I think NSL die hards need to get over dishing out the racist tag every time someone disses their clubs. Given the dire state NSL until its demise can you blame us for being skeptical of ethnic centric influences? What you think are racial reasons for not wanting you apart of the A league are actually pragmatic, your clubs simply don't have enough supporters to be sustainable and Anglo or other ethnic people like myself don't want to support your clubs. It doesn't matter if they are Greek, Dutch, Chinese, Irish clubs etc those clubs don't represent me I want an AUSTRALIAN club to follow. We want a clubs that appeals to the masses rather than minorities.

I'm also quite sick of hearing about how great the ethnic contribution towards the game is. Isn't a simple thank you lets move on enough? You might have brought the game here (not entirely true..) but you didn't invent it and were more concerned with protecting/celebrating your ethnic roots than engaging the broader communities. There were successes and failures in old soccer and ultimately it failed and needed wholesale changes to give it a fighting chance. The A league isn't about ignoring the past it's about getting on with it and doing what's best for the code to grow and prosper.

Also I think the "us v them" thing is propagated as much by NSL die hards than new soccer fans. Old soccer think they are better than new soccer because they ran the game here for so long and therefore they are entitled to god status, while new fans are fakers and should go back to supporting bogan sports like league and AFL. As long as this attitude of one group being better than the rest persists there will never be reconciliation.

So South Melbourne is NOT an Aussie club now Benjamin?
Tut tut

Using Rusty and co's definition, apparently not.

Amusing isn't it.

In what way?

I'm on your side here don't worry
Amusing that a team named South Melbourne full of Australian citizens that vote for Australian governments could be anything BUT an Australian club aha

I'm on your side here don't worry
Amusing that a team named South Melbourne full of Australian citizens that vote for Australian governments could be anything BUT an Australian club aha

My issue is with those who try to infer that non-Greeks wouldn't be welcome.

George stepped down as president of SMFC about 6 years ago, so your story is hardly 'recent'.

I can’t believe that in the year 2012 i’m having the same arguments with people about our game as i was having in the 1970’s.
Trying to start a soccer team at my school took nearly 2 years and i was lucky to have an Englishman
for a PE teacher.
The exact same bullshit misconceptions and fears that they spurted out then i am hearing now.

The real shame is that the people who feel the same as those neanderthals in the 70’s should know better. No excuses.
How many times have we heard soccer called the sleeping giant? When will we wake up?
It’s hard enough in this country with the AFL and NRL trying to bring us down but we make it easy for them.

The so called ethnic teams that a couple of you are worried about would not or could not get into the a league, so why the fear?

You guys are sounding like some KKK Klansman in fear of the negro’s back in the 50’s.
You’ve got your league and the teams you wanted, yes the ones you were waiting for all that time because you didn’t feel comfortable going to the NSL.

So enjoy it, support it and don’t fuck it up because at the end of the day the A league teams have had everything handed to them on a plate. The perfect start ,and before you say that’s not true just remember that all of the clubs in the NSL except for a few had to start at the bottom with a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get them where they were.
Am i bitter? Yes i am and i feel i have every right to be because i can still remember every state and national game i went to through the 70’s and 80’s and supported my state and my country with only a few thousand others and wondered why aussie’s would not come. Well before the fanatics and the GG army it was the South cheer squad giving most of the support to our national team.

I am proud of the fact that i was in Germany for the world cup in 1974 and have some great souvenirs and memories from that trip.
The only reason i am bitter and will remain that way is because of the disrespect shown to supporters like me after all we went through when the game was not as popular as it is today.

We were the ones to stand up and do what was needed to get our game seen as the number 1 sport in Australia while many just watched the EPL and didn’t bother to come until 2005.
So you have it all now and you fear a little club like South Melbourne? Maybe we are not so little any more.
What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. Long live South.

Finally, not once in describing your bitterness at Australians not embracing the NSL did you consider that it was your club's responsibility to engage.

Firstly learn what racism is before you start using that tag everywhere. Next, no one pisses on the NSL clubs they are just irrelevant to most football supporters unfortunately because they have not done anything to make themselves relevant to the local community and the a-league. The overwhelming majority of posts about the nsl come from bitter ex-nsl supporters and are usually linked with denigrating the a-league. This is an a-league site.

Finally, not once in describing your bitterness at Australians not embracing the NSL did you consider that it was your club's responsibility to engage.

On players under 23 the clubs hold the power on overseas transfers - it's only internal transfers where they are weak. Any player going overseas activates FIFA's training solidarity/compensation system - clubs are entitled to around 40k euros per year, against the $3,000 they get from an A-League club.

