Might wanna go have a shower then little plastic.... 
Oh and give ol Hollandia a call and let them know the "different entity" are claiming history going back to 1950s on their jerseys this year. Hahaahah tool. 
https://mobile.twitter.com/aleaguewomen/status/1420924173761662976

There a huge demand for Aleague football ,they are gagging for it out there.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AxelTuanzbeast/status/1469545180697018368

What has the A Leagues Males got to lose, viewership is so low. I believe there is only one way to increase stocks and capture the imagination.
Add Apia Leichhardt, South Melbourne, Marconi, Melbourne Knights, Canberra and Wolves, as well as a Second Tier of Football. Thats it! 

FA and/or APL might be taking note, Silver Lake's third investment, according to A League Hub article, will be used to fund a 'Second Division', and an
FFA Cup Womens competition as well. I noticed the article didn't state 'Second Tier' for the Men's, instead it reads as 'Second Division."
This is for 2023. Does that mean 2022-23, or, 2023-24? Surely it will run about the same length of the season as the A League itself.
As Big Kev used to say, 'I'm Excited!'

I’ve seen rumours floating about probably in the last few months suggesting that a Gold Coast team has financial backing (A couple of US blokes) and is ready to come in. (Source - honestly can’t remember, possibly here, possibly dailyozfootball etc) 

Im interested to know if that team was based in Robina Stadium again if people think they would be successful off field? (At least in comparison to Clive Palmer era GC) particularly interested to hear from actual Qld/GC residents (if we have any left) 

I think the common opinion around that was that without having someone like Clive in charge, things would be more successful. I don’t think there’s too much of an argument there, but then I think about the stadium. For those of us who have been on the forum for a long time, you might remember some of the chatter at the time suggesting that Robina was way too far out of the actual GC to get regularly attended. Is that fair? I’m not familiar with the area, I haven’t been for 20 years. Clive did try and move to a rugby league ground at one point when he was shutting stands at Robina, I think to dodge Stadiums Queensland’s “over 10k seats” policy (costs more to hire venue) but also to have something more centrally located (and for boutique feels, and no doubt for other cost cutting measures) 

interested to see if that’s still the opinion, or if it was just a bit of an excuse for poor crowds at the time? 

The last 2 hand picked franchise's have worked out well, so lets hand pick a couple more to try boost the ailing interest in the AL....

The question wasn’t “should the next A Leagues team be handpicked” or about the merits of the APLs expansion process, it was more “in the likely event it is handpicked in a process that is against the wishes of many football fans, is GC going to be a good option” or “if we are locked into this process of expansion, which club is going to be best to bring in” - I felt like that was implied in the post but sorry for not explicitly stating all this up front. 

On paper, GCU's inagural squad was unreal. They had some real stars in Colina in his prime, Smeltz and Thwaite as well as a manager who could provide headlines. 
What they did poorly was they used the "build it and they will come" mentality when they really needed to do the opposite and build support from the ground up.
Clive had some ok ideas on accasions but at the same time alientated support by making some very poor ones which overpowered the ok ones.

There was instances where GCU were a bit unluck and had some great opportunities squandared from outside of Clive's control being:

1) Initially GCU was meant to host it's round 1 fixture against Brisbane at Robina. Any new club should 110% host their very first fixture.
Controversily the FFA owned Brisbane Roar due to the owners withdrawing it's support. Prior to this season BR had very good crowds and averaged something like 15k a game. Foolishly the FFA then upped it's prices and the membership & attendances almost halved. Anyway the FFA shifted the fixture to Brisbane for R1 with the hope of generating more $$$ for it's coffers in a larger stadium. 
From memory GCU steam rolled BR in an exciting fashion but there was only a small pocket of GCU fans in attendance with about 25k all up.
In hindsight, the same or similar crowd at Robina would've been a spectatular opening fixture for the new side and would've most certainly had the local fans coming back for more. Like i said, massive opportunity missed!

2) It's R2 fixture was at home against the Robbie Fowler led NQF. "God" was the absolute marquee signing and created a huge buzz in the league.
If I recall correctly Gold Coast had torrential rain that night which kept the crowd under 10k which was a shame.

3) When crowds were getting really dire for GCU, Clive to his credit opened the ground up for free in a bid to attract fans.
Over 20,000 fans turned up only to see the game get abadoned due to torrential rain which again left fans dissapointed which was no fault of Clive's.

In summary the massive sticking point for Gold Coast is the Queensland Stadium's deal which crippled both the Fury & United. Basically unless your getting 12,000 to a game or more it makes the club completely unviable. It's why Brisbane has shifted from Suncorp despite it's facilities being first class.
Stupidly Robina, Suncorp and now Townsville all don't have summer tenants despite having opportunities to have 13 extra events on per calendar year but that's down to pure greed from the government.

