Port's crowd today.

[Piobaireachd]

Don't go pulling that "what they're being fed in the AFL" BS. What a cop out. I'd say the 20000 mark would pretty much be the base level of support for most interstate clubs.

[Powerstuff]

Originally posted by Piobaireachd
Don't go pulling that "what they're being fed in the AFL" BS.....

Have you seen us play the last 4 rounds? Supporting our AFL team is like going to the dentist, an obligation - not a pleasure.

[Sanecow]

Originally posted by Powerstuff
Have you seen us play the last 4 rounds? Supporting our AFL team is like going to the dentist, an obligation - not a pleasure.

Boo hoo.

[JF_Bay22_SCG]

Originally posted by Powerstuff
Have you seen us play the last 4 rounds? Supporting our AFL team is like going to the dentist, an obligation - not a pleasure.

Try losing 27 games straight, being laughed at by everyone for following the team, having your manlihood questioned for following the sport, having everyone wondering why I kept bothering (especially when one's NSWRL team was winning Premiership after Premiership). Wondering whether your club would survive to fight another year, having to be voted upon by all the other VFL clubs as to whether we should keep bothering.

You are having a bad year Don. Just DON'T expect too much sympathy, ok. Because you have NO IDEA how the long term supporters of this club (in both Sydney & Melbourne) have suffered endured & survived what can only be described as a weekly dose from hell.

Weirdly though I look forward on the years 91-93 with a somewhat maccabre fondness. You'd be pleased with winning a quarter, a half, not giving up. Just happy with little glimpses of sunshine, reasons to keep believing. Beating Melbourne was just incredible; man did I lose it that day. I thought you couldn't experience anything better in footy. Yep, those days were kinda funny.

The Ron Barassi era was the most important couple of years in the making of the present-day Sydney Swans FC. He started right from the bottom rung, took the then-players through children's footy drills, told them how to kick the ball properly. Our club had until that stage NEVER done that.

Port are having a bad year. But they will never experience what we as a club have gone through.

JF

[JF_Bay22_SCG]

Originally posted by Powerstuff
Have you seen us play the last 4 rounds? Supporting our AFL team is like going to the dentist.

Port supporters going to see a dentist, now that WOULD be traumatic!

Don't worry; it doesn't happen too often.

JF (who smiles like this )

[Powerstuff]

Guys I didn't initiate this thread, and I'm not seeking sympathy. I'm just trying to address the perception some seem to have that we had 100,000 supporters (as in buying memberships and/or going to games) and now we've dropped to 20,000. It's the old core supporters v casual supporters (aka bandwagoners) stuff.
For interest's sake only I've tried to help non SA people understand a fragment of the the football politics in SA, and why the poor form we are showing now is hurting us so badly off-field so quickly. It would take us a generation of success to build support for the Power to a sustainable level to cope with the bad times. Arguably the same could be said for the Swans where the entrenched anti AFL, pro NRL/ARU attitudes in NSW are a handy comparison to our situation with an anti Port pro Crows culture in SA.

[SimonH]

Originally posted by Powerstuff
Guys I didn't initiate this thread, and I'm not seeking sympathy. I'm just trying to address the perception some seem to have that we had 100,000 supporters (as in buying memberships and/or going to games) and now we've dropped to 20,000. It's the old core supporters v casual supporters (aka bandwagoners) stuff.
For interest's sake only I've tried to help non SA people understand a fragment of the the football politics in SA, and why the poor form we are showing now is hurting us so badly off-field so quickly. It would take us a generation of success to build support for the Power to a sustainable level to cope with the bad times. Arguably the same could be said for the Swans where the entrenched anti AFL, pro NRL/ARU attitudes in NSW are a handy comparison to our situation with an anti Port pro Crows culture in SA.

Man, it's distressing when I start agreeing with Port supporters. What has become of the world? The main point of difference is that NRL/union followers simply don't care one way or t'other about AFL, and are happy enough to 'support' the Swans if they make the GF and the game's on at the pub, in the same way that they'd 'support' the Australian hockey team. Whereas 75% (say) of footy supporters in Adelaide have a hatred for Port that only intensifies if they succeed.

