Half Empty…

Is it just me or is there a negative narrative being driven by the so called football journo’s in Australia, fueled by the love of Aussie football fans to get stuck in and hate anything A-League related or FFA driven.  One would think this is an easy path and somewhat lazy stance as in life it is always easier to throw stones than build the glass house. The keyboard journos or keyboard warriors that love the beautiful game yet have nothing beautiful to say when it comes to Australian football. Have I missed the boat or have I missed the trendy hip vibe where it’s cool to say the FFA sucks and the A-League is crap.

The other day I read that an A-League game started 8 minutes late, of course this was the demise of Australian football, the ultimate example of an unprofessional competition and governing body. Or was the game just 8mins late and not all of those overly critical statements. Don’t get me started either on the Brisbane Roar shirt incident, cue the anti Aussie football warriors losing it and struggling to breathe as they type the death of Australian football. PS We have won the Asian cup and been runners up in it, fairly recently I may add, shout out to the Wanderers and Adelaide United.

The A-League does lack marketing and mainstream attention I do agree on this but when ones football lovers stance is to bag the Aussie game and then whine at the lack of crowds, you would have to think these supporters may also get confused if they head butted a brick wall and then got a headache. Maybe say something positive and let the odd imperfection slide so that the larger audience sees a brighter rainbow picture of our sport.

It does annoy me that the narrative on Australian football is too look at things half empty rather than half full, especially when we see the national team reach its fifth World Cup and fourth on the bounce. Geez you guys quickly forget that from 1975 to 2005 the national team was not at any World Cups. How you like them apples!

The A-League has averaged over 11k for the last thirteen years and even this season is at a fairly healthy 11k plus per game despite the howling of the negative football wolves at the door. Remember when the NSL averaged 11k a season, oh wait you can’t that’s because it never happened.  Remember when the NSL sold out football stadiums of 40k or got 61k to a Sydney derby, oh wait you can’t that’s because it never happened. It also went along in an era of the national team not qualifying for World Cups.

To be honest I prefer this era of Australian football we have bigger crowds at domestic club level, higher memberships for our professional teams and have Asian cup competitions to win already done so by the Wanderers and Australia. We also have a team called the Socceroos that attend World Cups as regular as a 25k plus membership tally for the Melbourne Victory at the start of any A-League season.

So one can only ask be more positive about the game you love, be more optimistic about the game you love and have more love in the pen when you write about the A league and Australian football. Who knows more people may just get on board, as what hope do we have if the ones that love the game only kick own goals.

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