There is no shortage of potential feeder clubs for a SWS team. Bonnyrigg White Eagles finished 3rd in the NPL1 and Macarthur, Mounties and Bankstown finished 2nd, 3rd and 5th respectively in NPL2. The region currently has a registered player base equivalent to South Australia and in 8 years time when another team in Sydney might be a goer it should have a player base equivalent to Western Australia now.

The problem for a team is finding a suitable ground well away from Parramatta Stadium.

Iridium. I prepared this chart for another thread a few months ago. It might be useful to be included in your OP with the population data for those that relate to pictures instead of numbers. ;)

I'm thinking beyond being feeder clubs, I'm actually thinking if an ownership consortium formed by the big clubs from the area that I mentioned earlier.

What the hell is a Barwon and how did it go from nothing to 300k in about a year?

Edit: P.S. If it was just a mistake in the graph I wasn't trying to have a go, I just have never heard of it before and am genuinely intrigued.

Edited by kamaryn: 4/10/2013 10:12:31 PM

Iridium. I prepared this chart for another thread a few months ago. It might be useful to be included in your OP with the population data for those that relate to pictures instead of numbers. ;)

Nice work on the thread Iridium.

The next obvious step is the sale of WSW to private owners. No more new teams will be added before that.

After that I feel that Canberra or Wollongong are preferred, but would like to see a substantial bid before deciding between them. I imagine it would be quite difficult for both of them to come in at once due to competing demands for money and supporters.

Sydney United fans have aligned themselves with WSW too

Barwon is the region around and including Geelong. Figures for 2006 weren't available for it and I don't know how to get rid of the pre 2010 line. Some of us old blokes struggle with new fangled technology. :)

Edited by gyfox: 4/10/2013 10:21:37 PM

The next obvious step is the sale of WSW to private owners. No more new teams will be added before that.
...
Expansion at this stage seems secondary to a lot of other issues under FFA control at this time such as the roll-out of the NPL, the Socceroos, World Cup, Asian Cup, grass roots, etc..

There doesn't seem to be an official region of Barwon. All I can find is the 'Barwon Peninsula which only covers the bottom peninsula, which extends from Geelong itself and eastward.

I can't recall where I got the population figures that I have labelled Barwon but I think they might have been for Barwon Water. I was looking for something covering a greater area than Greater Geelong. Maybe I should have looked for projections for what is now called G21 because it is pretty much the same area.

Wolves hungry for return to national football competition
Posted Fri 4 Oct 2013, 8:20pm AEST

The soccer community of the Illawarra recalls the rise and fall of the Wollongong Wolves - once national champions, the Wolves are dreaming of a glorious return into the thriving A-League competition.

Nick Mclaren
Source: 7.30 New South Wales | Duration: 8min 12sec

wollongong wolves must be next. don't care who the 12th club is, 11th must be wollongong wolves.

they will unite the region in the same way as western sydney wanderers.

Thanks Palad, if or rather when Wollongong get a team, Round 1 Perth Glory please:)

I'm currently adding pre-season games, unsure whether to include places like Frankston etc because It's in Melbourne, where most Heart supporters are anyway.

Definitely Frankston, it'd be part of the area for a South East Melbourne team, although unfortunately the Frankston train line meets up with the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines further into the city, while the latter two meet at Dandenong, forming more of a hub for the South East.

But is it really a good measure of support for a team there when it is in the same city as that team?

Sydney FC played a game at Parramatta Stadium the season before WSW started, right?

Jury still out on Tassie's football passion Wednesday, 2 October 2013 11:16 AM

If Tasmania is on the fringe of the football world, then Kingston is the edge of the football universe. A commuter suburb on the southern extremity of Hobart, it was here among the new subdivisions that Melbourne Victory recently hosted Western Sydney Wanderers in a pre-season match which effectively amounted to a test case for Tasmanian football. Pass mark? Close. More on that in a moment.

Kingston Twin Ovals is a brand new complex carved out of a lush hillside thanks to $10million of government money. It's neat and shiny, but far from ideal for football. Instead the complex merely adds to the glut of AFL/cricket faciltiies - think Bellerive Oval, think York Park, think North Hobart, think the TCA Ground - which enable those sports to host major and semi-major events across the state. Good luck to them. But in era when the rest of the country is awakening to the potential of the world game, Tasmania does seem to be stuck in a time warp. Where's the love for football? Hopefully, it's coming. If so, it's long overdue.

Tasmania's first recorded game of football was played in 1879. The state body was formed shortly afterwards. That's more than 130 years of history, and yet still the game doesn't have anything that even closely resembles a 'stadium'. Some 'oversight'.

KGV Park in Glenorchy has long been football HQ in Tasmania. It has one ancient grandstand, is largely open on the other three other sides and - at a squeeze - can accommodate 4,000 spectators. Hardly state-of-the-art. True, the public purse did fund an artifical surface for KGV last year, but when you drive past Bellerive or the TCA, and see the cranes at work, you get a clear idea of where the allegiance of most state politicians lie.

