Melbourne Heart 2.0
The 2012/13 Melbourne Heart season will go down in the books as a wasted season. Players and fans expected fans, unlike last season where it was an unexpected surprise for most. On and off the pitch Heart has failed and must address important issues in the winter. This off season is the most important since the inception of the club, and change must happen.
Reasons to watch
I see attendances the biggest failure for the club in season 2012/13. The club expected big things but crowds, just like the players didn’t deliver. Sure the club will point to mitigating factors such as hosting only one Melbourne derby or a poor fixture from the league but these factors will be continual problems for the club and must be addressed. Every second season Heart will only host one derby, most likely the Christmas derby. The fixture won’t change in the near future for the club either. Foxtel and the FFA will (and should) always show preferential treatment to those bigger clubs such as Sydney and Melbourne. Both these clubs draw bigger crowds, and a bigger television audience. Neutral fans want to see Del Piero, Heskey and Thompson playing at prime time.
Heart will need to factor the maligned 5:30pm Saturday afternoon time slot when doing 2013/14 season projections, nobody wants to watch a team down the wrong end of the table play. This may sound harsh, but the current direction of the club is doing nothing to attract neutral fans. At present Victorian football fans have two choices Victory and Heart, Victory has Socceroos players Archie Thompson and Mark Milligan, throw in Macos ‘Kiwi Messi’ Rojas and you have your choice.
Presently Melbourne Heart appear happy enough to sell young talent, break even and have a strong community ethic; this appears to be working in the accounts and feel good departments but as a football club if this continues the club will die a slow death. Heart must be seen as a viable alternative to Melbourne Victory, as present this is simply not the case.
Melbourne Heart 1.0
So what are the solutions to the current predicament? Heart need to sign a Marquee, but not just any marquee player, the right player. Who is that player? Someone who will improve results on the pitch, whilst giving potential new fans a reason to attend games. The Del Piero effect is a phenomenon that is league wide, but is a rare opportunity for both Sydney and the league. This would probably be aiming too high for the club (see David Beckham), but look at a player such as Shinji Ono and what affect he has had at Western Sydney. Go back to season one for the Heart and you had Aloisi, Skoko, Colosimo and Bolton as four great reasons to choose Heart over Victory, sadly this isn’t the case at present.
A community focus is admirable, but Heart needs a community to first focus on. The constant efforts by the club to include minority groups in pregame is fantastic and gives those who attend a little insight on these different groups in the community, but here’s a thought; Why don’t we focus on football fans. Melbourne has the ability to support two clubs; it’s simply a matter of finding those supporters and giving them a reason to attend matches. I do sense there is still some hostility towards the ALeague by former NSL supporters but the game is much bigger than this. The standard of the league has greatly improved in the eight years of existence, Heart need to use this towards their advantage and attract the many Melbournian football fans out there that currently don’t support an ALeague club.
Season four needs to be a total relaunch of Melbourne Heart, a new beginning for a football club that has new direction. The television rights deal with Foxtel should alleviate some financial issues for the club and give reason for a more concentrated focus of football.
Heart need change, it’s whether or not the club is willing to make this happen.
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Excellent summary of the issues and a reasonable ‘road map’ to.
Shaun I think that for many reasons this has been a transitional season for Heart, whether its wasted or not depends on whether lessons have been learned. On field, the club has changed the senior and youth coaching staff and turned over half the senior and junior lists. It has lost its entire first choice back four from that envisioned during the pre-season. It’s new coach had decided to bring in some senior players to ‘steady the ship’. All whilst operating to the Board’s original plan of breaking even financially by the end of season 3 – all great ideas but it has resulted in a terrible on-field season. Compound this with a reduced contrast to MV who have adopted a possession based game and has reversed the Merrick era policy of ignoring youth players, the contrast for Heart has been less than flattering.
The question is what to do about it. Heart doesn’t have the backing of FFA like WSW has, modest as that is, its still greater than the Heart franchise holders. This comes to the core of the problem, Heart like all HAL teams is a franchise and not a club, therefore not authentic in the definition that you use. In this situation all the club has to sell is emotional connection, and this is where it has been falling down. The club plays unexciting football much of the time and there’s been an absence of on-field leadership this season. It’s this on field leadership and passion that makes ADP a successful marquee for sydney and Archie and even the Dark Lord for MV. Matt Thompson is a nice bloke but not an on-field character, neither is Fred. It’s this passion, ironically the ‘heart’ that is missing more than a marquee for the sake of getting a ‘big name player’. Apart from that i agree that the club does need to focus on young players, if if it is at the cost of ultimate success.