Is that all there is?

Season six has kicked off in the Year of the Tiger but beware the claws are out for A-League crowds. It's all about the fans this year: fan made, fan friendly and fan focused but it could just be a message that comes with a bite.

Now the FFA has announced an award for the best fans in the league. Sure heap more coals upon our heads. It's not enough to cheer your team to the top of the ladder, now you've got to hoist your sorry arse up after them. Just another excuse to slap a big fat L on our foreheads when we're benched for sub-par fanaticism.

Truthfully, we should have seen it coming. While the teams were going through their usual preseason build-up the fans were being worked over for failing to bring their best game.

Victory fans got the gee-up for their Boca no-show. Football analyst Philip Micallef told Sydney fans to "hang their collective heads in shame" for snubbing the Festival of Football. Shame, really Philip?

We don scarves in 40 plus degrees, chant until our lungs burst, troll through opposition forums firing up rivalries, respond to every slight (real or perceived) against the world game, attend fan days, follow our club on Twitter and Facebook and dutifully collect all manner of useless football paraphernalia. Sorry Phillip if you want to add ritual humiliation to that schedule I'm gunna have to pencil you in for 11pm Tuesdays.

Whatever happened to a pie and a beer and a bit of football on the side? When did just going to the game stop being enough?

Now we fret when two rows in front isn't filled to capacity. We follow the attendance averages hoping that things are on the up. Suddenly it's all about the numbers: picking over the entrails of the game day turnout. And no matter what we do it always adds up to the same old question; is that all there is?

International snooker recently expressed concern about the proliferation of zimmer frames among dwindling tournament crowds. Personally I think the A-League could do worse than move in on the older demographic. Don't get me wrong, I like kids. If I remember correctly I used to be one. But where is the harm in cruising nursing homes for recruits? True, they limit the potential of a full-scale pitch invasion but on the plus side they don't jump up and block the view.

Oldies make great football fans. They know what it means to be sidelined and sneered at. They feel our pain. You can fuel a raucous chant on teenage angst but no one does rabid like a pensioner on $640 a fortnight. They're pissed as hell and want to shout about it. Stick them in home support, I say, and let them vent.

Interestingly, A-League clubs are taking a different tack. In a bid to fan the flames of fandom there's a concerted effort to capture the largely untapped market of registered players. Free memberships have been geared towards the swarming mass of littlies who dribble their way across the nation. The sheer numbers suggest they could be on a winner. Perhaps.

Back in the day when Age of Aquarius seemed like a perfectly rational mantra for ushering in world peace, I played with an under 12 netball team called the Avoca Chicks. Were we any good? Probably not, but it was a fun thing to do on a Saturday morning. I never followed the sport though, and didn't care what was happening at an elite level. My point is that just because a kid laces up some football boots on the weekend doesn't make him or her a fan - not yet anyway.

So what turns a player into a spectator besides 30 years and a spare tyre you could slap on a Mack truck? Perhaps those scouting for future Socceroos could run the rule over the fan potential. You know, some simple aptitude tests designed to separate the athletes from the athletic supporters. Something along the lines of: hey you there, give me three. Push-ups? No tifos! This is where the chunky kids get to shine. God knows a fan needs a thick hide.

While the coming weeks will tell whether the various incentives have put more bums on seats it could be years before those bums turn into dyed in the wool fanatics. In the meantime I'm throwing off the preseason funk and embracing season six just for the sheer fun of it. I'm leaving the guilt in the cupboard along with the ghosts of seasons passed. The target's off the back and I'm slipping on my club colours instead.

This season is all about enjoying the game. If it's a bumper crowd, brilliant. If not, well in the words of the great and impossibly blonde Peggy Lee, if that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing, let's break out the booze and have a ball...