Caro on GMA

[coco]

Caro was on Good Morning Australia this morning and a couple of comments she made really p***ed me off! She claims that AFL will never be anything more than a "boutique" sport in Sydney and then, speaking of the Swans..."aren't they going fantastic?!" I was racking my brain trying to remember when (no change that to IF) she has ever said anything nice about the Swans!

She did put a smile on my face when she said she had tipped them for the wooden spoon and doesn't she look like an idiot now. I couldn't help nodding and saying, 'yes you do..' She will look even worse when they win the GF!!!

I thought she may have finally seen the light but when she declared Collingwood to win the GF...well what can I say?

[jixygirl]

She never accept the fact that Sydney are a fantastic team and will win (please God, please!) the premiership. What was she doing on GMA anyway?

[coco]

I'm so embarassed i was watching GMA!! hahahaha

She was a guest because of her contribution to Football as a woman blablabla. I don't like her but i do respect her in some ways...although her opinions do bother me sometimes...

I would love to see what she has to say when we win the GF!

[dawson]

A Richmond supporter - enough said.

And with apologies to all our female RWO members whom I think are fantastic, she gives female footy followers a bad name.

[Mike_B]

Re: Caro on GMA

Originally posted by coco
She did put a smile on my face when she said she had tipped them for the wooden spoon and doesn't she look like an idiot now.

She ALWAYS looks like an idiot....maybe coz she is one?!?!?!

[Doctor J.]

Ah Caro,

A good head for radio, and a good voice to be MC at a deafness convention.

never has a good word to say about any interstate team. Still longs for the days of the VFL.

As for her contribution to football as a woman. What a load of crap.

Never writes anything that isn't full of innuendo and scuttlebut. Her crap about Eade being signed sealed and delivered to Freo lastyear and the year before was laughable. This year it was Wallace and Sydney, same old crap, crap crap every time.

Pathetic journalist, and I use the term journalist in reference to her very very loosely.

Her motto. "NEVER LET THE TRUTH GET IN THE WAY OF A GOOD STORY"

My motto. "SHE'S NOTHING BUT A TRASH JOURNALIST"

[Ruda Wakening]

She's just a regurgitation machine. He said, she said, they said etc . She goes to all the trouble to keep her cauliflower ear to the ground, yet most times can't even quote what any of them said correctly anyway.

[Jimmy C]

Originally posted by Doctor J.
never has a good word to say about any interstate team. Still longs for the days of the VFL.

So true. Often ends up with Journalistic egg on her face. She can always support the VFL if she wants to-pity it won't require the space in The Age that is currently taken up with her mindless speculations. I reckon she's going through bad Menopause.

[SWANSBEST]

''Boutique sport" , SHE IS AN ABSOLUTE JOKE. The week we pulled 73,000 for the Collingwood game , the NRL drew 78,000 for the entire round.

Earlier this week the NRL were over the moon because the average crowd per game was 14,500 for the home and away season. Yet the Swans averaged over30,000 per game and Caro says we are part of a boutique sport .


Over the years I have e- mailed on numerous times regarding her attitude to the National Competition and I am yet to receive a response. She still hankers for the old days when her Daddy was President of Richmond and they were the dominant players in the VFL . However, life moves on but Caro still has not come to terms eoth this point.

[neored]

Originally posted by SWANSBEST
''Boutique sport" , SHE IS AN ABSOLUTE JOKE. The week we pulled 73,000 for the Collingwood game , the NRL drew 78,000 for the entire round.

Earlier this week the NRL were over the moon because the average crowd per game was 14,500 for the home and away season. Yet the Swans averaged over30,000 per game and Caro says we are part of a boutique sport .


Over the years I have e- mailed on numerous times regarding her attitude to the National Competition and I am yet to receive a response. She still hankers for the old days when her Daddy was President of Richmond and they were the dominant players in the VFL . However, life moves on but Caro still has not come to terms eoth this point.

Really some of your preoccupations with Caroline Wilson are actually amazing. Freud would claim that perhaps theres some sub-conscious sexual tension in the air.

In any case I have to agree with Caro here, the game will always be second fiddle to NRL. Sydney's crowds have been nothing to shout about, apart from the two matches and the upcoming pre-lim , they've been nothing special. Sydney people only go and watch Sydney when the team is winning , they quickly jump of the bandwagon when the team goes badly. They did it in the mid to late 80's and the mid 90's

Also make the distinction between supporting Sydney and supporting footy. Sydney games rate around the 14 to 15 mark in Sydney, and non Sydney games dont even get a mention.

Look the AFL is more national than the NRL, but its still not truly a national sport. It doesn't occupy the minds and hearts of the majority of NSW and QLD people, like it does with the traditional footy states.

The AFL may like to crap on about how its making in-roads but the fact thugby will always be numero uno. Otherwise we Victorians should be **** scared about the potential of the round ball game.

[SWANSBEST]

I can only speak for myself but I can assure you that I certainly have no sexual pre occupation with Caro and in fact I find her very off putting to say the least .

While AFL may not be the No 1 football code in NSW and QLD you can not ignore the fact that the Lions have averaged more than 10,000 per game than the Broncos for the last few years . The idiot box has been the traditional domaln of NRL supporters but in Brisbane last weekend more viewers watched Ch10 coverage of the AFL than Ch 9 coverage of the NRL finals at corresponding times. .