This is an a-league site.

This is an a-league site.

^^ I agree, although the State League forum is a different part of this site.

The evolution of Cro69's avatars of the last month has been amusing to say the least

:lol:

from Heart emblem, to Knights emblem, to Cro flag

a brilliant trojan horse attack...oh wait that's South Melbourne's game

Your logic in that suggestion is amazing and a terrible generalisation. It also implies the support of a club with non British origins and primary supporters of non British heritage is contrary to non violence and by definition, one must stand against them clubs if one supports non violence.

As bad as suggesting a stance against the Aleague is by definition a stance against violence, because it too has violence. An incredibly illogical generalisation.

My word you bastards are stupidly naive in thinking people are gullible enough to swallow such ridiculous generalisations. And the 'Old Soccer' label does nothing more than maintain a perception of a divide too large to cross. A perception that's becoming more and more obvious, is happily maintained to retain the status quo of 'keeping them in their place' and out of 'ours'.

Them and us. Just the way you like it.
"You're not fucking good enough and we don't want you around"

How some of these blokes like Arthur contain themselves is beyond me, when they have likely copped this sort of shit all their fucking lives from the foreigner fearing and loathing public, opportunist tabloid media, hate mongering shock jocks and unethical politicians using propagated mistrust and fear of immigrants for political advantage.

In my lifetime i've seen the post war immigrants from migrant camps cop the shit. They were called dagos with claims they took all our jobs and stunk from garlic and weren't like the good old brits we were so used to making up 90 odd percent of the immigrants.

Then it was the Asians following the Vietnam war. "We are at risk of being swamped by Asians". The yellow peril. Asian invasion. Oh my gawd, we are doomed.

Then it was immigrants from African nations whom, it was claimed, were bringing Aids and other decease with them and spreading it among 'Mainstream Australians'.

Recently it's anyone from the Middle East or a predominately Muslim nation whom are potential terrorists, wanting Sharia law to replace our democracy and abuse our women.

Don't you think it's about fucking time some of you dimwits moved on from the 'Dago' bashing of the 50's, 60's and 70's?



No, you should be ashamed of yourself for propagating such rubbish.






Edited by skeptic: 19/4/2012 11:07:41 PM

Progress has it's casualties - the change is for the better and painting the progressives as racist for supporting the HAL at the expense of OLD SOCCER is as childish and as it is offensive.

Grow UP!!!!!!!!

Edited by backfour: 20/4/2012 01:35:06 PM

Your Assumption is wrong I have never implied any such thing and it's a figment of your imagination.
My point is simply OLD SOCCER whether you like it or not had a bad image, and the establishment of HAL needed to break this connection to grow the game.
Taking the emotion of this issue away it is clear there was no alternative but to cast OLD SOCCER aside - sad but true.
The only way to attract new money (sponsors and investors) was with a clean slate - this is what you guys don't get.

OLD SOCCER had baggage of which Violence was the most newsworthy and exploitable by the anti soccer forces - HAL has changed all that, and your straw clutching to the contrary has no basis in credibility otherwise the media would be all over it.

In creating the AFL all other state codes including the VFL were dumped, and yes there were howls of criticism but the code is stronger having made these changes - So to HAL is no different, many OLD SOCCER clubs have lost the spot light like those Aussie rules teams in WA and SA with the start of AFL.

Progress has it's casualties - the change is for the better and painting the progressives as racist for supporting the HAL at the expense of OLD SOCCER is as childish and as it is offensive.

Grow UP!!!!!!!!

Edited by backfour: 20/4/2012 01:35:06 PM

No you have it wrong B4 its about those who disrespect what we had and belittle anything to do with what was before. That is imaturity let's not forget who started this topic.

Seriously was there a need to.

So who should Grow Up?

I am also still waiting on anyone to reply to my pointing out the long and historical evidence of violence between South Australian and Victorian sporting fans in every single code. Doesn't that indicate that no South Australian or Victorian team should be allowed to compete against each other? Or at the very least do so behind closed doors?

In creating the AFL all other state codes including the VFL were dumped, and yes there were howls of criticism but the code is stronger having made these changes - So to HAL is no different, many OLD SOCCER clubs have lost the spot light like those Aussie rules teams in WA and SA with the start of AFL.

Progress has it's casualties - the change is for the better and painting the progressives as racist for supporting the HAL at the expense of OLD SOCCER is as childish and as it is offensive.

Grow UP!!!!!!!!


When the VFL changed to AFL not one club got culled they all still remained in the new AFL.