In more than 750 rounds of NSL matches from 1977 to 2003/04, where up to 12 matches were played per round, the highest aggregate attendance for a round was 58,800 over eight matches in round 2, 2000/01, which included 14,000-plus home crowds for Newcastle United and Perth Glory.

It was a different story at Melbourne's Bob Jane Stadium that weekend however, where a mere 1400 watched Archie Thompson score for Carlton in its 2-2 draw with Wollongong Wolves.
But let's go back to those 12-match NSL rounds. Yes, that's right, at one stage the old national league had a whopping 24 teams up against each other each weekend.

This was from 1984 to 1986, when the league was split into two conferences, based loosely on a north-south breakdown of teams.

It was a bold move by the authorities, expanding from a single tier competition of 16 teams in 1983 – the theory for the struggling league at the time being that more local derbies (the north division consisted mostly of Sydney teams, the south division was mostly Melbourne teams) would stimulate increased interest in the terraces.

After registering an average 4,200 crowd per game in its first three seasons 1977-1979, the NSL’s average attendance had dropped to 2,700 in the 1983 season.

However the two-conference format didn't really work – in its first year (1984) the regular season average dropped to 2,300, then down to an all-time low of 2,200 per game in 1985.

It's amazing looking back at media match reports from the 1985 NSL season and seeing crowds such as 125 for a Green Gully home game, 150 watching four-time NSL Champions Sydney City at inner-Sydney Wentworth Park, and 202 at Penrith Park to see Penrith City take on Canberra City.

After reverting back to a single conference system in 1987, then to "summer soccer" in 1989/90, the trend in national league average crowds was upwards.

But nothing comes close to the increase between the last NSL season (2003/04) and first edition of the A-league (2005/06), when the season average skyrocketed from 4,050 to 10,955 per game and then 12,927 and 14,610 for the next 2 years.
The last 2 seasons have been 13,041 (12-13) & 12,500 (14-15) doesn’t include finals

The NSL had more EFFNIKS

Clearly need more Sydney teams!

I'd say that the A-League clubs are a lot more inclusive nowadays (esp. in a geographical sense) ... for example growing up in Sydney I didn't really identify with any of the teams until Northern Spirit came along. If I lived in Sydney still I'd probably be a Sydney FC or CCM fan.

Although Canberra had a huge football playing community when I lived there, yet the Cosmos games were near on empty (I think a summer league definitely suits Canberra fans better ... although you may lose a huge portion of the university population during that time).

If you look at the NPL teams (at least here in WA anyway) I similarly wouldn't go for any of them because geographically they are so narrow (e.g. Floreat, Bayswater, Joondalup etc.) Perth SC are about the only real generic team to support. But my local team is only in NPL2 here. I think that is why going for a team like Perth Glory is so "easy" ... it encompasses a much larger area (geographically), and they have always tried to be inclusive of all WA (even if a token effort most the time).

the next step in order for a-league crowds to rise is by introducing more sydney and melbourne teams. local rivalries and away support is how we pull a crowd.

](*,)

Where is the HAL more inclusive geographically?

The NSL.....

Qld - they had a team and up to two in the capital city
NSW - they had more Sydney teams spread out and clubs starting from far south as Wollongong to far North as Newcastle
and even had Canberra at one stage
Vic - had more melb teams and clubs as far east as Morewell / Gippsland
Adeleaide - they had two teams in the city
Perth - they had one

If anything the NSL were better geographically spread so that's not the reason for the A-Leagues climb in support.

Simply the HAL is a not a league that harbours mono ethnic community clubs that in the main catered for themselves. They were exclusive.



Edited by paulc: 5/11/2015 02:00:39 PM

I think his point is don't add more teams in Sydney and Melbourne because the nsl did that and it failed.

I don't think our situation and the nsl's is at all comparable though

Edited by tbitm: 5/11/2015 02:45:40 PM

Just a add on to this the NSW State League 1971-76 generally averaged 1,500 per game 10,000 total for 6 games, I remember one weekend when Pan Hellanic v st George at Wentworth park and the Itailian Derby Marconi v Apia both drew 6,000 each in 1976 and I thought wow we going to overtake Rugby League

I'll join the dots.

The opening post compares crowds with the A-League overwhelmingly higher attendances and I respond to a poster that says it's because the HAL is mainly more geographically inclusive.

My points.

1. No it's not. The NSL was just as much geographically established if not more.
2. The A-League set up however is inclusive to all communities, NSL set up was not.

Interesting OP Roberts.

Your averages are exclusive of finals?

You should do an exercise on finals and compare crowds to broad based clubs paling each other vs mono ethnic clubs playing each other and the difference is even more staggering.

Except it doesn't take into account the differences of the leagues at the time.

Aka tv coverage, media coverage, the internet.

-PB

I just had a good look again at the the crowd figures the NSL got between the 90's and early 2000's, and there was definitely a big disparity between some clubs and others.

