midfielder
Well-Known Member
I wrote this as much for discussion as anything else ... hope you enjoy ...
It is said if you forget the lessons of history you will repeat the same mistakes
Arguablely the Crawford report was the most significant report on Football in Australia.
The report left no doubt about the root cause of where football found itself Broke, Corrupt, Inept Management, few if any national polices driven and run by self interest .. the core of the problems lie in the management team and management structure with a national competition run by clubs who base support was ethnic driven.
There where numerous over reporting and over reactions to these clubs. Simon Hills famous article Can you Smell the Fear was based on one such reporting of a Sydney United game when race riots ( what race riots is more to the point) were reported massively in the press but at the RL match the same day more than ten times the arrest were made without even a mention in the media.
However where there is smoke there is fire and without doubt the behaviour of some fans at some of the old NSL ethnic based clubs let the main stream media take pot shots at Football.
I have often said Football caused its own problems in the past. This has lead to the uneasy feeling between Old Soccer & New Football.
Without doubt the traditional mainstream media that supports the AFL & NRL would love some of those old NSL stories.. it could do enormous damage to link new football and old soccer riots with A-League FA Cup crowd behaviour together
Many critics and long term football fans have asked nay begged, now demand, that the old NSL clubs be brought back into the fold.. The much mooted FA Cup is often seen as the way to unite the old and the new
SBS often run articles outlining the need to unite and how beneficial this will be. In this light I was reading and SBS blog on the need for an FA cup and a poster posted the following comment.
The question I ask is are the clubs & fans of the more hard core NSL clubs ready to abide by the crowd behaviour rules including national slogans issues.
My own interpretation is Frank Lowy & the FFA are terrified of what the press will do to football if ever a major crowd behaviour incident took place ( and I think they are not wrong). I remember MV & SFC supporters simply chanting was reported in the Melbourne press as a riot. I guess one of the reasons FFA are so strict on Home Ends but that is another article in itself.
In any family for a reunion to take place there needs to be some recognitation of sins of the past and some kinda resolution that we accept we did wrong and will not do the bad stuff again.
My reading of the Tea Leafs is as football grows its media has to grow as well in this respect SBS could be a great deal of help. SBS has history and many connections with the NSL clubs, SBS has never admitted (because it encouraged) the NSL ethnic based clubs did anything wrong, and often writes about the benefits the NSL clubs could bring to the FFA. SBS never talk about the other side of the coin what harm some of the still ethnic clubs could do.
SBS could lead the NSL clubs to a place where the risk of an incident or incidents that could damage football where very minor, present this to FFA and help unite the tribes. This would be good for Football and good for SBS...
It is said if you forget the lessons of history you will repeat the same mistakes
Arguablely the Crawford report was the most significant report on Football in Australia.
The report left no doubt about the root cause of where football found itself Broke, Corrupt, Inept Management, few if any national polices driven and run by self interest .. the core of the problems lie in the management team and management structure with a national competition run by clubs who base support was ethnic driven.
There where numerous over reporting and over reactions to these clubs. Simon Hills famous article Can you Smell the Fear was based on one such reporting of a Sydney United game when race riots ( what race riots is more to the point) were reported massively in the press but at the RL match the same day more than ten times the arrest were made without even a mention in the media.
However where there is smoke there is fire and without doubt the behaviour of some fans at some of the old NSL ethnic based clubs let the main stream media take pot shots at Football.
I have often said Football caused its own problems in the past. This has lead to the uneasy feeling between Old Soccer & New Football.
Without doubt the traditional mainstream media that supports the AFL & NRL would love some of those old NSL stories.. it could do enormous damage to link new football and old soccer riots with A-League FA Cup crowd behaviour together
Many critics and long term football fans have asked nay begged, now demand, that the old NSL clubs be brought back into the fold.. The much mooted FA Cup is often seen as the way to unite the old and the new
SBS often run articles outlining the need to unite and how beneficial this will be. In this light I was reading and SBS blog on the need for an FA cup and a poster posted the following comment.
The question I ask is are the clubs & fans of the more hard core NSL clubs ready to abide by the crowd behaviour rules including national slogans issues.
My own interpretation is Frank Lowy & the FFA are terrified of what the press will do to football if ever a major crowd behaviour incident took place ( and I think they are not wrong). I remember MV & SFC supporters simply chanting was reported in the Melbourne press as a riot. I guess one of the reasons FFA are so strict on Home Ends but that is another article in itself.
In any family for a reunion to take place there needs to be some recognitation of sins of the past and some kinda resolution that we accept we did wrong and will not do the bad stuff again.
My reading of the Tea Leafs is as football grows its media has to grow as well in this respect SBS could be a great deal of help. SBS has history and many connections with the NSL clubs, SBS has never admitted (because it encouraged) the NSL ethnic based clubs did anything wrong, and often writes about the benefits the NSL clubs could bring to the FFA. SBS never talk about the other side of the coin what harm some of the still ethnic clubs could do.
SBS could lead the NSL clubs to a place where the risk of an incident or incidents that could damage football where very minor, present this to FFA and help unite the tribes. This would be good for Football and good for SBS...