Despite all this, the game has somehow survived on the scraps. Since the 1920s Tasmania has produced more than a dozen Socceroos, and currently boasts its first bona-fide A-League player in Jeremy Walker (Melbourne Heart). Recently, the game has enjoyed something of a renaissance thanks to a stronger sense of purpose, and self belief.

There are now almost 14,000 registered players in the Apple Isle, and this year the new statewide competition bankrolled by Melbourne Victory, proved a huge success. Crowds in the eight-team Victory League were comparable to the local AFL competition, averaging between 300-400, while media interest was extraordinary. Even the doyen of the Tasmanian press box, Walter Pless, has been blown away by the level of publicity - and he's not easily impressed.

Add all this up, and people are wondering what comes next. That's why Melbourne Victory's historic first visit to Hobart to play another Hyundai A-League side was significant. The chance to put down a marker, to see how much the game has really progressed.

The Victory have played a number of games in Launceston over the last five years, including league fixtures in each of the last two seasons. But recurring ground issues had - to this point - stopped them from bringing big-time football to the where it couns, the state capital. It's why local officials, headed by Football Federation Tasmania's livewire chief executive John Boulos, were holding their breath as the big day arrived.

In the end, the clouds cleared, the weather proved far better than the forecast, and 5,260 paying customers made the trek to Kingston to provide a marvellous picnic atmosphere. The playing surface drew effusive praise from both teams, but the spectator facilities - in truth - were rudimentary to say the least. Kingston may be a decent alternative, but for football it remains a long, long, way from the real thing.

Crowd-wise, the attendance was respectable, but not overwhelming. It means the Victory are still waiting to crack the magical 10,000 barrier in their adopted state. Thus a deeper question remains. How badly does the Tasmanian football community really want it? Still, the jury is out.

With a Tasmania United A-League bid on the back-burner (Pless believes it may not eventuate in his lifetime) Melbourne Victory remain the team of choice for Taswegians. Not perfect, but not bad either. The Victory keep giving the love - funding the local NPL competition and bringing their team across Bass Strait at least once a year - but are they getting enough in return?

Ultimately, the Victory hope to replicate the Hawthorn model - a strategy they make no attempt to hide. The Hawks receive more than $3million annually from the Tasmanian government, and in return they have made the relationship a priority. Fact: Within 36 hours of the grand final the AFL premiership trophy was displayed alongside the Hawks players on the steps of the Hobart City Hall. That's how important the partnership has become.

Can football reap the same sort of benefits? That depends. Victory chairman Anthony de Pietro made it clear in the pre-game VIP function that his club remains fully committed to Tasmania over the long-term. Among those listening were a host of state and local government politicians. Their challenge is to support the game a lot more than they have in the past.

Tasmania is never going to be the epicentre of football in Australia, but it still has a valuable role to play. In the last four years, Boulos has done a remarkable job in pushing the case, and his impending departure leaves a void. But with the Victory League looking robust, Melbourne Victory talking seriously about a four-to-five year plan to bring A-League fixtures to Hobart, the local council finally willing to release North Hobart Oval as a venue, and state champions South Hobart looking forward to the NPL play-offs, at least there are plenty of encouraging signs.

FORMER Socceroos goalkeeper Mark Bosnich says the best way for North Queensland to show they deserve a spot in the A-league is for fans to show their support for the Fury.

Bosnich jetted into Townsville on Saturday to oversee the running of the Tim Cahill Academy at 1300SMILES Stadium, working with 100 kids and running them through drills and exercises. The 17-time national team player, who carved out a career in the English Premier League with Manchester United, Aston Villa and Chelsea, was encouraged by news of the appointment of Ian Ferguson to head coach and technical director.

He said the Fury's establishment of junior teams for boys and girls, ambitions to start back in the youth league and women's competition and Ferguson's desire that all coaches have 'B' level coaching licences were all positive for the club.

Now a television pundit on A-league and EPL games, Bosnich said that would make the Fury hard for the Football Federation Australia to ignore if they consider expansion in the future, but North Queensland fans and administrators had an obligation as well.

He said the Townsville-based club should look at the example of new club Western Sydney Wanderers, which has been embraced by the football community and have sold out their memberships in only their second year of existence, as to how they could return to the Australian top flight.

"The bottom line is if you want to get back in the A-league you need money, but you also need to show your support for it," Bosnich said.

"It's what I keep saying to football fans around the country ... either watch on Fox or go to the game.

"I think it's a crying shame they (the Fury) had to leave the A-league and I'd like to see them back in."

Bosnich expects the FFA to consider new teams when the new four-year deal ends in 2017/2018, and he said creating a sustainable club would help the northern team avoid the heartache of when the Fury were kicked out of the A-league the first time.

"I can definitely say from the FFA's point of view they didn't want the Fury not to be in the competition but they're not a bank," Bosnich said.

"Every time anyone gets in trouble in the A-league you can't expect the FFA to bail them out.

"I think everyone should take the example of the West Sydney Wanderers.

"I think it's a very good step in getting Ian Ferguson in charge."