Anyhoo, to go further back, the grand bids of 1989 and 1995 were, I suspect, based more on a vainglorious sense of 'we are the greatest! we can do this!', rather than an actual viability study showing that Port Adelaide had the supporter base to be a long-term financial proposition in the VFL/AFL. (Although I'll grant you that the landscape has changed so much since 1989 that any viability study conducted back then would be little more than a cute historical momento now.)

And, it seems to be turning out, it may not be sustainable. Not that the receivers are moving in next week, but I think that Power administration are worried that the old maxim, 'slow but sure, down the tubes' might apply.

Not that Sydney can rest on its laurels. In 2002, only a year after playing a SCG game in front of over 40,000 people, and in the same year as playing an Olympic stadium game in front of 54,000, Sydney hosted St Kilda at the SCG in front of 16,079 people. In 1993, a Sydney team that was 1-11 and in the midst of one of the longest sustained periods a team has spent as a chopping block in the last 20 years, got 13,057 to its Adelaide game. An extra 3,000 isn't a lot to show for a GF and a subsequent 4 years out of 6 of finals participation to build up loyalty.

My point is that in a fiercely contested winter sports market, for many teams there may no longer be such a thing as a residual level of guaranteed support that will definitely see you through the bad times; no matter how many good years precede them.

[Damien]

Originally posted by SimonH
Sydney hosted St Kilda at the SCG in front of 16,079 people.

Think you might find that was Fremantle. One of the worst games I have been too. (Jeff Wells wrote one of his most scathing reviews of the swans the day after, quoting American sailors watching "My little sister could bitch slap harder than that")

I don't think you find too many hardcore Swans fans that would argue that our hardcore base is any higher than 15000, however this would be an improvement of around 10000 or 200% since 1995, a huge increase in dedicated followers.

Port's issue is that despite being a successful side since 1997, they have been unable to increase their hardcore base, continued success is clearly the only way they will survive.

While their situation is not nearly as bad as the Melbourne Storm - finals nearly every year, a premiership and still getting small crowds, they are in trouble if they have to 'rebuild' for 2 or 3 years.

[RogueSwan]

Originally posted by JF_Bay22_SCG
For that matter, why doesn't the AFL introduce a uniform ticket pricing policy so that there is some sense of unison around the league? Why should people in WA NSW & Queensland be discriminated against in terms of ticket prices just because of the state they live in?

To pay for the "cost of living allowance"?

[goswannie14]

Originally posted by JF_Bay22_SCG
They aren't actually for Port home games at all.

http://www.bass.net.au/events/porb6.php

$23 is still nowhere near as cheap as games in Melbourne. Cheaper than a GA ticket here from memory.

JF, you disagreed with me then agreed with me about the pricing in the space of two paragraphs.

[Sanecow]

Originally posted by goswannie14
JF, you disagreed with me then agreed with me about the pricing in the space of two paragraphs.

It's his prerogative.

[JF_Bay22_SCG]

Originally posted by goswannie14
JF, you disagreed with me then agreed with me about the pricing in the space of two paragraphs.

There is nothing like having a balanced argument I guess.

JF

[floppinab]

Couldn't be happening to "better" team.

Port can suffer away, and I hope they do. Their "success" in the 50's and 60's was born after the War with a recruitment zone gerrymander JBP would've been proud of. And of course from that success came more money and more success.

So now they find themselves in the @@@@, well I'd just like to remind Port fans who holds their AFL licence, and the power to rip it off them if they don't come up to scratch.

[SimonH]

Originally posted by Damien
Think you might find that was Fremantle.

Nope, the Freo game (played earlier in the year) drew a princely 16,800-odd.

Originally posted by Damien
One of the worst games I have been too. (Jeff Wells wrote one of his most scathing reviews of the swans the day after, quoting American sailors watching "My little sister could bitch slap harder than that")

Don't have any particular recollection of the game, but I don't know why he'd be scathing of the Swans (unless he was considerably more scathing of Freo), because Sydney won by 77 points.

[iigrover]

Originally posted by floppinab
Couldn't be happening to "better" team.

Port can suffer away, and I hope they do. Their "success" in the 50's and 60's was born after the War with a recruitment zone gerrymander JBP would've been proud of. And of course from that success came more money and more success.

So now they find themselves in the @@@@, well I'd just like to remind Port fans who holds their AFL licence, and the power to rip it off them if they don't come up to scratch.

I agree!

Perhaps its time for the SANFL to dust off the Norwood/Sturt AFL license submission...