Sydney deserves better

[footyhead]

The city of sydney deserves a better inception into the world of AFL than the Swans have provided.
Sydney as a city loves to back a winner. So does every city. I am in Brisbane at the moment and I can tell you that the vibe on the street is mostly about the intoxication felt by a populace who can count on their team to put up a good fight.
As a great advocate and fan of Australian rules football, I often talk to people in public places about the Swans. The sentiment is that they always tend to dissapoint ! I think this is true.
To me this is cause for joy as well as anger. The joy part comes at the obvious strenght of the code to produce such extrodinary support while having such a mediocre team forced upoun it. 70 000 + to a home and away game, imagine what could be acheived if Sydney ever got a team who could put two really good seasones together.
The maddening part comes in due to the fact that the sydney press, the footballing world the sydney people and the Swans and AFL all think that this mediocre mind set produced crap culture of one good seasone followed by three middle ladder ones , with a brownlow throwen in here and ther or a colmen medal, is at all good enough. It is not !!!!!
This patern is part of the culture of the old South Melbourne swans. They have imported it to Sydney and it is not good enough. It was not good enough in South Melbourne (look where it got them!!) It is certainly not good enough in Sydney.
I hope the AFL start a second Sydney team. The Swans need the copetition to wake them out of their Hundred year old stupor before they bore the s h it out of every decent AFL loving persone in Sydney.
Oh and make no mistake about it Sydney does love AFL, like the whole of Australia, just not the mediocre crap produced by the likes of this administration, and the Swans of old.
Get real Sydney demand a better AFL team !!!! Yes that means you Geoff Wells !

[CureTheSane]

Possibly the most stupid post I have read here.

Let's summarise.
You imply that...

Supporters aren't passionate when it comes to the Swans, and accept mediocricy
South Melbourne supporters accepted mediocricy as well
The players aren't trying hard enough.
It's unjust that the Swans haven't totally dominated what is a traditionally rugby state.
The administration is terrible, accepts mediocricy and presumably always has.

I would say that you are perhaps pretty pissed off with our recent performances, for I didn't see a post like this last year...

[footyhead]

All I am saying is that the history speaks for it self. This club has not put two decent years of football back to back since the year dot. The city of Sydney deserve a team that do.

[sharpie]

I deserve better

Almost every team I have ever supported has been a dud.

Souths, then Norths.

Waratahs. Why cant they repay their supporters like the Brumbies do year in year out.

Swans.

At least the Wallabies and the cricketers have had sustained success for the last 10 years

[BAM_BAM]

just a little request then Sharpie. Can you abandon us. Just fall on your sword, take one for the team. I'd be forever grateful.

[SXP]

Originally posted by BAM_BAM
just a little request then Sharpie. Can you abandon us. Just fall on your sword, take one for the team. I'd be forever grateful.

Don't worry BAM_BAM, he won't be the only one....

[robbieando]

Re: Sydney deserves better

Originally posted by footyhead
The city of sydney deserves a better inception into the world of AFL than the Swans have provided.
Sydney as a city loves to back a winner. So does every city. I am in Brisbane at the moment and I can tell you that the vibe on the street is mostly about the intoxication felt by a populace who can count on their team to put up a good fight.
As a great advocate and fan of Australian rules football, I often talk to people in public places about the Swans. The sentiment is that they always tend to dissapoint ! I think this is true.
To me this is cause for joy as well as anger. The joy part comes at the obvious strenght of the code to produce such extrodinary support while having such a mediocre team forced upoun it. 70 000 + to a home and away game, imagine what could be acheived if Sydney ever got a team who could put two really good seasones together.
The maddening part comes in due to the fact that the sydney press, the footballing world the sydney people and the Swans and AFL all think that this mediocre mind set produced crap culture of one good seasone followed by three middle ladder ones , with a brownlow throwen in here and ther or a colmen medal, is at all good enough. It is not !!!!!
This patern is part of the culture of the old South Melbourne swans. They have imported it to Sydney and it is not good enough. It was not good enough in South Melbourne (look where it got them!!) It is certainly not good enough in Sydney.
I hope the AFL start a second Sydney team. The Swans need the copetition to wake them out of their Hundred year old stupor before they bore the s h it out of every decent AFL loving persone in Sydney.
Oh and make no mistake about it Sydney does love AFL, like the whole of Australia, just not the mediocre crap produced by the likes of this administration, and the Swans of old.
Get real Sydney demand a better AFL team !!!! Yes that means you Geoff Wells !

