18,506 at Eden Park yesterday.

I felt this way about a possible sutherland shire team up until maybe 3 or 4 seasons ago, but I think I've invested far too much time, money and most of all emotion into supporting Sydney FC now. Each to their own I guess. I look forward to a possible Sutherland Sharks vs Sydney fixture in the FFA cup but ill certainly wanting Sydney to win.

I take more pride in watching players that live and/or grew up and developed in my local area. Which is one of the reasons I am pro Farina.

You live in Cairns?

'Bring the Fury back!'

Former North Queensland player Rostyn Griffiths has thrown his support behind Fury's return to the A-League.

Fury were axed in March 2011 after just two seasons in the competition because of financial difficulties.

But the club still exists, playing in Queensland’s National Premier League as the Northern Fury, and has launched an ambitious bid to push for re-entry back into the A-League.

Griffiths, who has just returned to the A-League with Perth Glory, played for Fury in its debut season in the competition in 2009, making 23 appearances and scoring three times, including the club’s first ever A-League goal.
and the defensive midfielder is keen to see the side return to the top flight.

“I had a great time up there,” Griffiths said. “It was pretty good for me as a young player to get a lot of game time but the response we got in North Queensland from the fans, was quite overwhelming compared to the population size.
"We had a load of people coming to the games. It’s a good place to be.

“There seems to be some not bad talent coming through from there as well so it would be nice to see teams added to the league wherever it is, whether it’s Townsville or wherever when the timing’s right.”

Former Perth and Fury coach Ian Ferguson has been appointed as the Fury’s director of football and coaching and ex-FFA staffer Bonita Mersiades has been enlisted as a consultant.

The amount of juniors in the area is growing and apart from NRL side the North Queensland Cowboys and NBL club’s Townsville Crocodiles and Cairns Taipans, there are no professional sporting team in any code north of Brisbane.

Fury hope to establish W-League and National Youth League sides first and have a team in the A-League within five years.
Griffiths spent just a season in Townsville before departing to the Mariners, but loved his time at the club.

“It was with Robbie Fowler and I had a great time up there,” he said. “I was only there for nine months in the end but I had a great time.

"It’s a shame it wasn’t done right in the first place. It was unfortunate the financial situation probably crippled it because the amount of fans we were getting per capita, we were certainly getting the right responses.

“Unfortunately it became a financial issue but that’s being in this league, it’s got to be a part of it, but if you can do it right second-time round I’m sure the people will welcome back the league.”

Read more at http://www.fourfourtwo.com/au/news/bring-fury-back#plMaPiCUMhvd8rDq.99

Wolves take a chance on WIN Stadium

FOOTBALL

South Coast president Bobby Mazevski believes the Wolves' high profile move to WIN Stadium is a risk they need to take.

The former NSL champions announced yesterday they would be calling the beachside venue home for the 2014 season after months of negotiations with Venues NSW and WIN Stadium.

The club spent their last campaign alternating between John Crehan and Macedonia parks but had decided to pursue a more permanent option.

WIN Stadium was a logical solution and while the move will result in a degree of financial burden on the club, Mazevski was confident the rewards could outweigh the risks.

"It is a risk as we are not the most heavily backed club in terms of financials from that perspective," he said. "[But] for us, we need to take it.

"We know the risks ... it is going to be a case of making sure the results on the pitch count and we get the people on board.

"We think we have got a strategy in place that will hold us through the season."

Mazevski said that the club had already looked at measures to ensure the move remained viable throughout 2014, including membership, sponsorship and corporate packages.

In addition, co-operation with Venues NSW and the stadium management was deemed of high priority.

"We have to try and make sure it gets good support," WIN Sports and Entertainment Centre general manager Stuart Barnes said.

"Between us and the Wolves, we have to be active in making sure the message is out there when games are on.

"I am sure the Wolves will present a brand of football which is exciting and entertaining.

"We just have to make sure we get the people in here. I hope the people will come out and support them because they are wearing Wollongong and the South Coast on their sleeve."

