What attracts a Soccer Fan?
For a while now I’ve been wondering about the nature of following football. What got me? What is keeping me? What sort of things “get” people in general? Especially new people, like myself. I’ve mentioned it before in this blog, but for the context of this article I need to point out that I am very much a “new fan,” and as a blogger can only pretend to be a new fan’s voice. Over the past three years I’ve felt the differences between old fans who’ve known the sport for decades and for whom the A-League is a bold new adventure, and people like myself for whom the A-League is just part of the terrain I’m discovering. For this reason I rarely try to analyse games or players, but am more interested in writing about the experience.
Now I am a fan of Association Football, and I did not become a fan through the A-League but discovered the A-League a few games into Season 2 (It was a 5:0 thrashing of New Zealand Knights, which might have helped my initial enthusiasm). The things that I can identify that came together to make me a fan of the game, were my son’s team, the 2006 World Cup and the movie Goal! The point here is that it was the game itself that seduced me, and not any particular team or league.
Ok, what’s my point? Well there’s a few reasons I am into football. One of them is the beauty, grace and skill of extraordinary athletes playing a complex tactical battle. For this of course, none of the games I watched yesterday really fulfilled. It’s hardly dissing the A-League to point out the obvious fact that there is much better quality soccer on free-to-air TV. I watched Arsenal play Celtic the other morning, so please don’t even argue with me – there is no comparison. Purely on the criteria of virtuosity, the A-League is relatively expensive and relatively poor at the same time.
There’s more though right? Of course! Accessibility and community connection come together as another reason I’m a fan of this sport. It didn’t take me long to realise that, even at the venerable age of 38, I could play. I still play in a futsal team on Tuesday nights and it is pure joy, especially when we win, as well as social, and mentally and physically engaging. Pretty quickly I added up just how accessible soccer is, with junior leagues down to the age of 6, women of all ages, disabled competitions, homeless competitions and indeed, for tragics like myself, divisions up to over-55s.
But the A-League fails here too right? I’ve got mates in good senior teams, both women and mens, mostly playing for West End. The truth is I haven’t gotten to them for a while, but I have done and will be trying to catch the finals. These games are free, you can shake the player’s hands afterwards and get more than a ‘next please’ from your comment about the goal, manouvre or foul. You’re likely to even be asked if you’d like a drink.
But they’re not as good are they? Of course not, but really, is the A-League $50/person/game better? To use the analogy of music, we’ll pay $100 to watch the very best, we’ll pay $15 to watch a pub band, but will we pay $60 for something in between? I’d argue no. If it’s not going to be larger-than-life, we’d prefer the everyday talent of our friends. The A-League, as the most expensive football experience available to Australians, is stuck in the middle whilst charging top dollar, even to watch it on TV.
There’s a third reason people, including me, are attracted to football, and has to do with very ancient, probably genetic, urges toward tribalism and place. It’s the reason Australians in particular will follow any sport where their team is winning, and why a valiant few will follow their team even if it’s losing. Make no mistake I am a Brisbane loyalist and although other sports don’t really turn me on, the Brisbane Roar has my interest for the long term, thick or thin. These sorts of fans are the ones you meet on the blogosphere, the ones who wear their team shirts to unrelated social events and join fan organisations. The territory comes with belonging and identity and for single young males in particular (but not exclusively) it probably aids sanity in a bewildering world. As a religion soccer is far more rational than Christianity or Budhism precisely because it is explicitly human contrivance and does not pretend to be breathed from the mouth of God.
But here’s the thing. People who just love soccer for its beauty will get up at 4.30am for Champions League games and look forward to the World Cup. Why would they bother with the A-League, especially as it is so much more expensive? People who love to play and watch in their communities are actually likely not to go to A-League games because they have their own games and their own league to follow (anecdotally, I find this is literally true – very few grassroots players follow the A-League except distantly).
And lovers of tribe?