When in doubt, always blame South Melbourne, after all its only been 23 seasons since we last played a home match in Melbourne - clearly not enough time to change the clubs culture. How long do you want??? 71 more years???

A second team will do jack to improve the Swans and would more likely hurt the Swans off the park in terms of sponsorships, media coverage, access to local juniors and fan support. Also take into account that a second team would either be another Victorian club with a culture of losing moved to Sydney in an attempt to save that club or if a new club was to be entirely built from the ground up, won't have the same benefits that the SA and WA team got in terms of access to quality local players, sponsors and supporters that led to their success early success.

Like it or not, there is no clear answers to making the Swans a team the win premierships. I see a club that since 96 has been happy to be middle of the road, just making finals - instead of one that builds to the future. Steps are in place to finally start doing that, but we can't allow unexpected glory of one season to derail the process. The Lions didn't become champions over night, they built their side around years of good drafting and trading, good off field managment and an all time great coach. Just which of the above can you say the Swans have??? St Kilda, have rebuilt using the early draft picks they were given by finishing at the bottom year in and year out, something the Swans haven't done for 10 years. In 10 years we have had only 3 top 5 picks in the draft and 2 of them were traded to us in one season.

We are a team that was happy to be at the middle of the road for too long, thus impacting on the players we could get, now when we decide to bite the bullet and rebuild, the first season of the rebuild we finish 3rd. The rebuild is still going on, the background stuff is improving all the time, but while we are still a middle of the road team in terms of ladder position, we are going to stuggle to fully rebuild in the style of St Kilda and we certainly don't have the time to do what Brisbane did.

What ever it is, its time to stop blaming our history at South Melbourne, because after a quarter of a century its about time Sydney started taking the blame as well.

[CureTheSane]

I see a club that since 96 has been happy to be middle of the road, just making finals - instead of one that builds to the future.

Perhaps

In fact, probably.

I think Roos has identified this and is in the middle of trying to change that all around.

Did we play above ourselves last year?
Maybe.
We were injury free, playing with nothing to lose.

Then this year the team perhaps has higher expectations and expectations.
Who knows how they are mentally affected by good and bad times.

But we have a couple more years of this sort of footy to endure I expect.

[ScottH]

Originally posted by CureTheSane
But we have a couple more years of this sort of footy to endure I expect.

Look at the pain and suffering the Saints fans have endured over the last few years with a nothing much list. Now...., well just look at the ladder.

[barry]

A 2nd team in Sydney would be great for the swans.

At the moment, and for the last 20 years, we have had to carry the burden of being THE AFL in Sydney. This has caused us to take recruiting decisions that were not in the long term interests of the club (especially post 96).

Another club could hold the medias attention, while we rebuild from the ground up.

Its also worth considering that by being a non-victorian club the odds are much higher that we will end up mid-table. Simply because we have in theory 11 easy home games, and 11 hard away games = 11 wins = 8th/9th.

I think there has also been a general reluctance to tank* games (er, I mean play the young players ) in bad years to get high draft picks as its no guarantee they will stay anyway (ala Gasper and Rocca). Sydneys position has been to recruit players with enough maturity that they have grown out of homesickness. Before the cap extension that was entirely justified. And I still dont think 15% extension is enough on its own to outweigh the difficulties we have getting players.

* I beleive tanking is rife in the AFL especially with priority picks.

[footyhead]

[i]
* I beleive tanking is rife in the AFL especially with priority picks. [/B]

We should think seriously about it at this stage to !

[Tooth Fairy]

Originally posted by footyhead
All I am saying is that the history speaks for it self. This club has not put two decent years of football back to back since the year dot. The city of Sydney deserve a team that do.

Fine! Then go get your own team.

[Bart]

