Roos in Sydney cont....

[Shinboners]

Bloodstained Angel

It's great to know that you can still feel the history of South Melbourne in the Sydney Swans. If North do move to Sydney, hopefully they'll take on board the lessons that the Swans learned in the years after their move.

I do know many of the old South Melbourne fans who left the club, then came back during the '96 season (oddly, many of them didn't go during those two years in the '80s where you made the finals and Capper had those shorts) and have remained passionate ever since. And they do make the most of the games that the Swans play in Melbourne. Your comments about keeping South's history and Roylions comments about Fitzroy and Brisbane make a possible North move to Sydney a less, um, scary proposition. But as I said before, anything that I think I'd do is theoretical. I wouldn't know which way I'd jump until someone does say, "North Melbourne are moving to Sydney".

Anyway, I hope you're right about Carey having plenty of time to rest before Sunday's game. The team is starting to look less and less experienced every week ;-)

Cheers

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

To ccridley

Yes there is alot of insecurity and even paranoia in the Swans camp about what the Roos want to do up here and how they are doing it.

Personally it was water off a ducks back as far as I am concerned. I have never encountered any of the so-called Roos people dressed in red and white handing out Roos literature at Swans home games and when the same Roos literature turned up in my mailbox, I just chucked it out with a little chuckle to myself. But I undersatnd some Swans people are very upset about what is happening. Some Swans fans thought the club had on-sold the members database to the Roos when in fact it was data from the Ticketek system that the Roos used to get this information.

So for those Swans people upset at what has happened - your beef should not be with the Swans or the Roos - you should be protesting against Australia's absolutely pathetic privacy laws that allow details about individuals to be traded like any other commodity.

If you have details about yourself in electronic form (lets face it evryone does) then unfortunately for all Australians those details are not confidential but are in the public domain and anyone can do whatever they want with them.

 

[Shinboners]

Bloodstained Angel

If you do a quick websearch for the Melbourne Herald-Sun (or it could've been the Age...can't remember which paper I read it in), in the last couple of days, there was an article about North's push into Sydney. After your previous comments about dividing up the Sydney market, I reckon you deserve a quiet chuckle to yourself.

Oh, and another injury update...apparantly Capuano is only 50/50 for Sunday.

Cheers

 

[Don]

The kangaroos people did not point out that in most countries that database activity would be illegal. In countries like New Zealand the penalties are enormous.

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

yeah - i read the article myself

Does Greg Miller read Bigfooty.com ?

Maybe I should send him an invoice ;-)

 

[Roylion]

I 100% agree with Blood-stained Angels comments. Fitzroy should have relocated to Brisbane in 1986, the players wanted it, the officials wanted it, the only ones at the club who didn't want it, was the Board who managed to sign a deal for sponsorship with a mob called Hecron (where are they now?). They stayed in Melbourne and the rest is history! At least the Bears willingness to give up their colours, emblem, song and other assorted bits and pieces made the merger and the new entity a little bit more bearable for many (not all) Fitzroy people. I would have walked away from football had we merged with North Melbourne.

Relocation means that apart from only seeing your team 7-8 times a year, the "club" is still around and in the AFL/VFL. At least Sydney has an unambigious history. Their last premiership (as South Melbourne is defintely in 1933. Where do the Brisbane Lions fit in? Is their last premiership in 1944 and their last two Brownlow Medallists Bernie Quinlan and Michael Voss? Or does the history of the Brisbane Lions start in 1997? No premierships, no Brownlow Medallists? Where does Fitzroy's proud history of eight premierships fit in or is it finished? Or are the Brisbane Lions merely the Brisbane Bears under a different name and colours.

That's the conundrum Fitzroy supporters of the Brisbane Lions are currently wrestling with. Even the media and the AFL itself can't make up their minds. With the Sydney Swans there is no question that it is a continuation of the South Melbourne club.

I hope North stays in Melbourne as a single entity, but when push comes to shove, relocation is infinitely better than merger!!!!

