Is Geelong interested in soccer?

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3kzisfootball

3kzisfootball

Debutant
Nov 28, 2005
85
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Northcote
AFL Club
Carlton
Other Teams
Melbourne Victory
I don't know if anyone has heard on the 'Four Diegos' last night that a Chinese consortium may be applying for an A-League license to have a Melbourne West/Geelong team play out of the new stadium with the training ground based in Geelong.

This was to happen in the year 2010 as no other team from the Melbourne area can join till then.

While just a rumor at this stage, what gives it merit is the number of good players to come from the Geelong region currently playing overseas, Skoko being one of them.

I always thought that another 'Victorian' team should not be in Melbourne because Victory has captured the market there.

Geelong seems to be the most logical choice, (considering the number of good footballers who came from there). But the question is, would Geelong have enough people interested in supporting a team there?

My impression is that Geelong is most and foremost an AFL town.

Am I wrong? Do you think Geelong could support a team in the A-League?
 
Matty Spiranovic is the latest talent to come from Geelong - it's a good list. I can potentially forsee a Geelong team in the A-League, but attracting the investment will be bloody hard. And I think they'd be a fair way down the list (Gold Coast, Townsville, Wollongong, Canberra) of the FFA's desired locations.
 

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Having lived in Geelong and with my family still living there I can say that the interest in Football has exploded there over the last 10 years. There always was a good size Football community given that Geelong does have large migrant groups but the interest in the wider community down there has really grown - especially south of the Barwon and on the Surf Coast. Whether Geelong could support a team - I have my doubts as Melbourne Victory draw a strong amount of support from Geelong already and they'd be in competition with the Cats for sponsors & exposure - a battle which I doubt any Football team down there could win.
 
Ray Nolan said:
Having lived in Geelong and with my family still living there I can say that the interest in Football has exploded there over the last 10 years. There always was a good size Football community given that Geelong does have large migrant groups but the interest in the wider community down there has really grown - especially south of the Barwon and on the Surf Coast. Whether Geelong could support a team - I have my doubts as Melbourne Victory draw a strong amount of support from Geelong already and they'd be in competition with the Cats for sponsors & exposure - a battle which I doubt any Football team down there could win.
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i think the cats may be interested in being part of a consortia so that skilled stadium could be used all year and with no summer sport in geelong it would probably work

there have been quite a few Australian players from geelong

they have a large croatian migrant group down there, I don't know of other racial groups but I presume Italians and Greeks would also be present

even then I reckon a 2nd melbourne team would be better
 
3kzisfootball said:
I don't know if anyone has heard on the 'Four Diegos' last night that a Chinese consortium may be applying for an A-League license to have a Melbourne West/Geelong team play out of the new stadium with the training ground based in Geelong.

This was to happen in the year 2010 as no other team from the Melbourne area can join till then.

While just a rumor at this stage, what gives it merit is the number of good players to come from the Geelong region currently playing overseas, Skoko being one of them.

I always thought that another 'Victorian' team should not be in Melbourne because Victory has captured the market there.

Geelong seems to be the most logical choice, (considering the number of good footballers who came from there). But the question is, would Geelong have enough people interested in supporting a team there?

My impression is that Geelong is most and foremost an AFL town.

Am I wrong? Do you think Geelong could support a team in the A-League?
Click to expand...

i reckon any town could have more than one sport, for about 10 years in the 80s geelong had the supercats in the NBL which played at the same time as the AFL (i.e. in winter). Melbourne is an AFL town and teams in other sports have done quite well (Victory, basketball in the mid 90s were getting full houses)

it could work well for geelong having a second professional sports team
 
Ray Nolan said:
Having lived in Geelong and with my family still living there I can say that the interest in Football has exploded there over the last 10 years. There always was a good size Football community given that Geelong does have large migrant groups but the interest in the wider community down there has really grown - especially south of the Barwon and on the Surf Coast. Whether Geelong could support a team - I have my doubts as Melbourne Victory draw a strong amount of support from Geelong already and they'd be in competition with the Cats for sponsors & exposure - a battle which I doubt any Football team down there could win.
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Maybe we could call them Torquay United? :p
 
I am bumping this thread because of this article that was in the Advertiser in Geelong today.

