SBS -- Clip on Crowds

[marinerbhoy]

i disagree with that entirely.

the whole league's a little on the nose at the moment, so sydney are as affected as anyone. if anything, the sydney media (john taylor and rebecca wilson, take a bow) have been more agressive than any others.

the thing is that the actual football is as good as it's ever been if not better. sydney's goals were well constructed and finished today and nobody could feel ripped off for watching them.

yes sydney played well, but i dont think anybody cared. coverage for sfc has been pretty good for afew years now and their crowds are still shit. local football associations are really starting to get the shits with sfc. if sfc followed the northern spirit line of things and directly engaged the football community their crowds would be close to double what they are now. instead they went with the whole bling crap, won a championship and just expected people to turn up. a mate i play football with works with a company who has a permanent box with scgt, and they have only had 7 people total go to watch a sydney game all season!!!! (needless to say it was full for the holland match). 

point being, there is plenty of football support in sydney, not just euro snobs, and sfc have failed horribly to engage them, their crowds are nothing short of pathetic. hopefully sydney rovers can do was sfc couldnt manage to do in their short history.

 

[midfielder]

i disagree with that entirely.

the whole league's a little on the nose at the moment, so sydney are as affected as anyone. if anything, the sydney media (john taylor and rebecca wilson, take a bow) have been more agressive than any others.

the thing is that the actual football is as good as it's ever been if not better. sydney's goals were well constructed and finished today and nobody could feel ripped off for watching them.

yes sydney played well, but i dont think anybody cared. coverage for sfc has been pretty good for afew years now and their crowds are still shit. local football associations are really starting to get the shits with sfc. if sfc followed the northern spirit line of things and directly engaged the football community their crowds would be close to double what they are now. instead they went with the whole bling crap, won a championship and just expected people to turn up. a mate i play football with works with a company who has a permanent box with scgt, and they have only had 7 people total go to watch a sydney game all season!!!! (needless to say it was full for the holland match). 

point being, there is plenty of football support in sydney, not just euro snobs, and sfc have failed horribly to engage them, their crowds are nothing short of pathetic. hopefully sydney rovers can do was sfc couldnt manage to do in their short history.

Gotta agree with Dibo on this one .... there has never been a greater critic of SFC than me, but this year they have put there act together both on and off the field...

The Terror has been at war with Football for over a year now ... soooooo very different to the early Hal days... got a lot to do with the TerrOR believing that smh gets a better deal on most things than they do and want it fixed....

 

[marinerbhoy]

i disagree with that entirely.

the whole league's a little on the nose at the moment, so sydney are as affected as anyone. if anything, the sydney media (john taylor and rebecca wilson, take a bow) have been more agressive than any others.

the thing is that the actual football is as good as it's ever been if not better. sydney's goals were well constructed and finished today and nobody could feel ripped off for watching them.

yes sydney played well, but i dont think anybody cared. coverage for sfc has been pretty good for afew years now and their crowds are still shit. local football associations are really starting to get the shits with sfc. if sfc followed the northern spirit line of things and directly engaged the football community their crowds would be close to double what they are now. instead they went with the whole bling crap, won a championship and just expected people to turn up. a mate i play football with works with a company who has a permanent box with scgt, and they have only had 7 people total go to watch a sydney game all season!!!! (needless to say it was full for the holland match). 

point being, there is plenty of football support in sydney, not just euro snobs, and sfc have failed horribly to engage them, their crowds are nothing short of pathetic. hopefully sydney rovers can do was sfc couldnt manage to do in their short history.

Gotta agree with Dibo on this one .... there has never been a greater critic of SFC than me, but this year they have put there act together both on and off the field...

