When people talk about the growth in the game, they don't seem to be aware that the game was huge in Australia (at State League level) back in the late 50s and early 60s.
New dawners think the game started in Australia in 2006.
The other travesty is that Australian football has zero appreciation of its history.

Its a bit strange including both home and away attendances in a club's average attendance and the analysis is a bit simplistic.  Take Sydney FC, the first 7 games included a Big Blue at home, Adelaide at home, a Sydney Derby at home and City at home while the next 6 games were all against the bottom drawing clubs with 4 of the games away.  Of course they dropped 40%, what else would anyone expect?  I haven't bothered checking the rest but I am wondering whether the clubs that have had a more balanced fixture are the ones that have not dropped as much.  If I get time I might do a spreadsheet.

Meanwhile the rest of games in that same round 16, drew 700 to 3000 spectators.

8181 at the Australia Day Big Blue

So after 60 years, another 4-5 million people living in the "catchment", streaming, social media, websites and a 120 million broadcasting deal. No more "evil effniks" Socceroos consistently making World Cups and Matildas in the top 10 in the world. 3/4 of our kids playing FIFA and at least knowing 2 or 3 players and clubs by name and your point is what?
Part time clubs, with bricklayers, plumbers and school teachers on the pitch got 700 to watch them play in an STATE ONLY game and full time professional players at WU and Macarthur can only manage to get 200 people more to their matches?????
60 YEARS!!!!!!!!! and only 200 more people!!!!!!!!!!! 

I think the hey day for the game in Australia was probably around 1910.

Your probably not far off the truth..
In all sincerity (for once) weve gotta stop thinking about how popular the game is and how much money can be skimmed out of it.... I couldn't care less if Im at a match with 50 people or 500 or 5,000. Yes having a heaving stadium is great but the feeling for the 11 lads on the park doesn't diminish if there aren't any balaclava clad esshays beating their  drums and letting off flares.
Grow the club culture, from the ground up, and build generational support for CLUBS like it has happened in every other corner of the globe... 

In Sydney attendance took off with the establishment of the new federation competition in 1957 and it drew well initially but dropped when the clubs were pulled in to line by FIFA for stealing quality players from Europe without paying transfer fees.  With the quality of imports from mainland Europe the clubs could sign dropping some clubs started signing journeymen from football in the UK which dropped the quality of play.

The elephant in the room is that Australia is the only country that completely shuts out other football clubs from any opportunity to advance to the top league.
FA/APL restrict the earning capacity of the professional athlete with a salary cap. Those that administer the top League here are determined to keep the ecosystem fractured, more than likely  due to racism, not to safe guard teams from themselves. Teams know how wealthy they are and if they don't like Victory of late, they can sort it out or drop down into another division if there was one. Why punish well run clubs? We all know the underlying current which is that, lets stop beating around the bush by convincing ourselves that it is not.
Anyway, at least the MLS model has about 30 teams as a franchise League. Almost every place is represented.
If the football code ever gets itself up to speed with just the basics, momentum will start to build and people will feel good about football and start going to matches. Football is forever fractured, therefore, it only appeals to alot less sportsminded fans.  

I know you hate the A-League and prefer to have a Greek Super League type of competition with SM Hellas in it, but look at their last full season average crowds if you want a comparison: :blush::blush::blush::blush::blush:

#	Team		sum	Matches	average
1		Olympiakos Piraeus	158.191	26	6.084
2		AEK Athen	144.449	26	5.556
3		Aris Saloniki	130.545	26	5.021
4		Panathinaikos	118.269	26	4.549
5		PAOK Saloniki	84.608	26	3.254
6		OFI Heraklion	67.631	26	2.601
7		Ionikos Nikea	50.970	26	1.960
8		Volos NFC	49.802	26	1.915
9		PAS Giannina	48.381	26	1.861
10		Atromitos	47.460	26	1.825
11		Apollon Smyrnis	42.197	26	1.623
12		Asteras Tripolis	36.634	26	1.409
13		Panetolikos	36.534	26	1.405
14		Lamia	32.233	26	1.240
	overall		1.047.904	364	2.879

 

Week 14 of the 2022-23 A-league Mens Competition was attended by 37,734 people at an average of 5,956 per game and an average capacity use of 25%. This season 612,561 people have attended the Aleague Mens comp, at an average of 7,380 per game, using 29.53% of available capacity.

Code	Week	Day	Date	Time	Home	Away	Venue	Crowd	Capacity	%Capacity
ALM	14	26/1	Thu	1815	Melb Victory	Sydney	Aami Park	8,181	30,050	27.22%
ALM	14	27/1	Fri	1915	Newcastle	Brisbane	McDonald Jones	5,235	30,000	17.45%
ALM	14	28/1	Sat	1230	Wellington	Perth	Central Energy Trust Arena	4,518	15,000	30.12%
ALM	14	28/1	Sat	1630	Macarthur	Western United	Campbelltown Stadim	2,898	17,500	16.56%
ALM	14	28/1	Sat	1915	Central Coast	Western Sydney	Industree Group Stadium	8,565	20,059	42.70%
ALM	14	29/1	Sun	1430	Melb City	Adelaide	Aami Park	6,337	30,050	21.09%
							Total	35,734	142,659	25.05%
							Average	5,956
							Season Total	612,561	2,074,431	29.53%
							Season Average	7,380