THE region's political heavyweights are preparing to mount a major assault to win an A-League soccer franchise for Geelong by 2010.

THE region's political heavyweights are preparing to mount a major assault to win an A-League soccer franchise for Geelong by 2010.

Federal Corangamite MP Darren Cheeseman has commissioned a study where the key strategy will involve a multi-purpose sporting facility, which would be ideal for soccer and a resurgent local competition.


It is understood the Geelong franchise could make its charge in 2010 when the Melbourne Victory's unchallenged domination of the Victorian market is set to end.

It's understood local politicians favour a rectangular stadium in the region that could house soccer, rugby and hockey with a capacity for about 10,000 spectators.

The location is yet to be decided, it's believed. Mr Cheeseman yesterday led a renewed call for Geelong to be the location for second A-League franchise in Victoria as part of a long-term game plan for Geelong to be mapped out by the Football Federation of Victoria and the Geelong Regional Football Association.

His call came as Football Federation Australia granted provisional licences to Townsville and Gold Coast clubs as part of plans to expand the competition to 10 teams as early as next season.

But FFA chairman Frank Lowy yesterday said the Hyundai A-League had the capacity to be at least a 12-team competition.

Mr Cheeseman, speaking from Canberra yesterday, said it was clear there would be a second A-League franchise in Victoria and that Geelong needed a long-term plan to nail that down.

He said the region should establish a flagship team in the Victorian Premier League as a smart step to the A-League. ``The inspiration should be clubs like the Central Coast Mariners, who draw on a population similar to the Greater Geelong, Surf Coast and Bellarine region. This weekend they are in the A-League grand final,'' he said.

``I have promised $20,000 to fund an independent regional study into the establishment of a regional soccer facility, including looking at demand, the make-up of such a facility, the location and cost.''


Federal Corio MP Richard Marles strongly backed the push yesterday, saying the city should aspire to A-League status.


``A critical step in getting there is having the right sporting infrastructure in place,'' he said.


South Barwon MP Michael Crutchfield said it made sense for the 10th largest regional city in Australia to have its own A-League team.


``I think we can demonstrate the supporter base that is needed, as long as the team was identified as a Geelong-wide, and not coming from one specific area.''
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Mmmmm.....still not convinced. The Central Coast Mariners come from an area which had no major teams, unlike Geelong which has a very successful and popular AFL team.
 
Lowie01 said:
Matty Spiranovic is the latest talent to come from Geelong - it's a good list. I can potentially forsee a Geelong team in the A-League, but attracting the investment will be bloody hard. And I think they'd be a fair way down the list (Gold Coast, Townsville, Wollongong, Canberra) of the FFA's desired locations.
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l think its Joe Spiteri, who chose to play for Crotia instead of us was brought up in Geelong
 

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Seriously most Geelong people aren't gonna follow a game that rivals there favourite code. And they already have 1 team and wouldn't be interested in any other.
 
Big Nasty said:
Seriously most Geelong people aren't gonna follow a game that rivals there favourite code. And they already have 1 team and wouldn't be interested in any other.
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As long as the team plays in the summer and doesn't clash with the Cats then I'm sure there'd be interest.

Don't tell me that if a Geelong soccer side made it to a grand final that there wouldn't be a be a mass of parochial patriotism for it.
 
Big Nasty said:
Seriously most Geelong people aren't gonna follow a game that rivals there favourite code. And they already have 1 team and wouldn't be interested in any other.
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Why are people so close minded about other sports? It dumbfounds me. Every sport has it good aspects and every sport has it's bad aspects. People who only follow one code confuse the hell out of me.

I am a member for 3 different teams and follow another 2 very closely.

You can support other codes, it isn't going to kill your favourite code!
 
Interesting article by Roy Hay (grandson of James ‘Dun’ Hay, captain of Celtic, Newcastle United and Scotland before the First World War and joint-editor of The World Game Downunder. He is currently writing a social history of Australian soccer with Bill Murray. He is a researcher at Deakin and has written about Soccer in Geelong)

This article has been published in Das Libero.

