Keep asking. It seems that every time you ask an intelligent question, you get an intelligent answer - then maintain your existing position on the way things should be.

I actually like the idea of the VPL being Victorian rather than Melbourne based. That said, I don't like the idea of the league being placed in above the existing competition, or of it being zonal, I prefer the idea on a pyramid system (as in England), with the top division being statewide (but earned rather than geographically designated), and lower divisions being geographically based.

As you will have gathered from another discussion - I can not abide the idea that a league could come in above the existing VPL without any facility for the clubs who have earned their place in the VPL to be a part of it, either immediately, or through promotion.

This has always been one of my major problems with the A-League, and would be an issue with any other competition set up in the same way.

They tried a club in Northern Sydney with Northern Spirit and it failed dismally. They thought it would do well but the crowds just stopped turning up. So I don't think you can say they'd easily get an 8k average when there's absolutely no proof to suggest they would.

So what you're basically saying is that most people will support a team in the top flight of Australian football but wouldnt be too keen on supporting a State League club?

No fucking shit?! That's what everyone is trying to tell you. You've answered your own questions about why the NSWPL is how it is

Well, they certainly do sometimes. For instance, when the Central Coast Mariners play an annual fixture you usually get between 1 and 2k people there, which doesn't sound alot but its a rubbish ground and miles away from anything. I don't know really, but I've always maintained - if you put an A-league side here in Northern Sydney they would do rather well, based at Chatswood oval or something they would easily get 8k average if not pushing 10k. But I guess they just don't really care about the NSW super or premier league.

bloody hell :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

To be honest, I don't know. I don't get out to many QSL games. They are no better than BPL crowds though and some BPL games I have seen have less than a hundred people there.

So tell me, why don't the folks from this association support their senior team?

By the way, in Melbourne, we don't have the myriad metropolitan associations that Sydney seems to have, most of the teams are all part of the same footballing pyramid except the separate VicSoccer amateur federation.

Your preaching to the choir. My association, the Gladesville-Hornsby Association in North West Sydney, is one of the largest in numbers in the country. And yet, our highest placed team is Spirit FC, in the NSW Winter Super League the 2nd division and they're mid-table.

There are so called broadbased clubs out there, with massive junior bases, and yet when it comes to senior men's football they do diddly. They have all the tools for success at their disposal, except a mass of people interested in senior football - so why should they get a leg up over clubs that do?

What r the crowds like in the QSL?

Sounds a little bit like how things are run in Queensland with the Queensland State League being created a few years back and slotted above the Brisbane Premier League. They're trying hard to make that competition the undisputed second tier comp in the state but it has had many problems - most notably the quality of players outside Brisbane (although it is getting better with time). Several Brisbane clubs also have left the QSL to return to BPL as the cost-benefit simply wasn't there (although Brisbane Strikers who are prolly the biggest name in the local league from a national perspective are still in the QSL). However SUnshine Coast, which is prolly the equivalent of a Geelong type area have proven to be the feel-good story of the QSL concept. Not only are they the most successful team in the QSL they have also provided a definite pathway to a region that previously lacked any for developing footballers. Make of all that what you will.

I actually think that sounds like a good idea, but again sorry if I just sound ill-informed - I am here to ask questions and learn

:roll: Always appreciate condescension in it's simplest form, especially from someone who has not bothered to attempt to understand my position, over the interweb :roll: If you actually bother to read my post, it says I have never even been to Victoria let alone Geelong, and that I know nothing at all about the VPL; but that I wanted to learn more. Why condescend someone who is asking the right people the right question? That's moronic and is not going to get anyone anywhere quickly.

Edited by 119GLORY: 3/10/2011 08:50:08 PM

I agree that they SHOULDN'T, but I suspect that they will. Perhaps not inserting them into the VPL, more likely inserting an entire division above the current VPL, renaming it the VPL, and making the existing VPL become the Melbourne Premier League, or similar.

Give it a couple of years - FFV are desperate to have regional representation in the VPL, we'll have a team from Geelong, another from Morwell, etc.

It's not a matter of they should be in the VPL, because their not...North Geelong Warriors were in divi 1 and then got relegated. I hope they someday they get there though.

Edited by nhub24: 2/10/2011 08:50:10 PM

You can't help it I suppose, being ignorant.

Google "Promotion/Relegation".

Because like almost every region outside the metro area they're not good enough. North Geelong won the VPL title in the early 1990s under Branko Culina I think it was. North are still in state league 1, but the rest of the clubs in the area are further down the system, Geelong got relegated to state 3, Geelong Rangers consecutive relegations to provision 1. Corio I think botched a promotion to state 3. There's another one or two teams from down that way in the provisional leagues, and they also have a localised competition.

Most of the clubs probably struggle to attract Melbourne based players, and there probably isn't that critical mass of players locally to give one side enough depth. By comparison there's three different aussie rules comps in Geelong and its surrounds.

It's not beyond reason to see a regional team reach and even win the VPL - Yallourn did it sixty years ago and Morwell Falcons did it twice in the 1980s, and won the Dockerty Cup as well. But you need strong financial backing and strong local talent pool to draw from.

Sorry if I'm just sounding completely ignorant and silly guys because I know absolutely NOTHING about the VPL other than some of the clubs ie Oakleigh Cannons, South Melbourne, Knights etc.

But why the FUCK isn't there a Geelong team in the VPL? That just seems stupid to me! It's a fair way from Melbourne but come on, less than an hour car trip and it's a big place! Someone inform me because it is just silly to me, same with Morwell.