Australian Football (A-League)

Don’t come the raw prawn with me ya flaming yahoo’s.

 

Kangaroos are mental eh

 

Hang in there Cleansheets old mate. I know what you were trying to say. I think you got a bit bent out of shape and obviously the Scotts don't understand how divided Oz football is or the politics behind criticism of the Al.

Much like the fact that some of these dumb * don't understand that no Aussie considers NZ a rival or gives two flying * about the sheep rooters.

Bitters bag the Al because they want it to die as payback for having the pond drained and them being excluded when the Al began.

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Who are you referring to when you mention dumb *?

 

Notorious lol

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That's fair enough then

 

And I know he is only trolling and having a bit of fun, I like that banter too - but the kiwi line ain't it. He'd get more bites by focussing on some of the shockeroos appalling results/collapses than he would the kiwis.

 

Lizzie burdsworth csc

 

Man, I can't wait for Livingston Town vs Ayr Valley this weekend. Absolutely love watching these Brutish Scot * punt the ball 90 yards and then slowly trudge their way up field through mounds of cow *, empty Irn-Bru cans and discarded heroin needles. Ah my bad, thought this was the Scottish Football thread!

 

Cricket is more popular in Australia than 'soccer'. * cricket
Any wonder they don't have a clue.

 

Didn't realise cricket was a sport. When did that happen ?

You sure about that @BigJessie?

 

Football has always been the most participated in organised sport in Australia, and has been for a long time. https://www.sportaus.gov.au/media-c...op_20_sports_and_physical_activities_revealed
The reasons that’s not reflected in our National team and the popularity of the A League is a very complex thing.
Without going into the entire historical issue of the old soccer v new football debate, a bigger issue is the vested interest of the mainstream media protecting their ‘products’, ie Rugby League and AFL. It’s a very real thing. They absolutely slip the boot into football at every opportunity, and play on the so called ‘hooligan’ culture that is seen around the world and portray the A League is another breeding ground of Green St hooligans.
Just google search Rebecca Wilson A league, you’ll see what I mean.

 

To be fair, you did bite to it.

Mon the Kiwi’s

 

Now that surprises me. Growing up there in the 90’s me and my brother were the only people who watched or played ‘soccer’, my Mum tried to get a school team organised and was told there was ‘little to no interest’

The team we played in on the weekend always struggled for bodies due to lack of interest, everybody was more into Aussie Rules.

To be fair, Gary Ablett was a * legend back then though

 

I grew up in Western Sydney in the 80’s and soccer, err football, was huge. Played from the age of 9 and the game was that popular we had to trial to get allocated a team. I moved to the Sutherland shire in 1987 and it was just as popular there. I played in comps that meant I travelled all over Sydney and in particular western Sydney and they were always well patronised. Back then too, in the NSL, we had Parramatta Melita, Sydney Croatia, Marconi, Sydney Hakoah, Apia Leichardt, St George Budapest, Bonnyrigg White Eagles and Sydney Olympic, off the top of my head. Football was hugely popular, however not mainstream.

 

I was in Melbourne in the 90’s and there just wasn’t any interest at all, games regularly got cancelled at the weekends due to struggling to find opponents and a lack of players.

Difference in the attitude to football when I moved back to Scotland was mind blowing to me. There was very little interest in Australia then suddenly in a country that lived and breathed it, full lives shaped around it. Was an actual culture shock.

 

Spent a year in Australia in the mid 90's and literally no one cared about football. Ozzie's love their sport no doubt just not seen much love or understanding of football. Netball and swimming where far higher up the popularity stakes when I was there.

I'm sure a lot could have changed over the years though. Just not seen anything to indicate that personally.

 

https://australiansportscamps.com.au/blog/most-popular-team-sports-for-australian-kids/

 

This article once again backs up things that I have posted on this site in the past.

Have made note of this on here a number of times over the years when talking about football in Australia at a grassroots and participation level, football is always so much higher than AFL or rugby league etc and pretty mcuh ever other sport, because, among other things unlike those sports that enjoy regional support, football is played everywhere across Australia.

For example, it might not be as high as say AFL in Melbourne, or rugby league might be in Sydney but when averaged out across the board, it is much higher as those sports struggle for grassroots level support away from their traditional bases (ie AFL in Syndey is much, much much lower than RL, and vice versa in Melbourne).

The question about being able to capitalize on this grassroots and participation is a different question entirely, but again as have posted on here before, the A-League has been a major step in the right direction.

Prior to the creation of the A-League, the old NSL was a complete shambles, not least of which that the teams were largely drawn along ethnicity lines (Marconi, Melbourne Olympic, Sydney Croatia et al) and when there were confrontation between fans of these clubs this was so often an issue, which only served to entrench the notion of it being 'wogball'. This would include the time when @Tony Ralston & @NomDePlum was talking about, and even by the time I left Australia these attitudes that I grew up with were already changing. And have changed a hella lot more since I've left.

The A-League was established to do away with that, and it is beyond dispute the improvement of the sport at a professional level in Australia, which has also served to benefit the game as a whole as well as the prominance of Australian players being able to carve significant careers abroad because of what they are growing up with, as well as the success of the NT who have qualified for every , WC since 2006 (and I was there, lol). Yes, there are other factors that contributed to this, such as leaving Oceania and joingin Asia for the basis of qualifying has undoubtedly contributed to this also.