fraser

Yeah but does she take it up the......

Wife Beater

It would be less painful than 90 minutes of CCM v NZ. :scared:

ozzieeagle

I was quite impressed by CCM, at the Telstra dome the other night. Very large players, and they did in the first half at least play as quite a tight unit.


Tell you what, from my point of view, it beats AFL hands down, and having been in this country, for 20 odd years, and coming here with a habit of going week in week out following Palace all over the country. The one thing for me that I missed about the UK the most has now been replaced.

Watching football at 4am sucks.

fraser

It was very enjoyable at 12.30 am last night mate

ozzieeagle

Got to admit that isn't such a bad time slot. They have a great bar at the Telstra dome, 4.80 aud per pint, with a glass vista that you can watch the game from and soak up the atmosphere amongst other football fans


Friday Dec8th MV v Sydney 8pm

Del Boy

Lol...keep on telling yourself that and you might eventually convince yourself.

ozzieeagle

I've been to enough AFL games to know that "granny ball" is not for me. Too many years spent on the terraces. There is "no participation feel" in AFL.

Del Boy

Whoops...my fault. No argument at all with the AFL issue, I wouldnt bother going to watch it if they were playing in my garden.

In my opinion, the A league is no substitute for a proper league. I know you keep quoting large attendance figures, but every game I see is played in front of massively empty terraces, or at best , "terraces" with palm trees looming over them (obviously not in Melbourne !) Melbourne has always had a large following for football due to make up of its population and this gives an imbalanced view of the leagues popularity. How long will the A league last I wonder? I would suggest that at the very least it must be expanded hugely so at least the season is a proper length. Not to mention the ruinous effect of the australian phenomenon of salary caps.

ozzieeagle

The league is only 18months old. There is no way you are going to get large attendances out of Gosford or Newcastle. However Tampering with the league at present would be fatal. At present MV are paving the way with the support and setting the benchmark. Sydney has traditionally always been slow to catch up with this kind of thing, needing years of success before Sydneysiders get the bug. Adelaide and Brisbane, with an average of circa 15,000 each are going along fine and will slowly increase. The one team, in terms of support thus far that disappoints is Perth. Having actually gone backwards. The major problem the league has so far is New Zealand, with the league placing the team is the wrong city, in terms of natural football followers.

People still dont trust the old ethnic following support base, and it will be a while before these fears are dismissed amongst the general Aussie population.

Just think of teams like Gosford and Newcastle in the same vein as Wigan and Fulham, with few but dedicated support and eventually people will get won onboard.

As for now best leave the league alone, until the carrot of international competion in the Asian Championship brings in more punters.

BTW, the A league has managed to sell a highlights package to Sky TV and it's ilk, not a bad acheivement 18months in.

Del Boy

Hmmmm, that all sounds really positive...fingers crossed, though I'm personally not convinced, but keep enjoying yer football, thats the main thing. I know I will and I'll keep an eye out for games on sky next year.

ozzieeagle

I thought I'd take the liberty of quoting some interesting views and stats from an Aussie born and bred poster on the Palace boards re the A league..

quote:Originally posted by Farawayeagle
I think Rizzo is still earning more languishing in the lower leagues.
Like it or not most Aussie players look on the A-League as just a pre retirement option.

… and the quicker this changes the better. Still basking in the glow of that amazing match on Friday night, you would hope that there was growing capacity for the A-league to be more financially attractive to players than League One.

With A-league attendances this season averaging about 13,000, this is approaching double that of League One (7,700), and not too far off the average for the Championship (17,600). And I can’t imagine the TV money would be that much greater these days for the lower English clubs? Maybe the A-league is just missing chairmen with more money than sense!







Basically if you compare the A league to the Championship, it doesn't fair so bad, especially if you take on board that it really is only 18months old.