Soccer Fan Blog

Yesterday I attended two soccer games. The first one cost me a total of $11 (two Gatorades and $4 match fees), the latter about $90. The first was very much a community event, the latter was distant and relatively alienating. The latter was better quality, but not by that much in many ways, and it certainly wasn’t a philharmonic orchestra.

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.

Tags: australia, blog, blogs, Football, game, Games, google, league game, match, score, Soccer, soccer fan, Soccer Games, World Cup
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Yeah yeah, great game last night. Really tremendous. For good raps of the game itself, see The Football Tragic, Football in the Capital and The Round Ball Analyst. (Later edit: also A Seat at the A-League.) Here’s some bits and pieces.

First getting to the game. For the first time I drove, and somehow got a park right next to the Paddo Pub, a mere block from the stadium. We were over an hour early but there was already thousands of people milling about (both the Paddo and the Caxton were packed with Orange), and we felt damn lucky to get the park.

Jacob and I were meeting a friend, Donald, at the Wally Lewis statue at 7pm, half hour before the game. (The game had already been rescheduled from 7 to 7.30 in order to get the expectedly large crowds into their seats.) So we had some food and wandered to the stadium, which took ages because of the crowd.

Almost there and a Sydney contingent of about 20 were marching directly behind us singing, “Oh, oooohh oohh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh.. SYDNEY!” at the top of their voices. They sounded great – a bit too great for me so immediately after they got to the second, “SYDNEY!” I rejoined, “CAN’T PLAY!” at the top of my own not-soft voice. I didn’t even look around to see their response. Didn’t dare. But they shut up. The little bit of truth in what I shouted comes back in a reminiscence of a shouting Sydney crew after a QRvSFC game last season, “WE’RE SHIT BUT WE BEAT YOU!” It was great humour at the time and I remember Jacob and I laughing respectfully at their militant honesty. But last night they were shit and they didn’t beat us.

Ok, we met Donald. It was obviously going to be a huge crowd and I’m glad I bought my tickets on the net, which I’ve never done before for an A-League game.

Later Donald said he’d seen the ominous clouds in the sky, but I knew nothing. Seemed like great weather for 35,000 people to be milling about in.

The tickets were for the second level – Section 526 – but accidentally we ended up on the top level (eventually in 722). On the way up the stairwell, caged from the open air outside the stadium, we noticed it was raining (the view’s great anyway btw). When we got to the top (we didn’t dawdle or stop for drinks from the time we entered) we looked out into the stadium into an impenetrable curtain of sheeting water. Jacob and I spontaneously sprinted to the gate – one of those adrenalin-from-nowhere moments. The boys were still training, but there was already a glisten of water across the whole pitch. There were thousands running from the stands to the back areas. A long ball would land on the pitch and stop dead.

It was an extraordinarily timed (potential) disaster. First, if the game had have kicked off at 7pm as originally scheduled it would have had to be stopped, with very little warning, and there would have been a horrible stampede of 35,000 people. As it was the 35,000 people had well-and truly mobilised – they were for the most part in the stadium or directly outside it (there were many waterlogged people in the stands by kickoff), when the torrent hit. As it was there was a brilliant scene of an almost empty stadium (for the front three quarters) with a ring of packed people. Cancellation? Impossible. But if that rain had continued it would have been simply impossible to play. Extraordinary theatre.

The icing on our spectacle from above (where we were dry incidentally, apart from light spray from the lashing winds, and I’m sure we weren’t the only ones to permanently migrate to the very back) was the home and away hardcore crews at each end. Many of them stuck it out, leaving a blue and an orange front section full at respective ends, dervishly dancing and chanting in this outrageous torrent of water (it was too heavy to be called ‘rain’), knowing, so I think, that to break and run was to allow the other side’s fans to win. The players had gone off, the world had evacuated the cyclonic zone, except for these fans. In ones and twos members of each crew fled, having had enough, but as groups they held out until the end of the inclement. If anything, my report is that the Sydney fans won the contest. At the end their group was bigger, until the stands were reoccupied of course.

The next piece of Miscellanea is brought to you by the letter M: Matty McKay, Massimo Murdocca, Moore, Miniecon, McLaren, McLoughan, McMaster, Michael, Mitch and Marcinho. If we still had Milicic we could put out a fit, fairly coherent M11 to maul Melbourne and mince the Mariners. I’ve left out injured Matthew Ham.

Finally, with no bearing on last night at all because Reddy had sweet F to do, I think it is time to tribute Roar coach Fernando vas Alves. We’ve heard about how great Frank Farina is and we hear about how great many of the players are. But when we hear about how good Reddy is, and he has improved enormously since I’ve been watching him, and now how good McMaster is when he had to step up, surely it’s time to mention the Goalkeeper Coach.

For example, we heard of how last season McMaster as number two was snubbed for import Tando Velaphi, as if this, and the subsequent faith in McMaster this season, was all Frank. Surely Alves would have had a big part in these decisions, as he is the one constantly working with McMaster. But more broadly, this Alves bloke can obviously spot and develop young goalkeepers. I’ve never heard about the international market for goalkeeper coaches, but I reckon Alves could get ambitious if he wanted.

Have a good weekend. And good luck to the Mariners. I haven’t got any really strong feelings about who I want to win, and neither is this post especially mnemonic, but I’m moving with the letter M.

