Meh. Lakeside is better ;) 

Love it!

Just for fun (or my idea of it, anyway) I put a 1:1 scale Hindmarsh on one of the ovals in Greaves Reserve, the location mooted by the Mayor of Dandenong for a potential stadium for a South Eastern Melbourne based team. Fits like a glove!



Yarraman Station is just outside of this picture to the left, only three or four minutes' pleasant walk through the park to the station. Dandenong Station is to the right of the picture, 1.2km along Railway Parade.

I made sure that it was the correct size by measuring 100m before screencapping on google maps and scaling the stadium to match in photoshop. Some might notice I've taken away the top tier of the northern stand, but I've probably more than made up for this by being able to extend the main stand and opposite stand along the whole width of the field due to the extra space in Dandenong that Hindmarsh doesn't have due to surrounding roads.

It's also worth mentioning that I've aligned the stadium with the railway to maximise space rather than running north-south, although the 30 or so degree angle is probably closer to the ideal angle than straight north facing one due to the fact we don't live on a flat Earth; the sun sets in the north-west rather than straight west at this latitude, so 30 degrees is actually closer to the optimum angle.

I know nobody's publicly announced that they'd stump for a Dandenong Hindmarsh, or even a stripped-down cheapo scaffold-based version, but I think it was interesting to see how all the parts come together down there. 

In fairness, the new stand is being built on the western side, so that'll be much better for football as there'll be more seats on the wings instead of where the second newest stand of the stadium is on the southern end behind the goal.

The disappointing thing about the expansion lack of plan from the FFA is that the competing bids should not be "competing". They should be assessed on their individual merits, and so bought into the league in an orderly fashion. At the moment there are 2 spots allegedly available next year, and approximately 12 bidders. More than enough to have an expanded A League and to give us a decent A 2 League. But by stuffing around, the FFA will ultimately cruel the chances of most of the bidding consortia to ever see the light of day.

- Say's the bid is the real deal.
- Gives absolutely no details into the specifics of the bid. 


What a nothing article, we already knew all this stuff.

The bigger geelongs ground gets the worse it will be, will have a 36,000 capacity when its done, way too big for a team that will be getting 6k most weeks. It will be no different to the collingwood and carlton teams in the nsl..will look horrible. You want a stadium thats in the 12-14k region for such a team.

FRANCIS LEACH: GEELONG A-LEAGUE BID IS THE REAL DEAL
BY JUSTIN TALENT 



Francis Leach has backed in Geelong’s A-League expansion bid as a serious contender after another positive turnout at Skilled Stadium on Monday night for Melbourne Victory’s 4-2 win over Newcastle.

The SEN football commentator says that the crowd of just over 14,000 people who attended the match is a good turnout considering the weather and opposition Victory played against, and shows that Geelong are hungry for a local side.

“I reckon it is (the real deal),” Leach said on SEN Breakfast.

“The big football community there is certainly hungry for it and 14,000 there last night is pretty good. The conditions weren’t great and Newcastle aren’t a top drawing team but the noise in the stadium was certainly fantastic.

“I think they have a real chance to become a really big A-League franchise.”

This is third Victory match the region has hosted at the home of the Geelong Cats AFL side in three years. The first game drew 21,000 fans in 2015 while last year's fixture against Central Coast Mariners was played in front of 13,000 people.

Leach says that despite the lack of a rectangular stadium fit for the A-League in the region, the currently under-development Skilled Stadium provides a much better experience than many other oval stadiums due to its narrow layout.

“It is a pretty good place to watch the game,” he said.

“It’s not a rectangular stadium but it is a fairly narrow stadium. The facilities are superb and it is going to be an incredible stadium when it is fully finished down there at Geelong.”

The football caller says that should the local Geelong council get behind the bid, Geelong would be a perfect expansion candidate for the 2018-2019 season.

“It comes down to a proactive city council. If they really want the club there, they’ll make an effort to make overtures,” he said.

“Geelong would be perfect…I think there is going to be a third team in and around the Greater Melbourne area and I think Geelong would be ideal for it.”

Thanks very much!

