As much as people say all wsw supporters once supported sfc that's just not true. Yes there are a fair few who switched sides but a large amount of supporters basically switched from eurosnob to wsw when they came in.

Yeah but in those countries the sport hasn't been on life support for decades.

For me its derby, finish above 2 teams then finish 1st. It also works out as option 2 rarely happens, then option 3 pretty much never happens.

When I look at the table I look where we are, then they are, then points to relegation..... then points to title. 

This is the life of a shit club supporter. 

Look at the crowd stats. The match against Adelaide is consistently one of the lowest crowd pullers for Victory. The rivalry only exists on the Adelaide side.

Don't know about that. Sydney might be our most bitter rival but Adelaide away is huge for Vuck fans.

Compared to Melbourne one big difference is the centralisation of the cities. In Melbourne all roads lead to Rome. In Sydney you can legitimately live in some enclave in suburbia and commute to whatever the closest node is. The only time I encountered anything similiar in Melbourne was with people living way out in the Eastern fringes but it's not the same. Looking at how Sydney is evolving, with Parramatta basically growing in to a CBD that will rival Sydney itself, many people in the West won't have much reason to travel further East let alone identify with it. And beyond simple East v West, you're not going to have much luck representing the North and South when they are joined by 2 bridges and a tunnel and basically a pain in the ass to move between. Melbourne is a hub and spoke city. Sydney is a collection of cities.

In terms of football it makes Melbourne a city which is easy to start a huge team in and almost impossible to start a second. In Sydney it's easy to start a hand full of medium teams but impossible to make one huge one.

This is why Melbourne was pretty much perfect for South to come in as the 2nd team, realistically all current city fans should have been victory fans, I've asked so many heart/city fans why not victory, and the reasons extend about as far as "I don't like muscat"...pretty much says it all.

Muscat goes and Victory increase their support base by 10K :)

I do roughly agree with this. IMO our supporter base is mostly made up of people that could never get on board a Muscat backed Victory, or they were converts to the game since the derby came into existance. Tbf, I dont think there were that many converts from Victory that were anything more than very casual fans.
City are growing each year, albeit slowly. They need success on the big stage before they'll ever get a big jump in numbers though.

I think in a franchise system Heart was the better choice over SM. Because if SM would have come it would have been impossible to enter another broadbased Melbourne team as a third. It would work imo to enter SM as the 3rd team however. 

I doubt FFA think this far ahead and are that cunning. 

The biggest hurdle I see for SM is that FFA signed some agreement with CFG to not allow another Melbourne based team for x amount of years. 

I think most Heart/City fans are there to watch a game, rather than care too much about the atmosphere (otherwise we'd probably be Victory fans). The lower tier at Etihad is shit for that purpose, especially in the corner where the away bay is. That's why most of us sit up on the second tier, and with there not being all that many of us to begin with, end up spread out and not very noticeable.

Nailed it. I lived in the Northern Beaches for two years and it was a punish to travel to the games. Basically a four hour round trip.

This is so true. If the next expansion does not include South Melbourne it would be a terrible oversight. Deep roots, their own stadium, a synergy of the old and the new. Melbourne will become the London of the EPL with your Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham equivalent (or maybe you can pick Fulham, West Ham, Palace, AFC Wimbledon etc.)

This is correct. Myself, as well as the majority of Victory fans rate our rivalry with Adelaide and Sydney FC higher, and the games of more importance.

End of day Melbourne City are not on the sporting landscape here in Melbourne, no one really knows of them, and no one really cares outside their core 5-6k fans.

While watercooler talk is predominately AFL based down here (unfortunately), once the AFL finishes and the A-:League starts, you get some Victory chatter.

I have colleagues that up until recently didn't even know about City haha.

If they take all Adelaide games back to hindmarsh. The adelaide game is clearly our biggest rivalry. AO kills the game. Away days in  Adelaide are far better than Sydney.  

City is so far back for victory fans... They don't offer anything

Regards the Melb comments, you can't compare the MV Adelaide rivalry to City at this early stage.
You people judge it just as us SFC did re WSW first up, new kids on the block, didn't respect them etcetc, well that changed once they swept the floor but our city needed to start with 2 teams in the first place, WSW success and the derby hype etc was a given, always was going to happen.
Forgetting Heart, in time City rivalry will grow, MV had a huge head start AND you've always had a huge rivalry with Adelaide due to ALF's one and it carried over to our Football.
For now typically you people want to keep belittling City, you know keeping your higher ground so to speak but wait, in time they will get it together, they will beat you more than not one season or 2 then your rivalry will be forged.

Look for me it has to be Sydney. I think a lot of the points people have made are valid regarding the geographical location, socio economic issues etc.

LFC you've certainly hit the nail on the head regarding your last comment. The derby is victorys biggest turn out so trying to pass it off that they don't care is simply not true based on the numbers that show up. I think the rivalry is dormant though as you suggest. There is simply no way anyone can forget that WSW huge success made a massive impact on their supporter base which then turned up the heat between their rivalry with Sydney.

It's all hypothetical but had Heart or City had more success up to now and stolen some of that limelight the rivalry between us and victory would probably be in a different place. Add on top of that we wouldn't be at 11,000 members (which is rising each season) but quite possibly at 15,000 if not more. It will be a matter of time but we need success, we need the new members to become rusted on. And it really boils down to us being a threat for both titles and number of supporters. As we bridge that gap I beleive that the rivalry will grow further.

With the round two derby done and dusted I feel that if anything the real detriment to our rivalry really is having to play each other 4 times last season. I could feel the flow on effects of that into the game last week,mit just didn't feel the same. The league needs a freshen up and we need 1 home and 1 away game. Anyway that's another topic for which we have many to discuss in.

Look forward to this topic being rehashed again this time next year.