I love the Brisbane Roar, I know their names and try to follow events, but the media is very poor, and mostly reads like highly filtered propaganda. Yesterday made things very clear to me.
I watch every single game of the Annerley Under 14s, Division 3 team, and follow very closely the fortunes of the Brisbane South Under 14s Division 3 competition. I know every player on the team. Some of them I’ve known since they were toddlers at child care. I’ve coached and managed quite a few of them and before that used to watch many of them play handball and basketball after Primary School every day. I know their strengths and weaknesses, their parents and even some of their personal issues and problems.
Not as good as the Roar? It depends what you mean. The kids never play a cynical game. They go out to score goals. Some of them are genuinely skilled and are not afraid to take crazy risks which occasionally come off. The left winger can chase a through ball past any defender, do a one-two if necessary, and score or direct a pinpoint cross. Is it actually less entertaining than watching Zullo? Frankly, no. The right back is a natural and brilliant defender but also has the unique ability to throw-in a very long way, so that a throw-in near the touch line is as good as a corner kick. Brilliant to watch. About a month ago I watched one of the attacking midfielders, a kid I’ve known since he was born, deflect a corner kick, leg high in the air, off the outside of his foot, into the top right hand corner of the net. If that goal was in the Champions League it would have been replayed to death and posted on U-Tube. Jacob’s own signature move (he usually plays up front this season), which he pulled off twice yesterday, is kicking the ball back over his own head along with a defender, and then recollecting it past the defender. His one goal yesterday was an individual effort, beating two defenders and the goalie.
Sure they stuff up a lot. So do A-League teams. But they get some brilliant passing going too, and not because it has been drilled into them by a coach who has mega-qualifications and experience, but because it’s fun to do so.
So far I have the A-League as having the problem of bad value by which I refer to quality for dollar. There’s much better games for free and only slightly worse games that are live and pretty much free. (Incidentally, I can’t wait for the W-League, which is not much poorer, much cheaper and is on free-to-air TV – I had m0ments last season of wanting to abandon the men and just follow the girls.)
There’s a constructive criticism I need to add. If the A-League could connect with the rest of the enormous soccer community in Australia, as it is fully connected in England and Spain, I think it would inspire many more people, especially participants, who are many and remain the great-untapped. What I mean is that my son’s team can aspire to get into the first division next year or the year after, and one day to play at the highest level of seniors in Brisbane, but not to ever be promoted into the A-League. This might even sound absurd, but it is precisely this joyful absurdity, a source of millions of childhood dreams, that exists in the traditional football countries. A-League teams are constructed exclusively from the top by dealings between rich men. There is no question at all in my mind that there are senior men’s teams in Australia who would out-compete some A-League teams some of the time, but they have no way to aspire to compete in that competition. A system of relegation and promotion, fully connected to the entire football league system throughout the country, is essential in the not-too long term, for this sense of connectedness. You can not develop connectivity culturally before it is the case institutionally.
Honestly, of the two games yesterday, of the two teams I went to follow, of the two leagues of which they were a part, there is absolutely no question about which one I enjoyed more, which one I felt more a part of, which one I am more loyal to.
Incidentally, Annerley Under 14s Division 3 won their game 8:2 (goals, people!). It was the last of the home and away fixtures and next week is their semi-finals. Good luck to them, and with slightly less enthusiasm and commitment, good luck to the Brisbane Roar.
Goalkeeping for Loonies
With West End United in my first official season ever we were an over 35s team who somehow got conned into being in a young man’s comp. We lost every game, but had a lot of fun and I daresay were forced to improve a tight passing game in an attempt to combat the speed and strength of youth. Jamie, our Mexican goalkeeper, was injured for a few weeks. The email went out, “We need a goalkeeper.” In my stupid enthusiasm I emailed back, “Call me a desperation plan,” and quite promptly received the reply, “Dear Desperation Plan…” I’ve crapped on about all that in other blogs (there’s no links in this post for the technical reason that I’m working without a mouse and having multiple windows open would be just too tedious), but that’s a brief.