The Terror has been at war with Football for over a year now ... soooooo very different to the early Hal days... got a lot to do with the TerrOR believing that smh gets a better deal on most things than they do and want it fixed....

yea i agree this year they have their act together on the field, and off the field things are stable without being great, which is a good result for a club with the history of sfc. but its beyond that now, the damage is done. to only get 10,000 on a perfect sunday arvo in sydney for a top the table home team really does resemble the feelings of the city towards the club.

we just have to agree to disagree i guess. but to me the most disappointing club in terms of crowds in the league are sfc. really letting the league down.

(btw, i beleive tv ratings in sydney have dropped dramatically as well, but i think that was a ray gatt article, so take that how you wont i suppose)

 

[dibo]

someone on the SFC site said something interesting along the lines of "when we play melbourne at home in the last week and the title's on the line, we'll have 35k without too much trouble. where the f**k are these people now?"

he's right. the problem isn't SFC, it's the whole media driven 'event' thing - if it's not sold as an event, something that you can't afford to miss, sydneysiders are perfectly willing to take it in from the couch, or worse, read about it in the paper later.

 

[marinerbhoy]

someone on the SFC site said something interesting along the lines of "when we play melbourne at home in the last week and the title's on the line, we'll have 35k without too much trouble. where the f**k are these people now?"

he's right. the problem isn't SFC, it's the whole media driven 'event' thing - if it's not sold as an event, something that you can't afford to miss, sydneysiders are perfectly willing to take it in from the couch, or worse, read about it in the paper later.

yea its a good point you raise. but my beef with sfc is that they should be getting more than 10 000 on a perfect day with no other sport on. there are more football people than afl noobs in sydney, yet the swans have a bigger core support than sfc even when they directly go against rugby league. sfc have completely failed to create an adequate core of support. hopefully in 20 years time sfc will be getting 50, 000+ crowds at anz like swans can draw, but in the first few yrs the club has made a meal of it.

i guess though it just comes down to standards. i expect more from sfc and maybe thats me being unrealistic, but its just how i feel. i have never seen, or heard of anyone who has seen sfc directly invovled in the football community down here in sydney.

 

[Not Aloi$i FC]

Sad to see the crowds at the sfs still quite pathetic. I don't think there is any way back for them, people in Sydney just don't like the 'club'. Sydney Rovers can hopefully be the club that the city deserves.

All things considered, with the dwindling crowds elsewhere and our previous attendance records, I reckon we're doing alright this season. I'm not sure how people believe we have a divine right to be averaging over 25k a week. In Sydney, a 25k average A-League attendance is just not going to happen, not now or ever.

 

[dibo]

ahem...

the swans are a pretty terrible counterexample i must say.

after the curiosity-driven debut season and discoutning the edelsten years in the mid 80s with swanettes, capper, helicopters and what was in all practical terms bankruptcy, it took the swans until 1995 to crack an average crowd of over 15000. that's 14 seasons.

even then, that was driven by plugger hype. it was really only stable from 98 or 99 on, when the crowds were there, plugger or not (plugger missed heaps of games with a gammy groin in this period).

even now, the crowds are dwindling - falling from a peak average of 35k to 30k last season and the homebush crowds have fallen drastically - averaging 37k down from 63k. remember the final against north with only 19k there? the a-league would've been embarassed by that!

 

[MrCelery]

As someone who passionately followed the NSL from Year 1, I can confidently say that A-league crowds are equal to, or better that the old NSL crowds.

Apart from the numbers, there is a clear improvement in use of merchandising, with lots more fans, and kids in particular, wearing the colours of their team. This is advertising gold, as in effect, the fans are paying the A-League for the right to promote it.

In terms of passion, there is also a clear improvement. Each A-League side has it's own well organised vocal supporters group. In the old NSL, travelling around the country with the Newcastle Rowdies, there were very few such groups. And those that existed were mainly interested in overseas political fights, not the football, eg. the BBB (Bad Blue Boys) of Sydney Croatia.

I am a big fan of SBS over the years thanks to the excellent professional coverage in the past. Sadly, of late I rarely tune in, largely in part to their rather biased 'chip on shoulder' pompous coverage. A big pity.