In recent years, the Wolves remained in the football wilderness in the Illawarra after the demise of the NSL and their former complex at Brandon Park.

The club was dealt another blow late last year when government funding for the West Dapto "home of football" development, a potential new home, was denied.

Moving to WIN Stadium and a family friendly Sunday afternoon timeslot should provide the club with an immediate boost.

"It's a step in the right direction," Football South Coast chief executive Ann-Marie Balliana said.

"The Wolves played here once upon a time, obviously in the NSL, but for our elite team to be playing at the elite facility is obviously a step in the right direction.

"It won't be without its challenges. I think the important thing is that the community comes out and supports our Wolves."

South Coast Wolves return to WIN Stadium
WIN Stadium has officially been announced as the home ground of IGA National Premier Leagues NSW Mens 1 club South Coast Wolves for the 2014 football season.

Minister for Sport and Recreation, Gabrielle Upton, has congratulated Venues NSW and the South Coast Wolves on reaching an agreement to play all 11 2014 home games at WIN Stadium.

Minister Upton said, “WIN Stadium is rapidly gaining a reputation as a home of football. It will be a training venue for the Asian Cup in January 2015 and the Matildas, Young Socceroos and Sydney FC having all regularly played there.

“Today’s agreement by the Wolves to return to WIN Stadium is yet another step forward in developing football in the Illawarra region.

“This agreement demonstrates the value of Venues NSW and the Illawarra Local Venues Council, chaired by Vicki Tiegs, working in tandem to secure positive outcomes for the Wolves, the venue, the fans and the Illawarra region.

“This also aligns with the NSW Stadia Strategy which calls for all stadia to ideally be multi-tenant, multi-use and accessible to the community,” Minister Upton said.

Minister for the Illawarra, John Ajaka, said this was a win for the region hosting games for up and coming athletes.

“This follows an earlier announcement about the impending Charity Shield on February 22 at WIN Stadium which will see the St George Dragons take on the South Sydney Rabbitohs,” he said.

Chair of the Illawarra Local Venues Council and Director of Venues NSW, Vicki Tiegs said Venues NSW is pleased to welcome the South Coast Wolves to WIN Stadium in 2014 and is looking forward to securing more high quality sporting events in the future,” Ms Tiegs said.

Chairman of the South Coast Wolves, Bobby Mazevski, said the Wolves thank Venues NSW for their co-operation in creating the necessary environment for them to use WIN Stadium in 2014.

“The Wolves are excited about offering their players the chance to play on a great surface and to offer their fans the opportunity to enjoy the new public facilities provided at WIN Stadium,” he said.

“In addition we now feel that through this move we can offer our players, fans, media and corporate partners excellent facilities and grow the reputation, brand and popularity of the Wolves.

“We hope the people of Wollongong and the South Coast come out to support their team and enjoy the exciting style of football that the Wolves are preparing for 2014.”

The land that football forgot...

Football coach and former English Premier League midfielder Adem Poric has warned about the dangers of the growth of Aussie Rules into the Gold Coast market.

Poric, who played with Sheffield Wednesday in the UK and with St George and Northern Spirit in the NSL, has been coaching in south-east Queensland for the past 14 years and runs Total Football Academy.

But the 40-year old believes football is losing ground to the AFL juggernaut on the Gold Coast in the battle for fans and juniors.

“Take a drive around the Gold Coast and see how many AFL posts are up,” Poric said. “AFL went into all the schools and said we’ll put them up for free as long as you take our program in.

"On top of that they’ve turned around and said we don’t want soccer in. So we’re battling now against not only our own federation, we’re battling against the AFL, which are coming into the schools. They pump loads of money in.”

Gold Coast United were axed from the A-League in 2012 after three seasons, and Aussie Rules club Gold Coast Suns entered the AFL in 2011. The Suns have been heavily supported and financially backed by the AFL hierarchy.

“The AFL hadn’t even kicked off and they had all those little [AFL] balls out and the kids were bringing them to our training sessions for football,” Poric said. "They already had the Suns balls and we, the A-League had already been here for a year. I asked the kids if they had anything from Gold Coast United, and they said no.