So when it came to the first game of the futsal team, The Red Eye Pirates, Dorian, the co-manager (with his partner Harmony), basically said to me, “Hamish, you’re the goalie because you’re the only one with any goalkeeping experience whatsoever.” I do like it and I’ve stayed. Frankly I’d step aside in a second if the team decided they wanted a good goalie, but they won’t hear of it. They keep lying and telling me that I’m great, which is very nice. They’re a great, fun bunch of folk. Love them all.
Anyway that’s the answer to the first question of how I became a goalie. The rest is some notes on what it means for a 40 year old novice to attempt to become a good goalie. Occasionally I try to talk about this with people and it’s inherently boring, because it’s so personal, but here I can write about it with the knowledge that noone need read it or apologise for not doing so. This blog is part-diary sometimes and to those who read regularly, my apologies. Indulge me or not – it’s not important.
A bloke from another team who I see sometimes in town told me that he thought we had an initial advantage when the opposition shows up and sees us, some of us old and wiry, sitting around smoking cigarettes. We look like easy meat. That first time we beat this guys team and he reckons by the time they’d realised we weren’t that easy, it was too late, and we beat them. Needless to say the second time we played them they convincingly bested us.
But for the bunch of party animals we are, we’ve started doing ok. We’ve won four of the last five and last Tuesday we played a team that beat us 1st time 10:8, and did them 6:3. I had a good game – maybe one of my best – but there are still glaring reasons why I’m not a real goalkeeper but more of a committed reflex machine.
Next question is, ‘How do I improve?’
My limitations are many. My footwork is relatively hopeless, especially as it’s now firmly out of practice. So even for kicks from close to the box or from our end of the sideline, someone else takes it. There’s no goal kicks in futsal, and I think my goal-throws are fine and improving. But that’s a big disadvantage as it takes one of only four outfielders out of the place for options. Kicking back to me is risky as since I can’t catch it (yes, I did that once), I will often stuff up the trap and/or redelivery. And only when I spot a very nervous, poor attacker will I take them on outside the box (I will come out, but not try to tackle or dribble past them unless they’re clearly pathetic). Actually taking bold runs with the ball as some goalies do (to a very interesting effect I think – it’s disconcerting and often players see the empty goal and forget that they are still defending) is out of the question.
So obviously I should work on my footwork, but I don’t much except for an occasional kick with Jacob or a little before the games with the team. Whatsmore it will take a lot of work on my footwork to bring it to a point where it could make me a more useful goalie – ie where I could take on kicking roles that others now are doing for me.
So it’s back to this nervous, hyped, strangely focussed reflex machine. I’m steadily improving my timing when it comes to running out, I have no fear for my life which is handy on the ground in my area, and I do have ok reflexes. Probably my biggest asset from the perspective of the rest of the Pirates is that I actually want to do it.
This wouldn’t even apply to last Tuesday’s game because I made my best saves with my feet (oh, and one with my face from about 2 meters which had me off stinging for a few minutes), but my biggest frustration, which I think is eminently improvable, is that I often get my hand to a ball but the ball goes straight through to the net. These are the saves I reckon I can get better at, in two ways.
First I’ve got to learn, and make it a reflex knowledge, when to use my open hand and when to punch. I’ve practiced punching a bit with Jacob (we sort of drill each other at goalkeeping sometimes, as he does a bit of goalkeeping in Indoor), and I reckon I’m even quite accurate, but it’s yet to become a fluid reflex in the heat of play. The second thing is to just work on strengthening my fingers, hands and wrists, which I’ve been doing. It just seems like the most immediate way I can work on stopping some extra goals.
Meanwhile, in my first game this season I did something to my right pinky, in the third game I took a similar sprain to my left pinkie. Then about 4 games ago I did this to my right thumb. All of these minor injuries sort of get a bit less tender during the week, but none of them have recovered, so I now go from week to week with three somewhat sprained digits. I’m barely aware of it during a game and I don’t think it effects how I play, but I do wonder what the Pirate’s physio would say if such a creature existed.