The response from football supporters by NOT attending Western Sydney Wanderers games at their temporary venue at the Sydney Showgrounds certainly re-inforces my point about the general public demanding better facilities................the drop-off in attendances is substantial for the Wanderers and no wonder as the Showground is a very ordinary customer experience.

Also I did read that one of the US Major League clubs built their new stadium partly from a number of individual contributions of $500,000 from people overseas investing this minimum amount in exchange for permanent residency entry into the USA.....................maybe the Tasmanian bid can go to the Federal Government with a similar approach.................their are plenty of people living overseas that would step-up with a $500,000 investment in exchange for the chance to live permanently in Australia.............if it can be done in the USA why not for Tasmania  :-)

This is the expansion thread, not sure why the Nix bashing is going on. Give them the 3 remaining years they have on their license before you start calling for their head. 

Yep im 100% there now. 

That still doesnt change my stance on nix though. They should be replaced by the first aussie cab off the rank... if we're gonna have a closed merry-go-round league that probably wont expand then atlesst maximise pathways for aussie players in it...

With a large number of Clubs from around Australia expressing clear interest in joining an expanded A-League now is clearly the time for the FFA (and the owners of the other 10 teams) to stipulate that any new team MUST HAVE a first class stadium that will attract and entice the general public to attend matches.

This approach has been highly successful for the US Major League Soccer and must be adopted for any future A-League expansion..

And.......a first class stadium can also be a modest 12-15,000 seater...............it just has to make people want to go to the venue.........the facilities and the viewing experience must be a great customer experience...............we must strive to set-up the A-League for the future as the competition grows.
 
For me this approach on Stadiums for new teams is a must-have......................even if the new team cannot produce a first class venue in their first year in the A-League there MUST be a business plan that shows that will be working to achieve this result.

I am going to the Sydney FC v Roar game tomorrow night at Alliance which is a venue (as a 43,000 seater) that never delivers a great customer experience..............if only Sydney FC could find a suitable 20,000 seat stadium..................what disappoints me is that there is never any real talk of the Club planning to have their own ground or moving to a smaller ground....the Club appears to be rusted-on to Alliance    :-(

Finally, I am really supportive of a team from Tasmania (Hobart) being involved in this next round of expansion. What I have outlined above can be the game changer for their bid to the FFA...........if the Tasmanian team consortium in association with the state and local councils Hobart is really serious about a team they just need to stand-up and say that will be building or re-building a sensational stadium for the Tassie team and a venue that will have a number of features that will excite people and make them want to come to the venue..............hopefully things like being a rectangle shape (a given), steep-sided so that spectators are closer to the venue, well sized.......you would thnk that a 12-15,000 seater would be ideal for Hobart, and with lots of 'covered' seating.

Quality 2nd post !

It seems the deal (while significant) will see the league tread water for the next 6 years. I fear expansion may not happen even within the 6 years. What plan do the ffa have to attract the 80% plus of Australia football participants who do not identify with the a league? Have the ffa ever asked them what it would take to get them interested? They 80% clearly love football, just not their local football. Is it quality? (Which has risen considerably since the inception). Is it lack of true big names? Limiting the big city teams from growing to their potential so the smaller teams don't get left behind is what I believe is also stopping the 80% from getting interested. I personally wouldn't care if city or victory win 10 in a row if they bring in names big enough to engage the disengaged. The plus side is the small sides still benefit too from potentially getting better crowds on their home games when the big names come to town. Also allow transfer fees to be paid between Aussie teams so that smaller clubs with a focus on youth development can survive very well on player sales to bigger clubs. (Sorry for spilling onto another topic but it's all related).

The dragons have consistently sold memberships beyond every other club bar the Rabbitohs and the Broncos . It's only the utter trash they have dished up as a club since winning the GF in 2010 that has seen a decline in the numbers of memberships sold. More of a protest than anything else, poor management. Poor coaching. Poor playing roster and taking the supporters for fools. Hey could be the FFA running them too!

