Football wars continue

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Authored by: flyinghigh
on Thursday, February 19 2009 @ 06:02 pm ACDT

hi all...hopefully whats going on in Sa is just a soccer faze brett...in the early 2000s both the eagles and dockers where struggling and perth glory where just begining there 3 grand finals in a row...the state was going soccer crazy all types of media couldnt get enough of them...they averaged 17,000 per game and I was 1 of the 44,000 at subi to see them win the flag(i was thinking bugger this i could be watching the eagles play essendon at the dome right now and also seeing a full house at subi to watch soccer made me feel ill)but half a decade later things have gone back to normal....the eagles-dockers hatered for each other has split the state..you could be fresh of the boat and hate football but at the end of the day you will be asked 1 question are you a dockers or eagles man(1 thing which the the dockers are doing right is there massive push off field to pass the eagles as the wests power side and there not taking any prisoners to pass the eagles in members-it will be a bad day in hell when those {mind my french} purple poofs can say they are bigger off field)..right now the glory has almost disapeared from the newspaper and tv and its crowd av is down to about 3000 a game and football here is screaming for a bigger oval...I think once the crows or power win another flag and/or the local soccer team has a bad yr life as you use to know it will be back

Football wars continue

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Thursday, February 19 2009 @ 09:48 pm ACDT

I don't mind a bit of swearing but not the best choice of words.

Yeah I hope you are right but I think it's fairly clear that the shift is more deep seated here. It could be a coincidence but the under 20s around me (friends and families) tend to be more into soccer. Even the grandkids of one of the all time greats of footy, Barrie Robran, have reportedly taken up soccer - he was a great with North Adelaide, his sons played for Adelaide and Hawthorn. Any one event like that is fine, but you hear too much of it. Another worry is that Adelaide has not been out of the finals for several years, and although up and down, Port have hardly been a cellar dweller. Where to when that happens? Truth is that in terms of crowd and finances Port are causing quite a few concerns.

I suspect the era when the VFL was gobbling up the SANFL's best players did a lot of damage - the SANFL clubs were just trying to survive and have been ever since (and 2 had to merge), so I suspect footy lost some ground there. They were just trying to keep their existing crowds, not attract new people. It's also well known that the main non-SANFL league here, the "amateur" league, has been a very rough league, especially below A grade, which probably hasn't helped attract or keep kids in the game. Obviously not enough done with migrant communities either - improving now but an uphill battle. More than anything else I suspect footy was arrogant that it was #1 and didn't do enough to protect that position. I have/had no problem with soccer having a successful niche, but obviously the trajectory that it may swamp footy is very disturbing.

I'm sure there are a lot of positive Auskick numbers to say I'm overstating the problem, and it's obviously worse at the moment as it has been a long summer with no AFL where soccer has easily been the #1 sport item each week - maybe I'll be more upbeat in the middle of the year.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN