Ah touche 

Giggles

What are we gonna call the two derbies Western Melbourbe is involved in?

The Westgate cup

Can see it now, massive build up for the first game, huge expectation, thread here going nuts leading up to the big day, everyone tuning in to watch.. excitement through the roof, then kick off, everyone watching with baited breath for that one  performance that will light up the game and herald a new era, 90  minutes pass and the sudden realisation , they are just another A-League team   

What about the cricket club? Do you not think they will have their say?

They will have their say. It's their  season and will have more of a say then wmg

Followed up by 4k crowds after the hype has died. There gonna be worse then Melb City.

You can’t completely write it off yet, it works only one way....they bring the biggest marquee the league has ever seen, will need to be someone that makes even del Piero look like nothing, they get one shot at it.

Something like working with Melbourne Knights or Green Gully to get their stadium upgraded (even temporarily) and capable of hosting A-League games instead of AFL ovals would be awesome for the game and build a lot of goodwill in the west.

That said, I'm sure they'll try their best to get those suburban games organised but will be inevitably shut down by Gallop refusing to let games be played in smaller grounds for brand image reasons.

Knights won’t work with them. Gully would but as it stands the venue has 0 seats and if you were to put them in the capacity will be about 2,500. No way the ffa allows that. For whatever reason they don’t seem to have a lot of goodwill out west.

Knights Stadium or Green Gully are not really viable options, as the PT access to them is next to useless.

I’m not sure what engagement that WMG have been doing, but they seem to think that holding one fan forum in mid-2018 was enough. Compare that to Team 11, which was constantly traveling to clubs and drumming up interest.

All that being said, football can be quite territorial, so some clubs are always going to try and protect their turf when they can. Clubs like Melbourne Knights have a proud history, but seemingly are losing relevance as every year passes, which is certainly not what they would want to see happening.

It’s up to WMG to stop talking about their proposed stadium plan and look at truly engaging clubs effectively. Lip service doesn’t cut it, and undertaking an effective engagement process is even more important as they need to build a supporter base over the next 3 years before that new stadium is opened.

Transparency would be nice too, as they seem to be quite sectretive about who their backers are. They had started that those backers would be announced if they won the bid, which has happened so it would be a good start.

They will need to lift their game as so far it’s been a fairly flat feeling about them.

Shame. I know Knights would despise them but thought any club would find it hard to turn down the opportunity to upgrade their stadium. 

Yeah you'd think Knights would be the last NPLV club willing to play ball, but WMG could sweeten the pot with some capital investment in their facilities. There's also the Horvat link of course.

The total lack of public transport is a factor, they'd have to put on buses or something.

Good list, but I'd have to strike off ABD Stadium and Olympic Village as being from the North rather than the West, and there are no corporate facilities to speak of at Green Gully, Melbourne Showgrounds or Queen Elizabeth Oval (I assume you mean the one in Bendigo?) Knights Stadium would be possible but the doubts over whether they'd cooperate are well founded.

Morshead Park in Ballarat and Avalon Airport Oval in Werribee both have a modern main grandstand with player, media and hospitality facilities (not sure about media in Ballarat) and at least some lighting, however in both cases temporary stands would need to be added.

Funnily enough, the Socceroos played one game at Queen Elizabeth Oval in 1988, a Trans Tasman Cup match against the Kiwis.

3k in attendance apparently, and Arok had the field repainted before the game at a right angle from the grandstand to avoid the cricket pitch.

That's progress, I guess.

Here's a 3d view from google maps from the centre of the field for those interested.

Would be great if WM were to form some association with Mel Knights for the 3 years, which would be hugely beneficial to both clubs, and a 15 000 football stadium that would look good from all prospectives. Needless to say Knights would have to be handsomely rewarded, but a big win win for both parties.

I did mean Bendigo.

Avalon Airport Oval is a non-starter. I've stated reasoning numerous time in this thread already.

Would A-League want games played on any oval with a cricket pitch in the middle? That alone would rule out a lot of grounds I think. In saying that, it seems to work for Victory's games at Kardinia Park.

Living down werribee way . The only thing I've seen abour the club was the fan forum  and the bid group being at werribee mansion  for children's week. Since the franchise  got the licence its  been quiet . Horvat  has been posting on the Facebook page that girt  runs but that's it

Fair enough if you're across the cricket club's access to the ground.

That leaves just Morshead Park in Ballarat, unless Knights are keen to work with them.

Yeah, I can't see where they are going to play other than Ballarat really. Depends on what the A-League will allow I guess

Broonaldo has told them to GTF. 

Bump.

Any updates in regards to anything? They're doing a great job at drumming up excitement (lol) other than a few fluff pieces in the paper.

Fan forums? Colours? Names? Etc

when do they start building the stadium? 

They posted a tweet on their twitter account yesterday that they will be making an announcement soon. How comforting :)

They appear to come across like they didn’t expect to get the licence and have no idea what to do next.

Fan forums would be a start.

Do they intend on playing the derby games at AAMI Park or will they keep them in Geelong?

I think Gyfox posted a possible timetable for them here... If they don't know what to do, just follow that please...

These guys need to hire a coach asap. The window is open.

I see John Anastasiadis signed on as an assistant today.

Good move re: Johnny A. Would have been a bold move to give him a senior gig, but Rudan has done a great job at Wellington and many rate Johnny A a better coach than Rudan.

Knights could make some serious rent coin if they wanted to as well.. Not sure what their position is on it, but it could only benefit them.