Geelong and Newcastle: A study in football contrasts


Roy Hay

On Sunday the Newcastle Jets won the third A-League Grand Final at the same time as Geelong’s leading football clubs were wrestling for a spot in the finals of the local competition which has replaced the long-running Geelong Advertiser Cup. The contrasts could not have been greater in terms of playing standard and local organisation of the world game. Yet the two cities are not dissimilar in a host of ways so a look at the reasons why Newcastle has been successful and Geelong has not is instructive.

First however the similarities betwen the two cities. Both draw on a region of around a quarter of a million people and are located almost equidistant from the state capital and metropolitan centre. Both have strong industrial and commercial bases with extensive educational and service supports. Newcastle used to be a major mining centre which helps explain its historical development as a centre of soccer, almost independent of Sydney in its own Northern New South Wales hinterland. Geelong had its western district wool growing, a very different demographic structure and one much less conducive to the emergence of what was for many years an immigrants’ game. This difference more or less disappeared after the Second World War, when Geelong attracted thousands of migrants from Britain and Europe, who brought their soccer with them, while the significance of the mines around Newcastle declined relative to iron and steel and engineering. Both cities are homes to major teams in other codes of football. Geelong has the Cats in the AFL and the Newcastle Knights have been a powerhouse in Rugby League.

So objectively the two cities have similar potential as far as soccer is concerned but the outcomes have been very different. Newcastle has had a single team which is the focus of the local interest and involvement, even though the name has changed several times. The Jets succeed Newcastle United, KB United, and several other iterations at National League level since the 1970s. Geelong is completely divided along what are largely ethnically-based lines and only North Geelong, backed by the Croatian migrant community, has reached the Victorian Premier League, a long way below the national league. Yet Geelong, and particularly North Geelong, has produced a string of international and national level players including Edi Krncevic, Steve Horvat, Kris Trajanovski, Josip Skoko, the Cervinski and Didulica brothers, Adrian Leijer, Matthew Spiranovic and many more. Certainly enough to form a quality national league team had they all been available at the same time.

In the 1960s, the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s serious attempts were made to form a combined Geelong soccer organisation capable of supporting a team at national league level, but each time the strongest of the local clubs helped scupper the initiative believing that it could go it alone. Each time that club had some initial success then equally quickly fell away and the game went backwards.

The message is clear. The window of opportunity for the formation of a top-level soccer organisation in Geelong is open now for a brief period. The A-League will see the successful Melbourne Victory franchise come to the end of its exclusive period in two years. If the league is going to expand to 12 teams, probably the maximum possible given the available talent pool, then Geelong needs to have a viable proposition available within that time. Government money and interest is likely to be available, given the acceptance by the Rudd government of a bid by Australia to host the World Cup in 2018. This implies a serious development of the game at the local and regional level. Interest in the game has never been higher. For the first time this is driven by the domestic population, not a wave of inward migration, though that is helping to support grass-roots growth at the moment.

My fear is that the local clubs do not have the capacity or the will to be part of such an exercise and hence it will require, as it has in Newcastle, the intervention of an individual or a corporation prepared to throw its support behind the concept of a regional organisation. This will have to bypass what exists now as Frank Lowy and his colleagues did, again with large scale government support, in setting up what is now the Football Federation of Australia and its A-League.
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I dont know why on earth they would waste money building a 10 000 seat stadium, talk about setting the bar low, do they not foresee the future.

Why not spend that money on imrpoving Kardinia park to be a multi sport venue not just for geelong but for the entire Western Districts of Melbourne.

Kardinia Park should have a capacity of 40-50 000...they should play afl, rugby, soccer and cricket there...no reason why they shouldnt...the Western District is a growing area.
 
gellong team will not work there is already a big victory supporter base there... in actual fact i cant see any other melb team workin unless they bring a vpl club in....

gellong is not really interested in football enough for a new team to work there..

and whoever said its like newcastle is a rugby town and geelong afl... hahah newcastle jets is now a bigger club than the knights.. more members and bigger attendences..

no to a geelong a league team... bring in mcf
 

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Is Geelong interested in soccer?

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