Central Coast Mariners will never have a future in Sydney
November 28, 2014 - 10:00PM
Michael Cockerill
Central Coast Mariners have as future. The question is whether that future is with Mike Charlesworth. The Englishman who owns the club seems hell-bent on a course that, at the very least, is fraught. But this is not only about the Mariners. There are much wider implications, of which the FFA seems aware.
Consider this. Charlesworth's plan to shift more games to North Sydney, and/or possibly Brookvale, would effectively make the Mariners the fourth Sydney team by stealth.
We already know we'll have a third team in Sydney sooner rather than later, with the Sutherland Shire leading the race. Charlesworth is already planning to have four games at North Sydney Oval next season, almost one third of his fixture list.
Whether the Brookvale option is instead of, or in addition to, I'm not sure. But if you add a game or two on the northern beaches, you may as well get rid of the Central Coast moniker. It's the Northern Eagles catastrophe all over again.
So would the FFA approve of this? Highly unlikely. There is nothing in the FFA's expansion strategy to cater for four teams in Sydney, at least not for the foreseeable future.
Charlesworth must know this but is forging ahead nonetheless. North Sydney Council is coming to the party with some minor improvements to the oval but let's be frank, it will never be A-League compliant on a full-time basis, not without the money the council doesn't have and the money no other level of government is prepared to give.
And that's supposing the residents, and the heritage lobby, won't stand in the way, which we know they will with all their might.
There are other issues, of course. Everyone knows Melbourne Victory are playing at NSO under sufferance next Friday night. Amateur players play on cricket squares all the time but the professionals don't. Drop-in wickets? Northern Spirit tried it briefly in the NSL but were quickly undone by the prohibitive costs.
Which raises perhaps the most perplexing point of Charlesworth's master plan. Does he really think he'll make money taking games to North Sydney? Even if he paves Miller Street with free tickets to pump up the crowd against the Victory, that's got no value in the long term.
The Mariners might be getting cheap rent at NSO but that reflects the facility. Charlesworth already has the cheapest rent in the A-League. Lawrie McKinna is the mayor of Gosford these days, as well as an ambassador for the Mariners. Big Lawrie tells me the rent at Central Coast Stadium is a paltry $7500 a game, and he would know.
So why alienate your supporters, your city, your region, by making it clear you'd rather be somewhere else? Didn't the Mariners try that in a previous life by taking some games in Canberra? What was the reaction then from the Central Coast football community? They voted with their feet, as they're doing again this season with all the talk of North Sydney. It's called biting the hand that feeds you.
And the locals have fed the Mariners for the last 10 years. Average home attendance over the decade is about 9500. Here's a sample list of European clubs who do about the same, or worse: Monaco, Evian, Genclerbirligi, Zulte Waregem, AIK Stockholm, Heracles Almelo, PEC Zwolle, Lillestrom, Aalborg, Getafe, Grasshoppers Zurich, Lierse, Panathinaikos, Vitoria de Setubal, Boavista.
Fifty per cent of the Turkish Super Lig clubs do worse than the Mariners, 75 per cent of the Swedish Allensvenskan clubs do worse. Every league has big and small clubs, rich and poor. Such is life.
The point being, for a catchment area of about 350,000 people, the Mariners have done well at the turnstiles. They could do even better if the connection between the club and the community wasn't fraying at the edges. When that relationship was at its strongest, the Mariners averaged 15,000 a game.
Of course Charlesworth doesn't like losing money but chasing a rainbow in Sydney is less likely to bring him a pot of gold than putting down roots in his own backyard.
Ultimately, the core issue for the FFA as it considers growing the league is what role does it see for smaller, regional centres. Look around at cities such as Geelong, Hobart, Townsville, Wollongong, Canberra, Sunshine Coast and Cairns – all of which have expressed interest in joining the competition – and you see similar populations to Central Coast.
And if the FFA confines the league to the capital cities then there is no hope for genuine expansion. That would be a mistake. It's in everyone's interest to make sure the Mariners work. The Central Coast Mariners, that is.
