It's obvious that you're just a Heart basher because you're still angry that Heart was granted an A-League license instead of SXFC. Considering you are a football fan, how you could wish a club's demise is beyond me.

Enjoy the VPL, I might even catch a few games at Lakeside Stadium when the season starts, however for now Heart still have 3 home games in the HAL to look forward to :)

not bashing - just stating why in my view the Heart are struggling

When is joffa resuming his moderating duties? lol A 13 yr old could troll more subtly than this guy.

Alright Benjamin I've given you a good run but this is clearly where your argument falls down. If Victory were here first to represent Melbourne then by that rationale there is no room for a second team. South Melbourne is part of Melbourne as is jak's proposal for Heart to be Northern Melbourne (according to some artificial line) because guess what - that's Melbourne too! Heart are here for the long haul and that means a second team to represent Melbourne. If you don't like it then guess what that's actually your problem - not Heart's because they are clear in their business strategy... it's fairly obvious to anyone who doesn't hold a vested interest in them failing.

Victory began with no identity... and this whole thread was created because chris and co lost in their plan to discredit Victory's existence... so they've moved on the next team to take SMFC's place in the National league.

People saying heart need an identity in a specific part of melbourne wouldn't be saying this if heart had bigger crowds (10k or so). So i think we should just work on that through winning and continuing to reach out to the community

Using the "Benjamin selective answering theory", I figure that you avoided all the text in red because I made some compelling points. Cheers ;)

Because Epping is so close to the CBD.

You're an educated, articulate person - so it's surprising to see you try to suggest that Rangers and Celtic represent the same group of people (ie/ Glaswegians), the same with Inter and Milan, and the Manchester clubs.

Do you really fail to grasp the massive differences between these 'organically grown' clubs which represented different parts of the cities, different religions, and politics, etc., as opposed to Heart which represents a different philosophy (and we've discussed at length on the previous pages how well that philosophy is stacking up).



You miss the point... Melbourne Victory was the ONLY A-League side, thus it came to represent Melbourne as a whole. You can still differentiate from that by representing a specific area... Just as Sydney represents the whole of Sydney, whilst Western Sydney represents that part of the city (I know it's a huge city and the west is considered a different place - but there have been west based Sydney fans in the past on this forum). A South, or North, West or East team would be able to lay claim to THAT part of the city, with a greater sense of identity engendered to supporters in THAT PART of the city than the general city team.

Can we finally stop talking about this ethnic bullshit. Because that's what it is.

Yes there is issue with ethnicities and bias towards that in Victorian football. I have experienced that first hand. Played for a few clubs about 5 years ago, and one of them would only pick Macedonian players in the first team, and had a coach that only spoke Macedonian. Even with the no ethnic club bullshit that the FFV preach they allowed a Irish only club to join the structure last year. Those are the problems I've encountered first hand.

But in terms of South Melbourne being monoethnic etc. That's a load of crap. I've been supporting the club for years and never had any issues with my ethnicity. Also have never felt unwelcome because of that. The club doesn't even feel Greek at all, it might have in the 80s or early 90s but that was before my times, so I've never encountered that at all. It feels like an Australian club like any I've gone to see. Sure there's a few old guys around that only speak Greek, but when I've been to Victory games I've seen the same thing.

It's an Australian club playing in an Australian league. End of Story.

Get used to football moving forward - freedom of speech based on numbers and facts - comfort layers now removed - teams out in the field needing to earn their survival

What is a troll?
The term seems to be used too conveniently
I call for a poll
To see if the Heart are operating professionally

At the end of the day
The Market will have its say
The climate control is now gone
and the are new fish in the pond

this game in not exclusive
Nor should owners be elusive
when people tell me give Heart time
I say that is fine

But if their lack of presence effects the aspiration of my team
then its time to let off some steam
I know some of you think that I am mean
.....toooo bad



Edited by chris: 13/2/2013 12:20:06 AM

Edited by chris: 13/2/2013 01:10:27 AM

I am not about to sit here and use color formats line by line - it is simply not me

In your view why aren't heart working?

- simple question

THIS THIS THIS!!!

If a club was to restrict its own talent pool, thats their issue. Its THEIR club. They will also have to deal with the consequences. By not allowing promo/rele they are also unaccountable. They arent paying travelling costs so they only need that ethnicity. Again, that is up to them. But if a spot in the top tier was confronting them, don't you think they would fight to change? To expand support and build their club.

x3

Ben, the point is two teams can represent the same city and appeal to a different spectrum of fans.

Heart and Victory are different clubs, with different names, colours, histories, philosophies etc, but they both still represent Melbourne, so that forms part of their identity.

Now Heart is a new club and hasn't had time to "set in" in just three short years, but give it time to 'organically grow' and its identity and definition will add colour and depth and start contrast with Victory.

It might only take 5 years and some on field success to start picking up momentum.

inb4emotionalstoriesofethnicracism

For all those that think geographical segmentation is stupid and that Melbourne can only support two teams, let me present to you the following. Below are two graphs. The first one shows the average attendance per game for each year. The second graph shows Melbourne's population change over time.