“These were kids that were playing soccer, staunch soccer players who had no idea what Gold Coast United was but were walking around with Gold Coast Suns balls, because they went to the schools and gave everyone a free ball.”
Poric believes the lack of community engagement and development on the Gold Coast, from both Gold Coast United and the federations, has been the biggest error.

“For Clive Palmer, Gold Coast United was like a toy for him,” he said. “We actually approached them and said we’ll do all your community work and they tried to charge us. We’re happy to go out and do it, we’ll do it for free, and we’ll plug the brand and everything like that, and they wanted us to pay them. All we asked was to give the kids a ticket to a Gold Coast United game at the end of it.

“It was awful. We ended up getting what Palmer wanted to get out of it. For me, Palmer wasn’t even on the map before he had the football club. As far as I’m concerned it was an experiment to get his name out there, which worked.”

Total Football Academy is aligned with Gold Coast’s Magic United FC and Poric serves as the club’s director of football. The former Young Socceroo believes part of the problem in the Gold Coast area is that there are too many soccer clubs and not enough players.

“We’ve got 30 clubs on the Gold Coast in a population of 590,000 and we’ve got 7000 registered players,” Poric said.
“And there’s some clubs that will have 700 players. We [Magic United] had 250 last year, we’ll have 350 players this year. There’s only two clubs that are actually growing, the rest are staying the same or getting smaller.”

The Total Football Academy operates across Australia and is linked with 100 schools on the Gold Coast. Despite the lack of an A-League presence in the region and the threat of the AFL, Poric says football at the junior level remains strong, for now. However, he doesn’t see any return of an A-League franchise on the Gold Coast for at least a decade.

“We’re probably the biggest sport on the Coast, netball would only be the other one that would compete,” he said.

“Rugby league is losing numbers. But it’s a fickle market on the Coast. To have an A-League club paying ridiculous amounts to play at Skilled Stadium, Palmer was probably better off building his own little stadium of 5-10,000, boutique. He’s apparently got the money to do it.

“An A-League club coming back? Not for 10 years. You need to be realistic, you need to have at least 5000 juniors who are associated to your club. If you don’t have 5000 juniors you can’t do it.”

With debate over registration fees and concern over development growing across the country, not to mention the rising competition for the interest of today’s kids, Poric feels more attention and support needs to be given to the grassroots of Australian football.

“We’re marketing this big product [the A-League] that we’re in control of - but we’re killing the bottom of it,” he said.

“We’ve not really got any interest in it [the grassroots] at all. Look at the fees we pay. For a six-year old playing, its $97 to the federation. For what? They don’t provide you with a goal, they don’t provide you with a referee, there’s no scores, you don’t even have to have goals. You can just put some cones down.

“So what are we paying $97 for? Rugby league is now down to $60. We’re charging $1700 for our elite players. They’re not charging a cent in Europe. Playing them all for free.

And they’re wondering why we can’t produce talent, because the talent’s going to different sports.”

Read more at http://www.fourfourtwo.com/au/news/land-football-forgot#WO4SHQ2rGsbMagrt.99

I definitely think NZ would benefit from having a second HAL Franchise in time, but.....there's several things that need to be done to grow the Game over here. For example 18,000 plus people at Eden Park shows the redidual interest is very much alive and well in NZ but you can't take it for granted.

We need to have a better free to air service for Football over here for starters. You Aussie's have a great service and we envy you. Our FTA service is "ratshit" and no amount of excuses will cut it for what is lacking on behalf of the NZF. How can the kind of talented and atheletic kids we need to attract become engrossed in the Game if it doesn't become more accessible to all Kiwi households. Fuck who wouldn't want to take advantage of a FTA A-League, like the Aussie's currently have, especially the next generation of All Whites. Yet our FTA Television revolves around seeing "washed" up TV Presenters(so called Celeb's) regurgitating the type of tripe that's long been given the "thumbs down" by Kiwi's.

