Come to SYDNEY FC

Yep, being saying that he should come to the A-League for ages now and since Glory snapped up Fowler from Fury, Kanu going to Sydney FC would be another boost for the A-League, aswell as a club in one of our key markets.

Sydney FC have been vocal about their endeavours to lift their crowd average and this man could certainly help in this regard, NOT ONLY by his name/reputation off the park amongst the casuals/Euro snobs aswell as the mainstream media, but quite simply, by what he can still offer ON the park, so much so that he could even, potentially, convert some new fans and it's these international players with flair like he has, which often draw people to the game in the first place!

GCU have been talking about getting him for ages. Replacement for Smeltz?

Smeltz is going?

if he plays well at the world cup gold coast would have to cash in to pull some of the losses back. clive is a business man and if the offer was right.

not sure if this is where to put it this thread. but its raining and im bored.

Looking through the bosman list of EPL, Serie A and Primera this seems to be the only players that I know of that would warrant a MARQUEE position in the A-League, and that are at the stage of their careers that they might actually come. Viera is available, so is Joe Cole but you would assume that they would not come at all. there are better players but i reckon a MARQUEE needs to get bums on seats so as long as he playes better than mario jardel then he doesnt have to be best on field as he can up the attendance and give advice for younger players....

Kanu - any club
Kevin Phillips - most clubs? is 36 but still scores in EPL
Angelos Basinas - MH or MV
Nicola Amoruso - sydney?
Yildiray Basturk - dunno? whereever there is a big turkish community. sydney there is i know of.
Ruben Baraja - good player maybe not famous enough for the masses
Robert Pires - any club
Edmilson - ?? would he get bums on seats???
Julio Cruz - ??? same as edmilson???


ps i cant be assed looking through other leagues.....

Edited by bennyblanco: 18/5/2010 12:34:56 PM

if kanu and pires went to the same a-league club, well even if there was a tasmanian club the pires and kanu club would be my team, the a-league former gunners :p i like the sound of that

Isn't Juliano Belletti being released by Chelsea? He's 33, would definatly cut it in the A-League. I was thinking as i watched the Cup Final over the weekend, would he fit in at Sydney, if he can play center back, he'd be a good replacment for Colosimo.

kanu, pires, belletti, c'mon i think we are dreaming here tbh, they can all still cut it in europe just about even if it is for weaker clubs

Problem is, how many of those guys would be recognisable names to the non-footballing fraternity here in Oz? Face it, we need to bring in Beckham, Pele or Maradona to get publicity.

Therefore, I reckon Socceroos are better targets as marquees. Seems not many are seriously thinking of coming home after the WC, but maybe a bit more money might change their minds.

a big city marquee could aim for an ethnic angle tho? like kazu was for sydney. maybe a famous greek dude would be good for a melb team. fowler will be good for perth.

surely the signing of fowler was more high key than these guys last year. reckon kanu is in better form than fowler was last year? i dunno. saying that i'd love to go see kanu at the sfs and all those arsenal supporters would come too.

pires is a player still doing alright here and there for villareal, fowler wasn't even with a club

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well, I do not think that the ethnik angle would work on the Gold Coast even though they have a lot of Mexicans there,.

As far as NQ Fury goes it possibly might have a bit more chance of success even though NQ really is the breeding ground of Rugby league talent even if the boffins in Sydney do not realise it.

For no particular reason and with no statistics just my gut feeling, there would be more ethnick surnames in North Queensland then on the Gold Coast.

eg. There was always a large contingent of cane farmers in NQ and in Mareeba they had a lot of Yugoslavs and Italians in the tobacco industry. OH we also had the odd fish shop proprietor here too, so that means the Greek population was well represented.

Sure, the families have roots here in Australia that go back to the sixties and a lot have moved over to League because of no real option but hopefully the interest is still hidden in their heart.

Pete

Nice list benny and FTR Glory were very keen on having Kevin Phillips as their marquee season before last I think it was! The reason it fell through was because Phillips wanted to stay with Birmingham?/Sunderland? (Not sure who it was) to play EPL with the then newly promoted side. ;) It was a good move for him too as we've seen how he's still featured and scored goals at that level, despite his age. One can only imagine the impact he would've had here, had he chosen Glory back start of the 08/09 season!

