Expecting clubs to develop a solid and consistent supporter base in only a few years is just lunacy. It's exactly what has been wrong with the A-League thus far, introducing new clubs and only giving them a couple of years.

A clubs identity and supporter base doesn't magically appear. Circles of friends grow amongst supporters. Kids support the club their parents do. Clubs develop a culture of their own. It takes time. Lots of time.

This is the difficulty of starting a new club at this level. But once you do it you have to given them time, and Heart deserve it.

Spot on!

Indeed it was a shithouse day to go to a football match yesterday with the heat and wind etc. But let's face facts here, if it was a nice breezy 25deg afternoon instead, then the crowd would not have been 12,000 either, the appx number they need to simply break even at home games at AAMI. The weather kept maybe 2k people away and that's being generous. Even if the crowd was the 'normal' 6,800 instead of the 4,500 it's still crap.
Let's just assume SM are in the HAL for a brief second, purely hypothetical. What people have to remember here is that even if South drew 7-10,000 at a stadium they 'control' (Lakeside) then it's a whole lot better than the financial black hole MH find themselves in playing at AAMI Park. SM would also be able make cash from their own social club, catering, corporate facilities etc something MH are limited in doing at AAMI. A SM would maybe get similar type crowds as MH are now getting BUT the difference being that SM has it's own stadium/admin area/training facilities meaning FAR, FAR LESS outgoings. MH's crowds have basically stagnated around the 6-8,000 mark and apart from home games against MV these figures are simply not sustainable in the long term.

Weren't you the guy saying Wanderers fans needed to show up to Sydney FC matches to prove they want their own team? :lol:

Yes it does take time, unfortunately Heart doesnt have this time, Melbourne is a ruthless market, chances are if you dont start off with a bang in this town you aint gonna make it, Victory were a success because they attracted an audience from the get go, sport is about perception, when people use to look at a packed OP they would say damn i wanna be part of that, naturally when MV moved to Etihad the crowds sky rocketed, you watch a Heart game now in an empty stadium and you dont get that feeling, finally you see a big crowd in a derby but people automatically assume its because of MV...4.5k is simply not sustainable in a professional environemt playing in a stadium the government built..nor is 6k for that matter.

Edited by southmelb: 9/12/2012 09:39:48 PM

Spot off

Heart were quoted as being the club that attracts the non victory fans
South east corridor - the people's club - football philosophy - bla bla bla

The market will not pause for that rabble to get their shit together

Only way SMFC is getting into the A-League is through Heart.

WIN-WIN.

After all, Souths wouldn't be who they are today if it wasn't for a merger.

South Melbourne United .. 1900's



Edited by icoulddoitbetter: 9/12/2012 09:47:41 PM

Edited by icoulddoitbetter: 9/12/2012 09:48:56 PM

Even 10k in that stadium

Gong going gone regardless of smfc in or not

South Melbourne Heart, i suggested a merger to the SM through email.

4k not sustainable?? The Korean K-League might disagree. LOL.

I said it from the get go, the biggest appointment a new team has to make is its inaugral coach, they froze off 99% of the world in their search and went for dutch at all costs, you cant sell yourself as the peoples club yet start off with such a snobbish approach, this annoyed me to the point where i said i wouldnt get a membership.

If they had an open mind and looked at all scenarios, they could have potentially ended up with Ange, imagine what the Melbourne landscape would look like today if Ange took his brand of football to Heart and won 2 championships? but noooooooooo it had to be a cultured dutch coach.

hmm I don't know how that would pan out. It makes me feel uneasy because believe it or not, there are people out there who are genuine supporters of the Heart. Such a drastic change is not something I would jump at and other options should be looked at first. But if things do not improve soon all options should be put on the table. If this hypothetical merger was to occur I wouldn't expect both sets of fans to instantly come together under one club, a distinct divide would be visible in the stands initially at least.

The biggest issue is that the clubs have nothing in common, and whilst Heart does have the golden ticket of currently being in the A league, they have no social club, no juniors, no womens team, no top class facility, South does. So whilst it may sound like a match made in heaven to combine all that together, i dont really think the clubs have anything in common, the public would probably view both clubs as a joke for needing to join forces...the exact same thing happened in the nbl when the north melbourne giants and south east melbourne magic merged...they were a laughable entity.

The public already view both clubs as a joke. This particular one is just a bit funnier.

We can selectively quote attendance figures (Melbourne Heart - Victory 26,500, South Melbourne - Melbourne Knights 11,000...) ad infinitum. There's no doubt that South was one of the bigger fish in the small, murky pond of the NSL, or that when on top of the ladder in the 90s/early 2000s they had the potential to draw a crowd against the likes of Perth, who were the giants of the day. They also had some poor crowds when things weren't going their way, and against the lesser lights of the competition.

Whether all that would translate to today's South being a 'better' option in the A-League than anyone else is pure speculation. It's speculation largely pushed by those with a transparent agenda against the entire league - the "3 years tops" brigade who, 7 years ago, were saying exactly the same things about the Victory and the other foundation clubs.

Disagree, South is currently seen as irrelevant, Heart is seen as the joke....mix mash them and it becomes a circus, if neither can go at it alone they may as well not exist.

I think we have pretty much established that MV are responsible for the sold out derbies, South would simply piggyback off them the same way Heart does...whilst the nsl was a small pond you cant deny that smfc was a massive draw interstate as well, kinda the nsl version of MV when they travel. The problem with the nsl was nobody knew it existed, it had a tiny niche following, Heart get more media coverage in 1 month then what South would get in 10 years, the natural feeling being that South would have a much bigger ceiling for growth based on its small pond effort in the bad old days.