 

[colley31]

Pete,

Supporting a team means different things to different people. I'm a bit like you, I like to go to the footy every week to see my team play, and that is the most important thing, history, tradition etc.. isn't that important to me. The bottom line, I would still go and see the North Melbourne Demons, or the Melbourne Kangaroos each week, you would have say the North jumper for home games and the Melbourne strip for away games, or vice versa, it wouldn't matter because I would be seeing my team play each week. Relocating interstate is disastrous, Fitzroy and Sydney fans in Melbourne would be lucky to see their team play here 8 times a year. I would want more than that, however unfortuneately they are spending too much time trying to tap into the Sydney market, which I agree is untapped, but it's a lot to pay for because there are still 20,000 fans in Melbourne that will have a lot of spare time on their hands. I know if this happens I won't be going to watch other teams play, I probably go and watch the Storm.

 

[Groucho]

Watch the Storm!!??!! Haven't you seen that game. It's a mess!! You should go and watch your local footy club,do the garden, watch grass grow, anything but watch the Storm!!

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

Way to go Groucho

Please Melbourne people - do not even think about following Rugby League.

Its dull and dumb

Its played by dull and dumb people

and followed by dull and dumb people.

 

[Shinboners]

Colley 31

You don't realise how ironic it is for you to say that you'd go watch the Storm. If anything, the Melbourne Storm is a creation of the business side of sport rather than the sporting side. Without the backing of News Corporation (remember them? The ones that destroyed rugby league?), the Melbourne Storm wouldn't and couldn't exist. And it is the corporate interests that could end up destroying North Melbourne as we know it.

The irony of it all......

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

Totally correct Shinboners

The freakking Storm are a totally artificial construct dreamt up by Lachlan Muurdoch and John Ribot just to put some kind of representation for the code in a market where

- it is not played
- has never been played
- is not followed
- will never be followed

Once the Storm start to lose games and not make the finals, watch their supporter base slide away into oblivion, just like the Western Reds, The Adelaide Rams and the Auckland Warriors are in the process of doing right now.

Rugby League will never challenge Aussie Rules as the biggest football code in Australia. Quite simply the game just isn't good enough....

 

[Pete]

Colley and co
I dont think the AFL are even worried about Rugby League. Soccer is where the trouble is going to be. One day Australia is going to have a good team which will be competitive internationally and then there is going to be a huge rise in the support domestically. The greatest thing Aussies love to do in sport is beat the scum from overseas and what bigger stage is there than soccer. After spending most of last year in Britain Ive come back and started watching the Premier League every week. I didnt even know the teams before I left. I used to be the kind of AFL supporter that lined up for three days at the 'G for GF tickets, now I dont care anywhere near as much. I feel as though the AFL has left its roots and are starting to ignore the common supporter. Combine this with whats happening at North and my interest is starting to seriously disappear. It doesnt matter that we won the Premiership. I dont jump on a bandwagon, Ive been following North since '84.
North need to decide soon what they are doing, staying or going because people are concerned and personally, going to the football thinking 'will they be here next year' isnt what you want to be thinking at a footy game. Has any North supporter noticed that at the games now many North supporters dont even clap a goal anymore, the passion is starting to fade for many I think. Someone make a decision, please!!

North in Melbourne for Eva
Pete

 

[madswan]

Having lived in Sydney all my life i was braught up on rugby league.I played the game as a kid...and would occasionally go out to watch the big boys play.
I grew up.......got some sense, and haven't been to a game since i can't remember when!!
I won't even watch the game on telly....
Most of the people at my local pub (South West Sydney....where SUPPOSEDLY people don't follow AFL) are the same.
Even the old fellas...who haven't moved from their regular seat at the bar since WW2, follow the AFL more passionately than the league.
Our pub footy tipping comp is AFL, and a night out at the footy means a trip to the SCG....we travel to Melbourne once a year for a weekend of footy.
The game is alive and well in Sydney.
We aren't all swans supporters.....My best mate and my wife are bombers(i have to live with a poster of Lloyd adorning one of the walls amongst all my swans stuff....i made sure it was the darkest corner!)
We had a pom staying with us for about 18 months....he's hooked and is now back in London spreading the AFL/bomber gospel until he moves back here for good in about 2 years time.
We have a carlton supporter, a tiger, a magpie, a cat...the list goes on!!!!
I only know one roo supporter...and we only converted him to AFL this year.
Games are to be played at stadium Australia next year...and that place looks/sounds empty even with 30,000 people in it.
The roos are lucky to draw that many in Melbourne!!
If the roos are coming to Sydney i think they should wait 3-5 years.If they keep playing their 5 games a year up here, and continue performing the way they have for the last few years they will attract fans.