A sensible compromise could've saved Gold Coast United if Robina closed some stands (and reduced operating costs) and kept capacity limited to 12,500-15,000 for example which would've been more than adequate but there was no middle ground from the state government.


 

I went up there for a Jets game on a night where it was either free or $1 (from memory just had to pay the ticket processing fee) and over 14k turned up. GCU pumped us 5-1 and I remember it being a pretty good atmosphere as well. The potential is there is just has to be harnessed better.

ALeague Stats

I reckon for Gold Coast to really work, it needs to be in a winter competition. The people up there really don't want to be sitting in a stadium during their warmer months. Sure if prices are free or a buck they will turn up, but they aren't going to pay full price during the summer. It just interferes with their summer lifestyle too much for it to be viable.

That's a fair point, my only worry would be having to compete with the Suns and (especially) the Titans playing at the same time. Rugby League seems to be almost a religion for Queenslanders (and I say that as someone from Newcastle!). 

Not all people on the Gold Coast follow Rugby or AFL. However all people on the Gold Coast spend a big chunk of their summers at the beach. I'd rather compete against Rugby than the beach.

What a depressing thread given all of the hope, optimism and healthy discussion that was once present.

Just like Pizza Hut franchises in the 90s..... the bubble has burst......

I remember the days when you could dine in at a Pizza Hut - they this horrible salad bar....

The FA and APL are Not meeting the demand and desires of the consumer. Blame them.
NSD, Transfer Fee economy and Expansion, expansion and expansion, or get lost.
The rest is blah blah blah blah, Paint the outside walls, digital platforms, vacuum the carpets..change ALeague and WLeague to ALeagues Men/Women, change the blinds in the house, Blah Blah, no comprehendo. 
Thankfully there is Epl and Spfl.

Shit even the lettuce tasted plastic. Hahahahahahaha

I remember eating in at one in the 70's. Even then I certainly never went anywhere near the salad bar.

That's only part of the story. The Federations also just screw the grass roots clubs.

Also agreed. Why can't they get determined to get the football systems right, with ALeagues men as top division, a NSD as the next, then the NPL.
Transfer fees and the rest of it. This is the kind of moving and shaking that is noticeable and respected.

If you don't remember these dessert bowls you didn't grow up in the 90s

Take that back

I'm not sure that Macarthur can be written off as a bad choice (yet).  To date they haven't played a game outside of the pandemic era.

They were expecting attendances initially in the 4-6k range and for that to grow as the population increases.  They haven't met that target partly due to the pandemic but they didn't help their cause by overpricing membership and ticket prices and their interaction with their active fans hasn't been too flash.

On the pitch, beaten semi finalists and second on the table so far this season is better than a good start.

I think they deserve the benefit of time before we assess them.

Macarthur have their own lustfully greedy owners to blame! They would even get out completely before they charge working class friendly prices, in a very working class socio-demographic. therefore, may they sell off to other ownerships and Get Lost!

The plates were always hot as hell straight out of the dishwasher, so you were always smashing down the icecream before it melted into soup

ahaha for sure.
I have such fond memories of the dine-in pizza huts. 
I remember being so excited to get a land before time dinosaur toy that I still have somewhere.

Same, it was one of the few fast-food joints my parents would actually take us.
For anyone on here that has no idea what we are talking about. In the mid 90s Pizza Hut, had a deal called 'The Works'. It was all-you-can-eat pizza, pasta, salad and something they claimed was icecream. It only cost $4.95 for kids. So the average family could go and absolutely stuff the whole family for less than $35.

Hahahahahah it was like $12 bucks for adults or something like that ... Myself and a couple of uni mates are personally responsible for the Ferntree Gully Rd store in Clayton going out of business I reackon. hahahahahahhah

If I remember correctly, adults were like $7.95 weeknights and $11.95 weekends. I remember because we only ever went on a Wed or Thu night because it was cheaper. My Dad was a bit of cheapskate (still is). 

Th trick was to stay away from icecream, salad and pasta..... hahahahahah youve brought back some funny memories ... Hahahahah my mate Beachball walking out of the joint with 7 or 8 large pizza in his guts, another 3 or 4 stuffed in his pockets and a dismayed store manager having to close the restaurant early and pulling his hear out at the mongol hoards that "ate the place clean" hahahahahah

Not gonna lie, watching the debacle that was the last expansion got me interested in this thread.
Also I was a maccas fan - some of the meals and toys back then were wild