Note that I have grayed out the crowd figures from 1987 onwards because this data is less relevant since that's when serious expansion interstate started to take place. However I draw your attention to the period between the mid 1950s to the mid 1980s, which shows that each VFL game would draw a crowd of ~25,000 in Melbourne. There were twelve Melbourne teams in the competition (okay I am including Geelong), meaning six games per week.

During that time, Melbourne's population steadily increased from ~1.5M to ~3.0M people, as shown in the second graph. This means that each Melbourne club had on average ~140,000 people to attract supporters from in the mid 1950s, and ~280,000 people in the mid 1980s.

So how did they manage to draw such big numbers in such a small marketplace?

The answer is that they all stood for something - their local communities. And they played their games there. If you lived in Collingwood, then you barracked for them and you hated Carlton - and vice versa. The also set up metropolitan zones, which was another area of geographical segmentation.

Melbourne now has 4.2M people and Heart are averaging ~8,000 people at their games as one of two Melbourne clubs (compared to eleven in the VFL as mentioned above). Heart need to find a connection with a community. If the VFL clubs back in the day could draw ~25,000 form a pool of ~250,000, I'm sure Heart would be able to muster ~15,000 out of ~1M people in good time. This would also open the door to further expansion in due course.

=d> good post

It is only the agenda driven left now, people who have nailed their feet so deeply in the turf that the concept of moving from their little island of myopic delusion is as foreign to them as breathing methane gas.

The poster your saying this too said if a club was to restrict it's own talent pool i.e. Enforce a racist policy, it's their right to do so because it's their club. lolol A 12 yr old could come up with better logic.

Thank you for reinforcing my point. lol

Promotion and relegation comming.

Really could be a case of Heart out SMFC in, now wouldn't that be an interesting playoff match.

I may have to start developing my seat ripping out technique. Any of you Heart boys available to give me some pointers?

Once you get you hands on the chair, hit the chair with your knee and lift up with your legs and that should do the trick :lol:

But seriously, I wouldn't quite hold your breath. You would have to win VPL where i think you came like 6th last season and heart would have to come last for you to even get the opportunity to playoff against us.


Edited by tbitm: 13/2/2013 08:16:07 AM

Thanks for the pointers.:lol:

You know sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

Edited by Arthur: 13/2/2013 08:39:27 AM

Replace your comments SM Hellas with another Greek club from the church league relying on souvlaki sales and it would read the same.

Sorry Kriss. I've been going to Hellas matches even before the start of the NSL and they haven't changed.

The singinging of a foreign national anthem, chanting of Hellas, throwing of flares replicating their football culture, national Greek flags, signes on the seats SMH (Hellas), Greek music, Octopus stands etc with 95% of supporters of Greek origin.

Some of this was exhibited by SM Hellas even in the last year of the NSL with violence that followed in the VPL against their Macedonian foes.

Until Hellas can demonstrate it's capable of more than just lip service to expand their supporter base, then they may be taken serious.

Let's talk about your points and if any of them apply to last year.

Foreign National Anthem- Nope. I'm fairly sure the Australian National Anthem was sung at the stadium opening
Chanting of Hellas- It's the clubs nickname, so yes that happens.
Throwing of Flares- Haven't seen a flare outside of AAMI Park or Etihad for years. So no Flares down at Lakeside.
National Greek Flags- Nope, but I'm pretty sure I've seen Australian Flags with the SMFC logo on it.
SMH on the seats- Nope not any more. The seats are white these days.
Greek Music- Nope, I'm fairly sure the music before the game was modern music, mostly made in America.
Octopus Stands- Nope, this was not at the last game I went to.
95% Greek Origin- Sure there's people there that are Greek, but I look around I've seen Asians, met some English there Dutch and so on. Plus the friends I take with me are, dinky-di aussie, Indian and kiwi.

Until PaulC can demonstrate he's capable of bringing up relevant history to expand his arguments, then he may be taken seriously.

In THAT game against Preston - the Preston fans held a massive banner with the word "MAKEDONIA" on it and the Star of Vergina inside the "O". The Star of Vergina is a national symbol of Greece.

They also held up a Greek flag, but instead of blue and white, the flag was coloured red and yellow - the colours of the FYROM flag.

We can't bring all this ethnic crap back into the national league. It was one of the major factors which brought on the painful and messy death of the NSL.

That mess is still resonating in forums all over internet... :-"

Edited by red_or_dead: 13/2/2013 09:37:11 AM

Octopus Stands;

There was an Octopus Stand!

Fuck did I miss out all these years.

I remember years ago the guys selling chestnuts outside the ground circa 1970's.

But I do remember the best Hotdogs I ever had were at South they were the extra long ones.

Mmmm...pickled octopus! The Souvlakia were good too until they started getting tight and putting less meat and tzatziki in them :-/