Tags: blog, blogs, crowd, crowds, Football, game, google, great game, humour, league game, spectacle, sydney, USA
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All Patriot League Football eyes will shift to Hamilton on Saturday night, when the past two League champions match up when Fordham visits Colgate at 6 p.m. at Andy Kerr Stadium. The winner has gone on to claim the League title in each of the past two years, so this League opener for both squads obviously has major implications. It’s really the first “swing” game in the standings so far, and if preseason predictions hold it might be the only such game until Oct. 24. Colgate comes in red hot with a 3-0 record and the fifth-ranked rushing attack in the country, while Fordham will have to get its defense together after starting 0-2 and allowing 40.5 points per game in the first two contests. The matchup was close in each of the past two years, with Fordham winning, 34-31, in 2007 and Colgate scoring in the final seconds for a 31-24 victory in 2008.

The other four teams in action on Saturday all host non-League games, with Lafayette taking on Penn, Lehigh playing Princeton, Bucknell facing Marist and Georgetown going up against Howard. It’s a big game for the Mountain Hawks and Hoyas, who like Fordham are trying to capture their first win of the year.

For full preview coverage of all of Saturday’s Patriot League games, read the Patriot League preview. The preview includes game notes, live stat, audio and video links that are available for all contests. The links can also be found at the Patriot League Composite Schedule. Also, don’t forget to check out the new Interactive scoreboard that will provide in-game updates for any contests with Gametracker coverage.

I’m headed off to Colgate this weekend, so hopefully we’ll have blog and Twitter updates from Hamilton. As always, enjoy the games and Go Patriot League !

Patriot League Media Relations Director Matt Dougherty

Tags: blog, blogs, Football, game, Games, google, league game, match, Patriot League, score, scoreboard, victory
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The Patriot League basketball game is about a month and a half away, and no, Allen Iverson, we’re not even talking about practice (which commences on Oct. 16). But there was some basketball news in the past two days that certainly has an impact on the upcoming year.

The Patriot League announced its television package with CBS College Sports Network. There are more games than previous years (10 men’s/two women’s) with a couple of nice features. For one, a men’s quarterfinal (March 3) and semifinal (March 7) will be shown on the network, as well as the women’s championship game (March 13). The final two weekends of the regular season will feature a “Flex Game”, where any of the Patriot League contests can be shown with the televised game selected later in the season. Three of the four Patriot League games can be flexed on Feb. 21 at 2 p.m., and all four can be selected on the final Saturday on Feb. 27 at 4 p.m. All of the possible games have already been moved to those dates and times.

Another piece of news came on Thursday, as Army announced a men’s basketball coaching change. Jim Crews departs after seven years at West Point. A national search will begin immediately, and the job has to be enticing as the Black Knights appear ready to contend for a high spot in the Patriot League standings with Cleveland Richard, Marcus Nelson and Josh Miller among the returnees.

That may be it for a little while for hoops news, but the Patriot League media guide is almost to the printer, the first day of practice is less than a month away and Patriot League Media Day is coming quick on Oct. 29 at ESPN Zone in Baltimore!

Tags: blog, blogs, Coaching, game, Games, google, league game, News, Patriot League
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It’s been a few days since we were last on with a post on the Patriot League football scene….it’s amazing how much being without a computer changes your life. Oh well, it’s now Tuesday so here are some leftover Patriot League football thoughts from the weekend and a few looking toward the coming Saturday of games and beyond. To get started, here is Saturday’s recap and the Patriot League weekly release

* – Nice day in non-League games for the Patriot League on Saturday. Colgate, Bucknell and Holy Cross all scored home victories to give the Patriot League a 3-1 record, with the only loss by Lehigh at No. 3 Villanova. Especially impressive win by the Raiders, who knocked off a Stony Brook team that is expected to contend for the Big South title despite running back Nate Eachus sitting out the game due to injury.

* – There are some really, really good quarterbacks in the Patriot League. More than some, how about five or six really good quarterbacks. We all know about Dominic Randolph, who is now tracking FCS records after breaking just about every League mark. Fordham’s John Skelton is probably going to finish his career in the top five in League history in most passing categories, and already owns a League title and All-League spot. Lehigh’s J.B. Clark has the big arm to put up major numbers for the Mountain Hawks despite a slow start to the 2009 season, and excelled in the 2008 campaign for the Mountain Hawks. Colgate’s Greg Sullivan and Lafayette’s Rob Curley might not have the monster statistics, but they are both proven winners and give their run first, dominate on defense teams exactly what they want. Sullivan has led Colgate to 10 straight regular-season wins, and is an amazing 11-2 as a starter. He will likely go down as one of the top dual threat quarterbacks in League annals, and is already over 1,000 rushing yards for his career. Curley has led Lafayette to a 10-3 record as a starter, and just put up a career-high 259 passing yards and three touchdowns in Saturday’s 28-3 win over Georgetown. Bucknell’s Marcello Trigg has plenty of talent as well, while Georgetown searches for the next big Patriot League quarterback among a group of freshman and sophomores.

* – The League schedule has pretty much played out as expected, with Holy Cross and Lafayette each notching a victory over Georgetown. No League games this week, but the first “swing” game in the standings comes next Saturday as the last two Patriot League champions match up when Fordham visits Colgate.

* – This weekend’s games present a great opportunity for two Patriot League teams. No. 23 Holy Cross plays host to No. 25/25 Harvard, while Lafayette hosts No. 24 Liberty. Lafayette’s victory over then No. 14 Liberty last season was the first win for a Patriot League team against a non-League ranked opponent since 2005. It’s also been that long since the League recorded two victories against ranked teams in a season, but there’s certainly an opportunity on Saturday, especially with both teams playing at home.

Signing off for now…..still trying to recover from last night’s Bills game. Only they could lose a game like that!

Patriot League Media Relations Director Matt Dougherty

Tags: blog, blogs, Football, game, Games, google, league game, match, Patriot League, score, victory
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