10 team league is better than no league at all. we must not get greedy. more regional teams as well, regional teams help boost sponsorship and crowd averages.

stability and consolation everyone

I must admit I did not read this article till just now. Your comments are similar to what most of the Canberra football community would be feeling..."despondent"

It might not assist Canberra now but I hope the FFA have learnt from the mistakes of the past and in the next round of expansion bidding they don't just throw away bids that they do not choose for the next two teams, but instead work with the bidders to get them up in the future.

I can see why Ivan has not apatite to go through the whole process of organising and galvanising the football community, governing body, government and corporate Canberra in a bid that based on the recent past will be overlooked anyway. If the FFA do the same thing with Tasmania you might see a similar outcome with little likelihood of anyone coming back in to lead a bid in the future.

I do disagree with Ivan's notion that there is a lack of corporate in Canberra. We have huge multinationals here. They are all sucking on the teat of the public purse as they take advantage of all this outsourcing of jobs to bring down the numbers of the public service while charging the government twice as much for the pleasure of doing the same work done. Anyway, big companies like IBM, HP, Fujitsu Australia, Verizon, Lockheed Martin, BAE, Earst & Young, Avaya and Cisco. Then there are all the national and multinationals investing heavily in the construction industry, telecommunications and public transport in Canberra. You could really try and tap into these companies. It just sounds like there is no apatite to do so after being rejected before.

Well the only way to get over rejection is to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back out there and give it another go. Crying about the past is not going to change the future. There has never been a better time to start up a movement towards building a bid so SOMEONE FKING DO IT. If I had any money and connections at all I would fking try and get something started but I am but one fan in our football community. And that is probably the issue many feel now, we don't have a combined voice or leadership and it is very frustrating. Al we have is the man who tried so hard last time but was knocked back so is no longer interested and a governing body who seems very pessimistic in general.

Well said. 

Such a sad article. This is not how football should work, and certainly not how a competition should be run. The denial of service last time, without any sort of medium-long term hope given to he bid is negligence from the FFA. Fair enough they wanted a western sydney team, they were right in that intention. But, something along the lines of sorry canberra, we have a preference here but dont want to turn away from what seemed to be potentially a viable franchise in the largest unrepresented city in australia. So let's work together to strengthen the bid in canberra and look to get you a team in the next few years.

Everyone talks about the necessity of the community pushing the ffa for a team, not the ffa inventing a team and pushing the community to support it. So when the canberra bid had 20,000 people pledging that they would support the team, and it gets turned away, the community here has every right to feel despondent.

IMO the ffa needs to engage with the likes of slavich, extend an arm of friendship and show that they are interested in canberra having a team. Unfortunately the only way i can see it happening is if the phoenix get the boot, because that scenario would leave canberra as a clear improvement for the league commercially over the nux

The negativity of the FFA is starting to have the desired effect (from their warped sense of purpose).

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2016/12/24/zero-appetite-fund-canberra-bid-league-team

Zero appetite to fund Canberra bid for A-League team

The boss of the previous Canberra bid to get a team in the A-League said there was no-one prepared to mount another attempt because of the belief it would be a waste of time trying to convince Football Federation Australia to give it the green light.

yeah would agree with you that st george represents multicultural australia and cronulla represents bogan australia.

however we see teams like western sydney wanderers representing areas including penrith and fairfield, polar opposites in similar ways to stgeogre/ cronulla, which just goes to show that a geographic banner covers all types of demographics and ethnicity.

This ticks the box as far as grassroots and geography is concerned. Outer Eastern Melbourne with a growng population  and clubs involving thousands of players bringing together clubs from all backgrounds to create one united club. Its a strong point as far as the criteria is concerned.

Dragons are part owned by the NRL I think aswell.

I'm so sceptical of people saying a broader southern Sydney-Illawarra team can work. People in Hurstville, Cronulla and Wollongong have literally nothing in common and don't think of themselves as such.

Hurstville and the St George region is more like Western Sydney - suburban and highly multicultural.

Cronulla is a massive white enclave with a beach culture and an insular outlook.

Wollongong is a former industrial city and retains a working class identity like Newcastle. They struggle to go for the Dragons as is.

St George Illawarra is one of only four NRL clubs that doesn't turn a profit at the moment because they don't have a consistent home ground and can't sell memberships. Any broad south Sydney club would have the same problem.