Re: Sydney deserves better

Originally posted by footyhead
The city of sydney deserves a better inception into the world of AFL than the Swans have provided.
Sydney as a city loves to back a winner. So does every city. I am in Brisbane at the moment and I can tell you that the vibe on the street is mostly about the intoxication felt by a populace who can count on their team to put up a good fight.
As a great advocate and fan of Australian rules football, I often talk to people in public places about the Swans. The sentiment is that they always tend to dissapoint ! I think this is true.
To me this is cause for joy as well as anger. The joy part comes at the obvious strenght of the code to produce such extrodinary support while having such a mediocre team forced upoun it. 70 000 + to a home and away game, imagine what could be acheived if Sydney ever got a team who could put two really good seasones together.
The maddening part comes in due to the fact that the sydney press, the footballing world the sydney people and the Swans and AFL all think that this mediocre mind set produced crap culture of one good seasone followed by three middle ladder ones , with a brownlow throwen in here and ther or a colmen medal, is at all good enough. It is not !!!!!
This patern is part of the culture of the old South Melbourne swans. They have imported it to Sydney and it is not good enough. It was not good enough in South Melbourne (look where it got them!!) It is certainly not good enough in Sydney.
I hope the AFL start a second Sydney team. The Swans need the copetition to wake them out of their Hundred year old stupor before they bore the s h it out of every decent AFL loving persone in Sydney.
Oh and make no mistake about it Sydney does love AFL, like the whole of Australia, just not the mediocre crap produced by the likes of this administration, and the Swans of old.
Get real Sydney demand a better AFL team !!!! Yes that means you Geoff Wells !

footyhead, we had a similar post a few weeks ago the Melbourne deserved better !

The Sydney mindset isn't simply pro-Swans or anti-Swans when they are up or down. It is first and foremost a very different culture here, where Sydneysiders see themsleves spoiled for choice on what to do with their weekends. Whilst I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, there are some aspects of this culture that as a resident I don't aspire to, particlularly the too-cool-for-school, cheap quick thrills, what's new in the zoo mindset. Loyalty is a commodity in this town, easily tradeable.

Moving onto sport, there is no culture of season passes here, for any code. You see the Waratahs pack in 40000 each week, but only a small fraction are season passes. In fact I bet our season pass numbers are more than all Sydney NRL clubs combined.

Parramatta Eels (sitting in the top 8 prior to the game) pulled in 8000 yesterday for a home game on a beautiful day

I'm not sure what our 2003 membership number was, but I remember it been close to 20,000 which was rock bottom. Remember in the 3 prvious seasons, the Swans played 1 finals match (...a losing one...away)

The 1998/99 numbers were so high because it was seen as the in-thing. Once again many of you have no understanding of what it is like here. South Sydney had reportedly 60,000 people march on Town Hall to get them back in the comp, had a full house for their first game back, and now struggle to get 10,000. Northern Spirirt like Perth Glory played in front of full houses at NSO. They no longer exist, Perth are the flagbearers. In the past 8 years, 7 NSW NRL teams either merged or were kicked out. The Waratahs went bust and were rescued by the ARU. Sydney Kings went bust.

You will probably see solid but not spectacular increases from now on.

SCG crowds last year weren't great. The big increases were in the West, among people who aren't going to fork out for a membership.

It will always be a struggle for the Swans. There is no point in even thinking about a second team. It simply won't work.

The press in Sydney frustrate me no end too. How NRL gets so much press seems confusing, given their paltry gates, but it must be remembered that NRL rates very well on both FTA and Pay.

Your comment about SMFC culture being to blame for the SSFC's woes has me bamboozled.

[Tooth Fairy]

Re: Re: Sydney deserves better

Originally posted by Bart

Whilst I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, there are some aspects of this culture that as a resident I don't aspire to, particlularly the too-cool-for-school, cheap quick thrills, what's new in the zoo mindset. Loyalty is a commodity in this town, easily tradeable.

That goes hand in hand with the "I make this much money, how much do you make?" greeting you sometimes get. I met this wanker of a sydney geo physicist last week up the bush. He came out with this comment on how he was earning blah blah a day and drove some sort of bmw (like I cared. Would have loved to see his bmw last 5 mins in the terrain we were in). Funny thing was, I had to hold back from pissing myself laughing at him because I actually earnt more than him. Of course I never said anything. But yeah, what is with that money makes you a man mentality. I never quite got it. **** with the job I got now, I'd gladly take a paycut going the places I go and meeting the people that I meet. Then again, I'm not complaining.

As for a second team in sydney... I'm not sure it would be a successful venture as yet. Remember that before the dockers came, the weagles had some success and WA IS an AFL state. Also, SA IS an AFL state. Justifiable for 2 teams from both states. Give it another 10-15 years maybe. Gotta learn to crawl before you can walk.

[NMWBloods]

Re: Re: Re: Sydney deserves better

Originally posted by Tooth Fairy
That goes hand in hand with the "I make this much money, how much do you make?" greeting you sometimes get.

That's one of the major reasons why we moved back to Melbourne - that obsession with money and chattels, how good you look and where you are seen.