Also I don't believe it would be in NZ's best footballing interests if our two HAL Franchise's were propping up the A-League ladder each season. We need to have Franchises that are serious about recruiting strong competitive squads. If you want to know what happens if you don't recruit well then look at the "Highlander's" Super 15 Rugby Franchise. You just can't hope to be competitive with everyone else's "castoffs" and generally fringe type of players.

Although the WelNix are on a roll at the moment this may be more about the coaching and man management skillset of Ernie Merrick as opposed to the overal quality of the squad. Apart from roughly say six or so indivuals who else from the greater Nix squad could claim to be wanted by other HAL squads. I still think it's a case of too many of the current Nix squad been protected by too few of the genuine "quality" players. I think the brief cameo by Roy Krishna last night proves he is not HAL quality, and certainly not a suitable replacement for the injured Paul Ifil. I think it was a real "compromise" signing in the hope he would suffice in such low key roles for the lowest possible $$$. The last thing we want is two NZ based HAL teams with such a frugal mentality towards their squads.

Look I'm a very proud Kiwi and in time I would love to see another NZ based A-League Franchise, at least. But in the meantime I would like to see HAL expansion in area's that deserve it. I'm saying Canberra for instance, although there may be strong cases for other deserving regions.

As far as I'm concerned it's all about getting it right first time. I think the Yanks have done a good job of the MLS and there's lessons there we can take on board but at the end of the day the HAL is a different "child" and what necessarily works for one parent doesn't necessarily work for another.

the next 3 teams id like to see in the a-league are wollongong wolves, auckland city and ipswich pride, all of which have established domestic teams who are making significant progress and each have their own venue (though auckland city would have to move to north harbour).

it would be good to see the canberra united womens team establishing a mens club to play in the act npl. I would like to see them change their name though, canberra united wouldn't cut it, it would be a bit like gold coast united where u really lack a nickname because you chose a name where there is already an established 'united' team (i.e. adelaide). I would like to see the name be Canberra Cosmos, Canberra Comets etc. or even Canberra Republic FC which sounds good, has a purpose since parliament is in the states capital and just like wanderers, would allow for good names for their active supporters.

the next 3 teams id like to see in the a-league are wollongong wolves, auckland city and ipswich pride, all of which have established domestic teams who are making significant progress and each have their own venue (though auckland city would have to move to north harbour).

it would be good to see the canberra united womens team establishing a mens club to play in the act npl. I would like to see them change their name though, canberra united wouldn't cut it, it would be a bit like gold coast united where u really lack a nickname because you chose a name where there is already an established 'united' team (i.e. adelaide). I would like to see the name be Canberra Cosmos, Canberra Comets etc. or even Canberra Republic FC which sounds good, has a purpose since parliament is in the states capital and just like wanderers, would allow for good names for their active supporters.

:lol: :lol: :lol: Listed as one of the major reasons if not the biggest that the Knights failed :lol: go for it!

Honestly, I think it would be better if the teams had bland names like your city's, united's and fc's, which will sound more professional and benefit the a-league on a holistic level and to be less tacky than the mls and probably let the nicknames develop or put to a vote, either way.

apologies, meant to say mt smart stadium

What about the Canberra capitals? The basketball team is already called that iirc but that wouldn't cause too much drama

Whoa, you have to be kidding... Surely if we've learnt anything from the last 24 months, it's that we need to ask what the locals want and give it to them, not throw some plastic crap sticker on the end of their name that has some very vague unappealing link to the area. We have to do better than that to win over the locals there. Wollongong and NQ are much easier markets to tap into than canberra imo. Not saying I'm against Canberra - they should be there ASAP - but when competing against Brumbies, Raiders and GWS there we need to get it right and learn from our previous mistakes / successes.

What about the Canberra capitals? The basketball team is already called that iirc but that wouldn't cause too much drama

Canberra Corruption.

Current 10 + a team based in the folllowing;
Canberra
Tasmania
Wollongong
Ipswich
North Queensland
Darwin
Auckland
Geelong

Along with a team or two from Indonesia, and a team or two from Malaysia.

I will never understand you people who wish for this to happen.

Canberra C*nts?

I will never understand you people who wish for this to happen.