And Gaz I do remember Miron mentioning Kanu a couple times when the club were recruiting for their first season, but he also mentioned Sun Jihai. BTW Smeltz qualifies as a 'local/Non-VISA player' due to his Australian residency, so if he were to be a Marquee aswell as Culina, then that's technically two Australian Marquees. I think Glen Moss at Victory also has the same 'local status' due to he also having resided in Australia for a substantive period in his earlier years. Anyway, I suppose it could certainly be an option for them, but Clive's obviously concerns over the club's running costs could see a more conservative approach in this area, ESPECIALLY as Clive and even Miron may be content already having the one Marquee in Culina. Then again, a Kanu could really ignite not only local interest, but interest in Brisbane and the wider A-League too and could be one massive tonic for their crowd issues (Though would still only be a partial problem solver in that area, ofcourse).

Edmilson, I think if we're talking of the same guy, the uber dribbling guy who once was the record transfer signing in the world in the late 90s, he had a stint as a 'Designated (Marquee) Player' with the MLS club, Dallas, a couple seasons ago, but wasn't too successful there.

If I recall correctly, Robert Pires, like Thierry Henry, has been heavily linked to the MLS. But none the less he'd be a great, if perfect even, Marquee for this league.

Basturk would be a great Marquee, especially for one of the Sydney or Melbourne clubs. I still remember how the red of Turkish fans seemed to outnumber the Socceroos fans in that infamous Telstra Dome friendly back in 2004 or so. And more than that, EPL fans/Euro snobs would be well familiar with Basturk and his talents too, he'd be a great draw generally.

Basinas would be great too and again, not just with the Greeks, but many football fans are familiar with him.

Julio Cruz? That would be great! If he's still fit enough that is.

Edited by GloryPerth: 20/5/2010 01:28:51 AM

Kanu and Pires in the A League would be crazy.

Thats what i was thinking. If we really want to extend to those in the non-football comunity we do need to get more recognisable players in. I will admit that having players such as kanu would be awesome. But we need more socceroos and say "hey we can play as well. We can produce good footballers as well." Having said that we will need foreign players to help raise game quality but it is ideal to target our own players and get them back in oz

Whilst I agree that some of those chaps aren't big enough to get people interested, you would think they could improve the league with their ability.
That would get more bums on seats as well.

And don't forget there's still a mass of 'football followers,' especially 'expats' and 'recent arrivals' i.e. 'immigrants/refugees/international students' who the A-League has still to connect with. The mainstream public may ONLY know the names of Beckham and Ronaldo, but the legion of 'football people' in this country would certainly be aware of guys like Basturk, Phillips and Julio Cruz from their EPL, Serie A and sometimes CL and International experience. If the players are names 'within the football world' then all the 'football fans' will certainly know who they are!

BTW With Fowler at Glory, you will see this season just what a difference a name with talent like that can make, because he will bring in a guaranteed 2k more followers on average, and most of those will be from the ex pat British community or have immediate British heritage. And I'd dare say if it were Kevin Phillips instead, as we were trying for a couple seasons ago, then he would be bringing in atleast 1k of those Fowler fans too - So it's not just all about Fowler-esque guys, it's just about the right marquee suiting the market, aswell as the team set up.

So that's why there's good merit too, in the idea's like bringing a Basinas or Karagounis (Latter unlikely ofc) to one of the Melbourne club and an Italian/Serie A star like Seedorf and/or a Turkish EPL star in Basturk to Sydney or Melbourne and those guys would surely bring in a guaranteed couple thousand more supporters atleast, aswell as help in the retention of present supporters and helping boost membership levels even, depending on when the signing was announced.

I think that's why it's good in a way, that Fowler is at Glory, because, per capita, a Fowler at Glory has the potential to have a bit more impact, off the field, than a Fowler at Sydney, though if it had been the latter it still would've been great.

Damn, someone just bring Kanu to the league, PLEASE!

BTW There's also the 'sports media' 'sports lovers' too - A few of them may be a little more familiar/interested then some of you may presume, ESPECIALLY as the Sports Reports, Sports Tonight's etc... of this world cover the EPL highlights/results every evening, so they would certainly let the public know about a Kanu or someone of that ilk coming here, even if Joe Public hadn't heard his name before!