In regard to bandwagoners THIS HAPPENS TO ALL CLUBS IN ALL SPORTS . eg in Canberra the Brumbies crowds have really picked up with recent successes compared to the attendances in their earlier lean years . Winning generates interest.

While we are discussing bandwagoners I am always amazed that some supporters can hold themselves out to be "TRUE SUPPORTERS " while looking down their noses at newcomers. I say " the more the merrier".

A few years ago at the Swans v Hawks final at Docklands I had the privilege of sitting next to a lady who attended the 1933 Grand Final and who had been a fervent Swans supporter all her life . She was still a great believer in attracting new supporters so as to keep the club viable. No elitism from her.


" '

[Nico]

Sounds like she managed to string a few words together which is a minor miracle.

[SWANSBEST]

Visionaries

As Shaun Hart would say " Thank the Lord" for the visionaries who had the foresight to see beyond their own little backyard back in 1996. As Patrick says the Sydney has not been conquered but........


PATRICK SMITH



Visionaries of '96 give AFL the last laugh

September 16, 2003
Late 1996 was a confused and vexing time for the AFL. The commission had killed off Fitzroy and banished them north to become nothing more than the mane of the Brisbane Lions. The Sydney Swans, 12th in 1995, were a grand finalist in 1996. Big Plugger scored after the siren in the preliminary final against Essendon to push the Swans into a final against the Kangaroos. People were said to feel the earth move.

Football was both dying and thriving. In Sydney Plugger kicked 121 goals for the season and was as big as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Out at Homebush construction was under way to build Stadium Australia, the centrepiece of the Sydney Olympics.

The Sydney AFL audience had proved fickle before. They cherished and cheered as Tommy Hafey got them into the finals, deserted the SCG when Gary Buckenara and Brett Scott won a total of four games in 1992-93. Only madmen would punt on the direction football would head in the city of rugby league and union.

Madmen can also be visionaries. We think them odd because we cannot see what glints so brightly on the horizon for them.

At the end of 1996 and into 1997, a bold dream was hatched. Stadium Australia could become a home for Australian football after the Olympics.

There were initial meetings between the builders Multiplex, Chris Chapman CEO of Stadium Australia, Sydney Swans chief Richard Colless and AFL executives.

Doodling led to drawings led to a determination to see if it was possible to have the stadium completed with the flexibility of being reconfigured into an AFL ground after the Games.

The AFL set aside $50,000 for a feasibility study. Even this investment was ridiculed by football people, commentators and officials alike. They scoffed at $50,000 being spent to discover whether an Olympic rectangle could become an AFL oval. And out in the west of Sydney, too. This is money Fitzroy could have done with.

In 1998 the AFL took an even greater risk and drew even fiercer criticism. They paid Stadium Australia a $1 million fee to ensure that the stadium could revert to an AFL field. But the AFL officials gave no guarantee that they would schedule football there. This was a punt.

Again the investment was condemned. It was too late, football would never be played in Sydney's west, physically the stadium couldn't be transformed from athletic field to football oval. The finances didn't add up. In short, this was madness. The AFL was getting too big for its football boots. However, now two more dynamics came into play.

The AFL had established a NSW-ACT task force to review football and Michael Knight, the Minister for the Olympics, was becoming concerned that his creations at Homebush must have a life after the Games.

Knight was not an AFL man, but he saw the potential of Stadium Australia as a football venue. He began to lobby the government. He, too, had a vision of what football could deliver in the west of Sydney. The AFL task force also had targeted the west as an untouched market for the game.

So with the AFL and Colless driving the deal, football outlaid around $5 million plus interest over 15 years for Stadium Australia to be reconfigured to host football. Think of this gamble. Sydney crowds at the SCG were not strong, sometimes dropping below 25,000. Yet the AFL was pushing west.

Originally, the AFL was to play up to 11 games a year at its new stadium. The Kangaroos, dabbling with the concept of being a national team, had agreed to play seven games there. But early forays just to the SCG were disastrous, despite heavy AFL funding.

The relationship between the Swans and the Victorian side suffered frostbite. The Kangaroos withdrew from the SCG and ran away, too, from Stadium Australia.

The deal with Stadium Australia was reworked. Last year there were three games played at the venue, all themed rounds and all successful. Next year there will be three, with Sydney to meet Collingwood as the one match to be played in Australia during the week of the bye.

Already the ground has staged the biggest crowd at an AFL match this year.

And research shows each new match at the stadium draws 20,000 people to their first game of AFL.

The final on Saturday could draw a capacity of 80,000, which will deliver the AFL as much as $3 million. Given that the Swans contribute half of the funding for the ground lease, Stadium Australia is now all but cashflow neutral for the AFL.

The Sydney market is not yet conquered but $50,000 and a vision back in 1996 has it all but surrounded.

[Glenn]

Hmmm wonder if she has any idea about what she is crapping on about.Seems to have a habit of talking out her arse, considering what her face looks like rather appropriate

[Dave]

Originally posted by neored
In any case I have to agree with Caro here, the game will always be second fiddle to NRL. Sydney's crowds have been nothing to shout about, apart from the two matches and the upcoming pre-lim , they've been nothing special. Sydney people only go and watch Sydney when the team is winning , they quickly jump of the bandwagon when the team goes badly. They did it in the mid to late 80's and the mid 90's

So what do you think a good NRL crowd is compared to a poor Swans crowd then?

I think you'll find that our WORST crowd numbers over the last 5 years are better than the average "great" League crowd.

You obviously have no idea on League ( or Sydney for that matter) so maybe you should stop pretending you do.