversized gorilla, and people handing out a locally-produced, quality fanzine for a gold coin donation. He takes his seat, and finds under it an A4 poster with GO GLORY printed on it which can also be rolled up as a megaphone. Before the game, there's a bunch of drummers and an MC or band pumping up the crowd. The first half goes by. It's half time, and there's cheerleaders and a contest in which a blindfolded fan has to find that oversized Gorilla with the crowd's help, winning cash or a season pass. Kids line up to beat a Mascot in a penalty shootout to win a cap, junior kit, coaching clinic, etc. That MC comes back. He whips the crowd up. The second starts and ends. The game finishes 1-1. The band plays a final number as the players walk round saluting the fans. A raffle is drawn from the ticket numbers, a prize is won. Steve is exhausted, and he goes home.
Now, you tell me - who had the better night out? What if it was their first match? What if they'd brought their wife or girlfriend? Their kids or family? Their mates? Who is going to come back again? Who is more likely to wax lyrical about the experience to those they know?
Now only you can answer that question for yourself - but I think I know where the general public stands. Glory broke national attendance records not just because they were successful; but because going to a Glory game was far more than watching a football being kicked around. It was an event - a day out all on its own. I can't think of a time when I've thought of an A-League match in the same way; and I'm pretty damn sure we pay more for that ‘privilege', too.
Paul Kelly, the Glory CEO, says he wants to improve the club's culture; that he wants to make game day a great day out again. The FFA wants to mend broken ties with bitter fans (both the original ‘NSL Bitters' and alarmingly, a new breed - ‘Bitter Plastics', anyone?) and continue to encourage others to attend this sport across the country. Both want to start winning these battles.
Well, I'm here to tell you that you don't need Tiger Blood to do this. We may not have small teams fighting up the divisions (though we may, depending on the FFA Cup, its future, and possible format); we may not have the ability to let every club win every game; and we can't always guarantee the quality of A-League coaches or game-day performances (though they seem to be getting better on the whole). But what we can do right away is make the match day experience something that nobody wants to miss out on. Achieve this, and it makes promoting good football that much easier - after all, everyone wants to play to a crowd.
So Messrs Buckley, Lowy, and Kelly - do you want your respective organisations to start WINNING! at life? Or do you want to let them become a sad, washed-up, deluded, broken-down and charred shell of their former glory?
The ball's in your court.
