Nathan and Rhiannon Mulhearn are true A-League fans. The newly married couple drove from the Gold Coast to Sydney to see United's youth team play last Saturday.

And 24 hours later, the pair witnessed a memorable 1-0 win by their senior side at the SFS. And they will be there at Bluetongue Stadium on Friday night for United's clash with Central Coast Mariners.

At Saturday's NYL clash at Cromer Park, we spoke to them about what is happening at ground level on the glitter strip.

I guess the burning question is, following "Cap-Gate", what difference has been made since the FFA took over match day ticketing and promotions at the Gold Coast? Apart from Boxing Day, I don't think you've actually reached 5000 plus fans anyway?

N: I don't think the FFA have actually taken over anything, to be honest. Well, they have but is there anything different on the ground? No, there's not. The FFA have taken over the match day running and marketing but I haven't seen anything different to what was already done. You've got to involve the community.

Shouldn't all of this grassroots marketing been happening 18 months ago?

N: Yes, it should but what do you do now? The mistakes have been made so hopefully they can make up for them. The youth team have actually been going out - they painted a local gym the other day. And they're going to get the players out doing odd-jobs for people.

R: Being our first year, you'd expect everyone to know about the team. An example, we were at Indy and we met someone who went to a game and knew nothing about Gold Coast United, he just went because his mate had a free ticket and this guy was from the Gold Coast. There was so much opportunity to have gone out but you know, mistakes are made. Next year I feel will be bigger and better.

It's all the more frustrating for everyone given the club's owner isn't exactly short of a quid, is he?

R: Being he's a fabulous businessman he's exactly that. Possibly he didn't have the most knowledge of the difference between a business and a football team. Running it like a business is great but a football club is about the heart and the people. And I think that's where the miscommunication happened, so to speak.

Look you're starting to see trickles now of promotional things. We expected 20,000 for our first game and I think Clive Palmer and FFA just assumed fans would flock because it's a new team. You can't assume these things - they saw Gold Coast Titans get 20,000 so they just assumed the same. Bit by bit you're starting to see more. Last week there was a two-for-one deal. Little by little.

After everything we've been through, with the cap and the closing of the Beach but we've still got the fan base and consistently getting 5000. That could've easily turned around into nothing at all. It could've gone either way. Baby steps and we can go on from here.

OK, what would you two advise the club to do in the next off-season?

N: Being a teacher, I'd say it's a prime time to be in schools. A sports program run by Gold Coast with coaches or players and with giveaways. And that's what the other sports on the Gold Coast are pro-actively doing already - particularly the AFL who are everywhere in schools every day fitted into the curriculum and they haven't even kicked off their team. We can't be playing catch-up.

So aside from promotional ineptitude, have you enjoyed this season as Gold Coast fans?

R: Without a doubt, it's been awesome. We are the team everyone wants to hate because we're new and came in very flashy, whether that was a good thing as it put us against everyone...

Do you like that flashy image?

R: I don't necessarily like the flashy image. I like the fact like everything else, they hate it because they envy it. So we've got some of the best players, a gorgeous stadium and so part of it is perhaps jealousy. The 'flashy' and the owner's jet are not what we're about as people. The players love their team and give it all they can and that's all we expect of our players, which is why we come and reward it by following them around.

The Beach, I sense, is slowly expanding...

N: We've noticed different people at Skilled every home game. I think with scheduling everyone's on different rosters on the Gold Coast due to the hospitality trade in part. And acoustically the stadium is very good so you can make a large noise with 5000 fans there.

And it's not to say people from the Gold Coast don't travel but we sort of plan our holidays around it. This year, we've been to Newcastle, Central Coast, Melbourne, Sydney today and Central Coast this week.

Certainly, people are learning more about the Beach. Maybe they've sat closer and are edging closer to it. A lot of people won't join in straight away. And look, I've lived on the Gold Coast all my life and people can be a little pretentious there. And they want to do the "it" thing - so maybe at finals time, watching Gold Coast United play will become the "It" thing to do.