We might be party animals. Look, it is not unknown for us to have a couple of beers before a game or for some to even have a nasty, unidentifiable smoke. Beers after the game is compulsory – that’s explicit. But we are still strangely competitive, and we have a great desire to win. We’re trying to get regular Sunday training going (have done a couple but shockingly I haven’t made it yet), and we discuss tactics a lot – probably much more than teams who have star players they can rely on. (To be perfectly honest, our victory last week was partly because we had Peter as a guest, who is very competent on the ball and can strike – he scored three of our six goals. Peter is, needless to say perhaps, not a party animal.) So we do improve, and we have a hoot in the process.
But keepers apparently peak at about 36. I begun when I was 38. I’m after a sort of sub-curve of improvement, given that I never played before. Maybe I’ve got until I’m about 42 to peak in my ‘skills’. Meanwhile, that strange, focussed, rudely existential place, when I am in goal… well, I wouldn’t give it up for anything. There is no other time in my living which compares to that mental and physical experience. For that alone it’s worth it. Thank you to the Pirates for having me.
Blogger’s Cup Wrap after a draining Qualifier, Australia v Iraq 1:0
Funny old game that. I really thought it would be wet and weathery, but it wasn’t really. It was pretty packed out, but still over 5000 empty seats. Jacob and his mate Stav were waylaid in a food queue for a few minutes after half time so they missed the goal. The moment of the goal was jubilant and you’d have to say the atmosphere was ‘up’, but the crowded pedestrian processsions and train ride home were far more subdued than any victorious crowd I’d ever seen. It’s not like it was late or anything, even if it is Sunday night.
Overall I’d say it was the result I expected but I was very worried about Australia’s inexperienced defence beforehand, and rightly so from what we witnessed. As Eamonn points out, there was a good dose of luck in that win. I truly hope Neil is back from his family duties for the away game on Saturday or I will expect us to concede our first goal under Verbeek.
Furthermore, this is where we actually need Craig Moore to make himself available if needed. Like really, World Cups are the real written history of our country’s game, it is warfare between nations for the greatest sporting prize there is. ‘Retiring on a high point’ is all very well, but if the country actually needs you, there’s a certain moral pressure I reckon. Craig, we need you, even if just to help Australia get there. My hardly technical or emperical observations tonight were that our defenders have fine skills but require experienced leadership in the middle – someone who can play and position himself well and scream instructions to the younger blokes at the same time. It’s Moore’s experience that the Socceroos need back there, especially if Neil is out. And it wouldn’t hurt his game with the Roar to get a few extra good games either.
In other World Cup news the Africa Confederation started their huge 12-Group Round 2 of qualifiers yesterday and continue as I write. Togo and Camaroon won their first games as expected (against Zambia and Caper Verde Islands respectively), but my disapointment was Kenya being beaten away by Namibia. I started following Kenya’s progress because my housemate John, an excellent and knowledgeable football compatriot, is from Kenya. According to him they are in the easiest possible group (Namibia, Guinea and Zimbabwe) but they really should have beaten Namibia. John was devastated.
In late March a few heads rolled. The Cayman Islands, The British Virgin Islands, Aruba, Dominica and Turks and Caicos Islands, all from the North, Central American and Caribbean Federation, were all knocked from contention for World Cup 2010.
As I’ve been writing James Brown has put up an analysis of the Socceroos game. It was over a year ago, after James had had an uncharacteristically long lapse from writing, that I jibed in a comment, “Have you got a girlfriend James?” Well… ahem.
And my apologies for being so slack. The most important thing I have failed to do of course is wrap up the Blogger’s Cup.
