When Preston draws a crowd of 9036 to an NPL Victoria game and Melbourne City can only manage 3569 on the same night, it’s time for some frank discussion on the state of Australian football.
If one swallow doesn’t make a summer, then one massive crowd at a Victorian state league game doesn’t automatically mean that second-tier football in Australia has superseded the A-Leagues.
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But Preston’s epic 2-0 win over their arch-rivals South Melbourne on Friday night – watched by a crowd that was standing 15 rows deep in parts of Genis Steel Stadium – had everything that many A-League games do not.
Starting with a crowd.
I spoke to Preston’s hierarchy in the build-up to the clash and they were confident of drawing a sell-out crowd to one of the highlight fixtures on the Victorian calendar.
But I’m not sure anyone could have predicted more than 9000 fans to turn up at a suburban ground in Reservoir to watch two of Australia’s most historic clubs go around.
Contrast that with the scene at AAMI Park, where two of Australia’s newest clubs went head to head at the same time, and the difference was stark.
The best thing about Melbourne City’s 2-0 win over Macarthur was clearly Max Caputo, with the teenage striker taking both of his goals with aplomb.
You’d imagine it won’t be too far down the track before the City Football Group thinks about cashing in on their latest homegrown product and selling Caputo to a club in a bigger league.
The City Football Group banked more than $7 million in loan and transfer fees when they moved Aziz Behich, Marco Tilio, and Jordan Bos on during the 2023-24 A-League season – although Behich and Tilio are already back at the club – and they’ve clearly proved a decent breeding ground for talent.
But what else have they done?
They’ve built a state-of-the-art $23.5-million training and administration facility in Casey – which the local council chipped in just north of $5 million of its own money for.
But as regular reader Stevo pointed out in my column on The Roar last week, they failed to account for fans when they did – neglecting to build anywhere of note for actual supporters to congregate in.
And that’s been the experience ever since the City Football Group took charge in 2014.
They’ve been good at developing players, they’ve given the likes of Patrick Kisnorbo and Aurelio Vidmar a platform to kick on in their coaching careers – yet all their actions suggest they view fans as an irrelevance.
Lawrence Wong (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
Which is why only 3500 of them turned up on Friday night.
Last month supporter group Talking City reported on Twitter that club chief executive Brad Rowse said Melbourne City had no plans to leave the 30,000 capacity AAMI Park – stating the club had signed a 30-year lease to play there – before blaming COVID and the Australian Professional Leagues’ decision to host the 2023 grand final in Sydney as reasons for low attendances.
But the problem for Rowse is the City Football Group were one of the key drivers of that grand final decision, while the problem for A-League fans is they’ve been advising the APL for years on how to grow the leagues.
Maybe it’s time to admit they don’t know how.
The City Football Group may be spending close to $1.2 billion on building Etihad Park for New York City FC, but they’ve added little to the Australian football landscape from a fan perspective.
They could do worse than having a chat with Preston about how to grow their support.
Not only have the club tapped into generations of fans from their local Macedonian community, but they’re attracting interested viewers from all backgrounds thanks to the kind of atmosphere they generate at Genis Steel Stadium.
They’ll draw another big crowd when they host Oakleigh Cannons in Reservoir on March 21.
I’m not sure we’ll be able to say the same about Melbourne City’s clash with the Newcastle Jets this coming Wednesday night.