Edited by southmelb: 9/12/2012 10:12:52 PM

People comparing NSL attendances, go look at what Adelaide United had in their last season vs now.

Should we kick them out and bring in Adelaide City?

I believe the logic was that we drop Heart because they get 4.5k, and promote South because we would expect to get 7k... More to the point though - 7k at our own venue would generate more for the club than 14k for Heart at AAMI due to the way both A-League sides get hammered by stadium management.

the ONLY way for SMFC to get crowds of the size your suggesting is by appealing to its mono- ethnic roots pure and simple.
You can't have it both ways - SMFC can't drop it's mono-ethnic roots and still expect mono-ethnic crowd numbers -
Your proposition is totally implausible and illogical.

Edited by backfour: 9/12/2012 11:25:03 PM

Edited by backfour: 9/12/2012 11:35:06 PM

Benjamin, alll well and good but there's much more to the story than that.

Lets look at things in perspective for once:

- MH are being judged effectively on 1 crowd result, on a hot and potentially stormy afternoon/evening, which somehow becomes evidence of failure
- SMFC fans look for anything to use as ammunition against MH to further an agenda that the FFA wanted no part of
- MH need some winning, strong performances on a consistent basis, which has so far not been achieved
- MH are not burdened by the dark days of Australian 'soccer' , for which SMFC in any guise would be ripped apart about by the media. Not a good move.
- SMFC have good facilities yes, but what's to say MH can not achieve similar results over time? MH is 3 years old so time will tell.
- MH made substantial money from transfer deals earlier this year, along with some strong corporate partnerships. It's hardly panic stations as much as some seem to expect

No one says things are great so far, as any MH fan would gladly tell you their frustrations regarding our performances on the park, but we can all see the potential in the club and what it brings to the sport here. If others choose to ignore that or try and use things as ammunition to further their own cause, good luck to them, but it's getting petty.


Edited by heart_fan: 9/12/2012 11:10:18 PM

The whole point is that its exactly this mono-ethnicity that Chirs and other are relying on to get the supporters they need to justify the crowd predictions they are making here. So therefore you supposition above is totally unrealistic.

Wow - you should have been a profiler - you nailed me.
The convoluted logic aside, which warrants no response - not a single person I know that attends SMFC games would confirm this proposterous contention that the club has anything but a token and irrelevantly small non-Greek supporter base.
It's total absurd for you to suggest otherwise, and even more so to suggest crowds being predicted here could be achieved without a 95% plus attendance by Greek supporters - you can't have your cake and eat it to - large crowds in the past were mono-ethnic and this is exactly what SMFC needs to succeed in the future- unfortunately this is not the HAL model.

The only problem that i see is Not that South Melb is not broadbased enough but that there are too many narrow minded people who follow the game.

MH average about 6.9K this season. Seems like a pointless exercise.

Following a theory rather than a personal belief (I don't believe Heart should be out of the league, I personally believe they should represent something though), the argument is that the sustainability of an A-League franchise is tied heavily to how much they can earn (or to be more accurate, how little they can lose) when hosting fixtures.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the break-even figure for Heart is around 15,000 at AAMI. This suggests that a crowd of 7000 means they are losing something like $160,000 every time they play at home.

The idea behind South being a good option for the A-league is that even on the same crowds that Heart is getting (the magical 6,900 average), South would have covered stadium costs, and would therefore be around $2m/season better off than Heart on this basis alone.

The biggest threat to the A-League, as demonstrated at the tail end of last season, is that just one team failing can throw the entire competition into chaos - forcing the FFA to step in and self-finance a team. Wouldn't it be true to say that the competition is better off everytime we remove a financially vulnerable team and replace them with a financially stronger alternative (whether that be South, a new franchise, or a revised version of Heart with a stronger point of difference to Victory)?

Again, to be quite clear, I don't believe Heart should be out of the competition.

Incorrect

smfc will obviously have an attraction to its heritage which in Melbourne gen 1,2 and 3 Melbournians of greek heritage are now approaching 350 - 400k in a city of 4.5 million which is a telling figure and further compounds the strength of the smfc proposal

however this segment would be a base which is why I said 7k before $1 marketing dollar was even spent - however smfc would also attract other segments

for example, a little known fact is smfc has inherited a substantial stake within the MSAC presinct - where lakeside is situated (our home ground)- the culture is diverse as it is loyal with its partners and now represemts 1 of 2 world class sporting precincts in Melbourne of which smfc is an equal partner with the other sporting bodies such as the aquatic centre - the VIS and athletics - these are new comers to football and smfc is the carriage

this is recognised widely as our spiritual home and a more than generous lease for the next 40 years - the recyprical benefits with the other sporting bodies - their establishments and their members are fundamental

All this before any marketing spend to the general football public or potential fan

so what is the smfc proposal????

History - Culture - Location - Differentiation - Prosperity - Partnerships - Establishment and ofcourse diversity

Sorry Heart - this is not a bluff - you need to deliver or you are out - smfc is in a genuine position of strength



Edited by chris: 10/12/2012 01:18:16 AM

Edited by chris: 10/12/2012 01:20:00 AM

that is the most accurate perspective on this thread

Chris wakeup to yourself mate I follow the VPL and South's Support is awfull very poor for the so called club you make South to be.You get bugger all to your games and the worse thing is they dont travel to away games your fans.:-"