Mike only won by a point (and congrats to Neil for such a close second), but he did so even though he’d absented himself from the country and the competition for several weeks. It can only be called a well-deserved win, and especially deserved, in a gold-watch sort of way, as he has farewelled the blogging world for a season. Hope to see you around in comments Mike and hope you come back before too long. Your prize, not Irish whiskey as promised because I couldn’t find a good single malt, but scotch, is on its way. Drink one to Australia’s humble but developing football blogging fraternity.
I don’t know if I’ll do the Blogger’s Cup this season, but I’ll definitely be blogging more as the A-League gets going again. It’s the Roar’s year.
PS. John over at A Seat at the A-League has just posted a good account of tonight’s game, as has Tony The Round Ball Analyst.
Fantasy Queensland
The bad news is that as this A-Leage thing kicks off again I have realised that work commitments will prevent me from seeing many games at all. I’ll be able to see the Saturday night ones and the late Sunday night ones. So today’s game between Roar and Phoenix was the first true season Roar game I’ve missed for two years or so.
It’s good to see a few bloggers spark up, but fewer seem active so far (I can hardly be saying this self-righteously). I’ll be following the A-League media closely, and it’s good to hear the voices beyond the mainstream.
Now the Roar has these new players. To be honest I’d still have to go to the web page to remember their names but they sound hopeful and, ahem… hopefully they’ll be great. One of them popped a goal earlier today. The’Roar were tipped to lose that match so maybe the draw was good, and I’m sure Frank will say that, “with the two home games to follow” and all that. Let’s say in relative ignorance I’m cautiously optimistic about the Roar’s chances. I agree with Ed Vegas’s critique of Tony’s pre-season review, let’s say, for similar hopelessly partisan reasons.
And my fantasy team is up, in both Tony’s league (details in the aforelinked post) and Peter and Eric’s, and it has a theme. It is, as much as possible within the rules, a Queensland State of Origin Team.
My main problem was I could only choose four Roar players, and most A-League players from Queensland, unsurprisingly, play for the Roar.
In the mid-field I have Matty McKay of course, as captain. In the full vision of this program it is Frank Farina and Matty McKay who put up the challenge, to NSW and Victoria. It would be a home and away round-robbin with the winner taking all, played over a four week period of the off-season.
I’m getting my description of my fantasy league team, which has all sorts of compromises because of the rules, with the real vision behind it. To carry on with the latter the idea would be that any A-League or Youth league players could be called into the team. Internationals from the home state would be completely up to the club to negotiate for (good luck to them) but there would be no salary cap to do so. The organising clubs would naturally be Queensland Roar, Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory.
The overall philosophy of the idea is that it is a short tournament that could get a mass following in a concentrated way hence raising revenue and attracting people to the game, in a uniquely Australian way. There’s no reason why South Australia, WA or even New Zealand could not have teams in such a competition, except firstly that I’m not sure if they’d find enough home-state bred ploayers in the A-League to field, say, 16 including 2 goal keepers, and secondly because as far as I’m concerned the real contest is between Queensland and NSW and I have no good excuse to leave Victoria out.
Clint Bolton (SFC)
Andrew Packer (QR) – Jon McKain (WP) – Karl Dodd (WP) – Michael Thwaite (MV)
Zullo (QR) – McKay (QR) – Steve Corica (QR) – David Dodd (QR) – Robbie Kruse (QR)
Dario Vidocic (on the bench in Germany) – Tahj Minniecon (QR)
On the bench I’ve got keeper Griffin McMaster (QR), Ben Griffin (QR), James Downey (PG), Chris Grossman (QR) and Tim Smits (QR).
But for the Foxsports Fantasy League you can only have four Roar players, and are restricted as to which positions you can place only 12 players in to, so I’ve done my best within the rules, and have only had to draft one defender in to complete my team. If will not be competitive naturally, because it is constructed so irrationally, but I’d be keen to see someone similarly construct a NSW or Victoria fantasy league team for some real competition.
Because as everybody universally knows, Queenslanders are better.