Anything that gives us more footy up here is fine by me.It gives my mates more opportunities to see their teams play (how long has it been since Carlton played up here?), and i don't mind going to watch roos games if Sydney are playing interstate.

 

[Don]

Watching soccer is like watching an 8 year old struggling to do a 6x table

 

[Groucho]

Well said Don! I don't want to just make this a "bash soccer" exercise but I can't resist a swipe. Soccer's strength in world terms is its simplicity, anyone from a South American peasant to an English upper class twit can understand "try and kick this ball through that goal" but it isn't that simple and its weakness can be described in two words-"Nil All"! Not a game for Australians although it will always have a following because we're multi-cultural. I first heard of this impending invasion in the 70's but the standard,locally, has gone backwards and the games in a bit of a mess here.

 

[colley31]

The point I'm trying to make here, is I want to watch my team play, and if the Roos are up in Sydney playing all their home games there, we would be lucky to see them play 6 times a year in Melbourne. Look at the Brisbane Lions, the AFL promised the Fitzroy supporters that they would see 8 games in Melbourne, I don't think that has happened once!! (Roylion could perhaps confirm this). I would still see them play when they came to Melbourne, however I won't be going to see any other AFL team to fill in the remainder of the 22 game season, because they're not my team. The Storm will be playing more games in Melbourne, and I can make them my team.. At least I will be seeing them..

 

[Swanny]

Does the crown number give you a hint North
Piss Off

 

[Swanny]

Crowd that is heheheheeh

 

[Don]

Gee I hope their budget hasn't been put out

 

[Con]

Not at all Don. You see all the games in Sydney have been underwritten by AFL!!!

 

[groucho]

That's right Con! We're getting more money this year than last year so we're doing OK thankyou very much! AND WE WON!!!!

 

[Swanny]

Gee $85,000 profit instead of $80,000. That should make the future secure.

 

[Shinboners]

Bloodstained Angel and Madswan

Bad luck yesterday guys. About halfway through the second quarter, I thought North were gone with O'Loughlin and Schwass running rampant. I still can't believe that last five minutes of that third quarter though. It didn't show that we were that much a better side than you, but it did prove that if you get the ball out of the centre quickly at the SCG, you can score quickly. Anyway, for you guys, O'Loughlin, Schwass, Barry, and Seymour caught my eye while Harvey, Bell, Carey, and King did the job for us. See you for the rematch in 4 months.

And Madswan, thanks for the posting about your local. Next time I'm in Sydney, you'll have to give me the details and I'll have a beer or two. Anyway, you are right about North needing to build up over three to five years to get a following in Sydney. Still, 20,000 odd isn't a bad crowd.

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

Yeah Shinboner

What was I saying last week about superior mental toughness ?

Champion teams don't throw away games when they are 5 goals in front halfway through the 3rd quarter and thats just what the Swans managed to do yesterday. It was bad loss for us I think, far worse than the close scoreline suggested.

Its going to take almost all of the rest of the season to really get over this one because I'm sure the boys confidence has taken a bad blow.

Once again though a great game between these two, inspite of the slightly dissappointing crowd.

I'm thinking at the moment that if the Swans don't beat Richmond this week (and beat them well..) then that will just about end any serious chance Sydney have for a top 4 finish and a real crack at the flag. Otherwise its just like last year when we stuttered and stumbled our way to 8th and then got bundled out....

Could not fault the Roos though, Inspite of the injuries, a half fit Carey and almost being over run on two occasion, you guys somehow at the end of it came away with the points. Your 'run-on' in the 3rd quarter was awesome and you guys are definitely back in town now.

 

[Paulkanga2000]

I agree it was a great win by the roos when we had 5 players out, a half-fit carey and trailing like we were. The swans were great early but didn't put us away and we hung in their until our 7 goal burst late in the third term.

But the roos and the swans always put on a great game. Look at the stats since the 1996 GF. 5 games under 2 goals North ahve one 3 Swans have won 2.

I too look forward to the return clash in Round 20.