Teams by average crowds in total and at venues

Team	League	Venue	Average	Capacity	% Cap
Sydney FC	ALM	Allianz Stadium	18,546	42,500	44%
Melbourne Victory	ALM	Aami Park - Before Incident	18,186	30,050	61%
Melbourne Victory	ALM	Aami Park - All Circumstances	13,426	30,050	45%
Adelaide	ALM	Coopers Stadium	9,843	16,500	60%
Western Sydney	ALM	Commbank Stadium	9,694	30,000	32%
Brisbane	ALM	Suncorp Stadium	8,206	52,500	16%
Central Coast	ALM	Industree Grp Stadium (Ex CCS)	7,050	20,059	35%
Newcastle	ALM	McDonald Jones Stadium	6,612	30,000	22%
Melbourne Victory	ALM	Aami Park - After Incident	6,287	30,050	21%
Wellington	ALM	Sky Stadium	6,164	34,500	18%
Melbourne City	ALM	Aami Park	6,110	30,050	20%
Brisbane	ALM	All Venues	5,731	21,750	26%
Wellington	ALM	All venues	5,575	32,714	17%
Wellington	ALM	Central Energy Trust Arena	5,543	15,000	37%
Western United	ALM	North Hobart Oval	5,127	10,000	51%
Brisbane	ALM	Kayo Stadium (ex Moreton Daily)	4,906	11,500	43%
Perth	ALM	Macedonia Park (HBF under dev)	3,863	4,000	97%
Macarthur	ALM	Campbelltown Stadium	3,859	17,500	22%
Western United	ALM	All venues	3,042	27,544	11%
Western United	ALM	Aami Park	2,744	30,050	9%
Wellington	ALM	WIN Stadium	2,502	22,000	11%

Next week there shoukd be a marked improvement in attendance with home games for Melb Victory, Adelaide, Smurfs and Wanderers. The only small attendance is enforced with Perth hosting Newcastle at Macedonia Park

This is going to be the norm for Victory going forward. The Sydney GF decision, the overzealous sanctions from the derby and the horrendous performances on the pitch will keep many people away, potentially for good. Instead of carrying the AL in terms of crowd numbers, we will turn into a middle of the road, irrelevant team.

From a Victory POV, we probably want this season over as quickly as possible. But with the way the APL has fixtured our games - with a shitload of away games in the first half of the season - we still have 8 home games to come.  

Don’t wanna imagine the crowd numbers for Wellington this Friday, but at a guess I would suggest below 5,000.

FWIW, I haven’t been back since the derby and don’t know when I’ll be back. And I usually attend 16-18 Victory games per season.

Oh Paulie........ what can I say.... WU MUST be a much bigger club than Apollon Smyrnis..... Your right I am soooo embarrassed..... I think you should write to the EPO and ask them to lock these existing 14 clubs away in a no pro/rel league (better yet they should set up franchises instead) so that they can improve their metrics..... Let me know what response you get.

2,879 average for a football league with kulcha. :blush:

Having said that I've watched quite a number of games (when you can see through the smoke) and they're not good. The Greeks admit that, which may explain the poor crowds. Have to turn on the A-League to get my football fix.

Maybe the Aleague has the "kulcha" now :) 
They better get their act together though, the 2030 World cup is not far away and if they are to host they better get the stadiums revamped to fit more multicultural spectators in......  Maybe they should ask for the number of a reliable builder from the WMG boys????

Wow. That is truly incredible. 
Is this the norm there or it the broken economy/covid etc?

I can't believe we used to hear so much about these massive Greek teams on forums.

Certainly puts things into perspective doesn't it.

Most of the those small European leagues have quite small attendances, even if the quality of the football can be quite good.

Not really incredibe mate. Greece's whole population is barely 2-3 million more than Victoria....  Most of the smaller clubs (outside of Athens and Thessaloniki) operate in towns no bigger than Ballarat or Bendigo.

Couple that with the fact that Greek football has been in a pretty shitty decline for the last 20 years. Both on the pitch and especially off it with very shady owners, incredibly violent fans and the fact that away fans are banned from most grounds then very small crowds is sadly the norm these days... Don't know if the figures Pauline Hansonopoulos posted are a true reflection though.. Some of the bigger teams can still draw a derby crowd.... 

  

Sounds like some theatre going plastic fans to me??

Also I'm not surprised at the small town fans I'm "surprised" at 1, 2 & 4 after everything I've heard on Aust football forums over the years.

Just the usual Greek mythology.

C'mon mate. I expect better from you. Don't you think a certain poster posting attendance records from 2020-21 (you know the year that ALL attendances across the world were affected by a certain virulent flue strain forced isolation and lockout laws) is abit of a pisstake?
I mean this year, despite the many. many. many societal problems in Greece the attendance figures are lot more respectable no? 


Greek football is totally crap at the moment, no arguments from me at all... Don;t know what comparing one country to the other achieves though? 
Hahahah event goers are universal I guess :)

Its all Greek mythology mate.

https://herculean.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/grant-the-scot-and-the-greek-presence-in-scotland/

I'm clearly just fucking around - taste of your own medicine so to speak.
I could have kept going too (given those new figures) but unlike you I can't be bothered aha

hahahah I know man.... all good... 

Victory vs wellington 7k

Sydney vs mariners 10k haven't played at home in a while but also terrible form

City vs bulls 6k that's where our crowds are at

Adelaide vs roar 8k

Perth vs jets 4k

WSW vs western 9k

Just see the crowds staying around the average which I guess isn't too bad

Greek's population is 10.3 mill vs Victoria's 6.4 mill with 90% of the population following AFL.......................lol

What happened to the forum? All the posts on the front page are a decade or more old