Edited by GloryPerth: 22/5/2010 04:18:35 AM

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=789406&sec=global&cc=3436



Surely he would consider Sydney and Melbourne 'Beautiful Cities' for he and his family to live in. :)

Hopefully such controversies help lift any interested A-League club's chances of snapping him up. Forget Nick Carle as Corica's replacement, if Pires is about Sydney may aswell pursue him - whole hog, just like the old days of Dwight Yorke and Juninho. If you want the quality you're going to have to shell out, as Glory have proved!

Hello everyone, I am a new user and follow you from Italy,

In my opinion it is absolutely necessary to increase interest in soccer to use up the spot for the marquee player!
This would increase the interest and certainly the level of your league!
Kanu, Vieri; Viduka, Toldo, many players rely on Faulty address to task.
We must use the marquee players at most!!!

GloryPerth, I have never ever even been to Perth so have no qualifications on the matter but I feel Fowler going to Perth is going to be huge and much better for the league overall.

The shed will go off and I think the club will get their buzz back which they had in the NSL when it really felt they were going forward on and off the field.

Hopefully Mitchell doesn't f it up.

Well a picture of Fowler arriving was on the front page of yesterday's West Australian Newspaper! Apparently, going by the article and pictures, there was quite a reception for his arrival at the airport!

Here's the same article, with a different pic - the second pic used in the second part of the article that was within the newspaper:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/7293417/fans-give-fowler-warm-welcome/


As other Glory fans around here will tell you, there's a large ex-pat British community here, particularly/traditionally in some of the bigger outer suburbs of Perth, along the coast, like the Northern Suburbs, like Joondalup and Rockingham down south. Some of them ARE Glory fans (Maybe some on these boards), and some WERE Glory fans, others NEVER Glory fans perhaps.

BTW The Shed has very strong British influence, especially their old calls of 'You fat Bstard...' every time the GK would do the kick out. Heap of Poms behind/in that group of supporters, atleast in past times anyway.

Also, I remember back on the old Channel 31 (:( Shame it ceased over here), there was a long running show called 'The British Soccer Show,' or something along those lines. It was hosted by three, Perth based, British Expats and they would give a weekly run down of ALL the results in the English and Scottish leagues, including the results from the Football League (Championship, League One and League Two). They would give the Aussies in the British leagues a mention, I think, but the focus of the show was pretty much keeping expat Brits and just general fans of British football, up to date with the latest news and results.

I guess that kind of a show may reflect just how many British expats there are in Perth. BTW I think a few are involved in the local Football scene aswell, like junior leagues and even State League. And heck, you can tell with Glory's squad - Jamie Harnwell - He even has a slight British Accent, Jamie Coyne, Tommy Amphlette (Came to Australia from UK not that long ago) a few others... Many of the locals in Glory's squad, past and present seem to have rather immediate British heritage (Gareth Naven, now NYL coach, is another example). Also Southampton or Charlton have an academy based here up in Edith Cowan University's Joondalup campus, called ECU Joondalup, who's senior side play in the State League. A number of young West Aussies, have gone on to the UK through there, including Rhys Williams and Shane Lowry - I think even Stan Lazaridis went to Europe through that academy (Back then it was run by West Ham).

So the links are already there, fairly strong, but Fowler will draw back some of the old fans and help retain current ones, aswell as likely draw a few new fans from the British expat community, including maybe a few who only arrived in Perth/Australia in more recent times (Like only during the A-League era perhaps).

But ofcourse with EPL football, Liverpool and Fowler - He's just a prime name, famous face, legend etc... so it's hardly only the interest of the Brits that he would stir. Heck we have many African, Asian students etc... and I'm sure even they know well of Robbie Fowler, especially given how popular the EPL is in East Asia especially. Heck even a few of the more Bogan Aussies may be familiar with Fowler, especially his acrobatic goal scoring exploits as a young bloke with Liverpool and perhaps that infamous 'cocaine sniffing celebration' that made the sports new/news everywhere, back in the day.

Edited by GloryPerth: 27/5/2010 12:05:18 AM

nope piss pires off, wasnt he the one that spat an an aussie bloke when we played france a while back?

I heard that Sydney fc were looking at signing a gun keeper from nsw 2nd div last year but he broke his leg in pre season do you remember his name pimpsta