The club that stood out the most for me was Adelaide United, who averaged the same if not more than what they get today. Perth I already knew about and were strong back in the day, at east stronger than they are today.

For the rest, it was pretty embarrassing, most below 5k and in many cases closer to 2-3k per game.

There may have been more teams in Sydney but their support base was limited. Marconi had a small catchment, Sydney United, Sydney Olympic etc. all in the same boat. Same in Melbourne, they only appealed to small communities (irrelevant if they were ethnic based or not). They diluted the pool if anything, and were too exclusive. Hence why I used the WA NPL example ... who outside of Bayswater would support them? Or Joondalup? So NPL clubs excluded people geographically (without even considering any ethnic exclusion that may or may not have existed).

Geographically multiple A-Leagues (now and into the future) in the same city need to find a point of difference IMO. E.g. in Perth there is a rivalry between north of the river and south of the river (this fact splits many Docker and Eagles fans). Sydney has a few distinct divides they can work on, etc. but they clubs needs to be inclusive of a larger catchment than NSL (and many NPL) clubs were (are). Otherwise they just won't be "attractive" to the FFA, or crowds for that matter.

They've tried on 2 or 3 occasions. It failed. Sponsors and advertisers were not interested.

5K average was at the NSL's peak.

You reminded me about Adelaide and this could help Sokorny. But I'm going by memory.

Adelaide had two NSL teams, both had poor crowds except when there was a derby but even then low compared to today's HAL.

First West Adelaide Hellas (Greek) left the NSL which left Adelaide City (Juventus / Italalian). City did not reap the advantage of being a one city club at all.

Until Adelaide United came along as a broad based club whilst still in the NSL who from memory achieved notably bigger attendance that would stand up today in the HAL.

Generally broad based clubs big crowds. Mono ethnic clubs small crowd. No matter the geography.

Hard to compare for Adelaide United - they had only one year in the NSL...

Definitely, and I can't imagine anyone thinking that mono ethnic clubs would be good in any sort of way in the A-league today, even if they have a reasonable support base, they would never grow into anything larger, as it would alienate everyone else.

The best rivalries are one's that split the city socio economically imo, the whole white collar vs blue collar. That's why the Sydney Derby works so well. obviously you want geographical separation but it needs to be more than that.

Obviously political differences can help raise the passion of a derby, but really just like with religion, it can cause massive tension which frequently leads to violence etc. Obviously we would want to avoid this, and luckily we don't really have these issues.

The Sydney divide between FC and WSW is great, but I am starting to get the impression that we're slowly turning it into a anglo vs wogs type relationship which is not good imo.

Happy to fight it out based on socio economic reasons but not based on peoples race which can quickly get very nasty. The media certainly isn't helping in this department and either is the police imo.

There'd be little doubt the NSL crowds were full of real football fans

With HAL it's hard to tell

Too many mums and kids!

-PB

Not really, they throw flares!

That's right with HAL you get more football fans from all places coming together, mixed in nicely with a few casuals too. Nothing wrong with that.

With the NSL at most games you could count the number of supporters in the space of 30 seconds..

A major difference is in the 70s 90% of the crowd were 50 years old and older--- Europeans, of which the majority were Greek Italian and Yugoslav

Today it has totally changed a high % of young adults attend

True but don't call a Croat a Yugoslav because he'll cut your balls.

Last team in the NSL I recall as being Yugoslav was Footscray J.U.S.T.

But in the 70's they were Yugoslav. Croatia wasn't formed until 91..

This bodes well for football moving forward then, as we we'll be able to reach a full cycle once the young generation of today age and slowly get to raise kids of their own who will also follow football.

Correct and there were two types of clubs that set themselves apart apart even then but whilst technically correct they hated been call Jugos.

There were many violent battles on the field between the two sides. Late sixties Croatia Soccer Club was disqualified from all competition by the VSF and didn't return until mid 70's under a different name but soon changed back. It was trhat serious.

The people still identified themselves as Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, etc. before they gained independence though (the country Yugoslavia came about after WWI and was a merging of these cultures/people).

I worked in a workplace with a particularly racist arsehole boss who goaded the Cro every day calling him a Jugo. He belted him in such a poignant, succinct manner that charges weren't laid. Had some serious wog pride that day.

Your state is not your ethnicity. Places like Australia and the USA are outliers where people actually claim their statehood as their nationality.

Edited by bohemia: 5/11/2015 06:51:53 PM

Season 98/99 south only had 1 or 2 games under 8k from memory, crowds were also very young as well, we had years we would get a bigger crowd against Perth as opposed to the derby against knights which is strange.

Last season of nsl we got 12k against Perth, 10k against para power and 9k against Adelaide united, that's pretty staggering considering the comp was in shut down mode. Also interesting these crowds were against a league type clubs. So close to breaking into the mainstream at the time.