"Where AFL football is about to be taught a lesson".

[Cheer Squad]

There's an aggressive little article in today's Australian:


They say aggression is built on fear and I suppose you can sense the writer's defensiveness in the article.

I think he does make a reasonable point when he says that on-field success for the Swans did not translate into higher TV ratings. We do regularly get out-rated by Iron Chef in Sydney.

But I think what the AFL is really interested to find out is if there is a net increase in the number of AFL club members living in Sydney.

That will probably he hard to work out because no-one will know how many dual club members there are.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/where-afl-is-about-to-be-taught-a-football-lesson/story-e6frg6zo-1226337483468

[Lucky Knickers]

What a horrible negative article. "GayAFL", gated communities, dissing Izzy?
Izzy lost all his muscle tone?

Those who do follow AFL in Sydney are most likely to be people from interstate, some are Swans diehards, and some maintain a first allegiance to another team.
However, Swans followers also include a somewhat genteel demographic from Sydney's wealthier suburbs, people who don't like the crassness and violence of the rugby codes.

Not sure what his point is with the first sentence. Aren't Swans diehards fans?
As for genteel, let's introduce him to Annie!
Can't believe anyone paid him for his article.

[Yuri H]

It's The Australian. Nevermind.

[cruiser]

Link?

[Wardy]

Who's Gavin Atkins when he's at home? Never heard of him so take no notice of him.

[erica]

Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian

To get behind the paywall, click on link then copy url and paste into a Google search = full article. Cool, eh?

[Jewels]

Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian

To get behind the paywall, click on link then copy url and paste into a Google search = full article. Cool, eh?

What a clever little girl you are Erica, thank you very much for that.
Certainly is cool

[jono2707]

I think the article is reasonably on the mark, especially this bit:

"AFL followers will tell you that this is a long-term project and that the GWS team will succeed in five years. What they overlook is that if the experience of the Swans is anything to go by, on-field success will not translate to the long-term popularity of the code in Sydney."

Most of us here are diehard fans, but I haven't seen too many recent converts going around. We got 21,000 to the game on Sunday - great in terms of NRL but not wonderful by our recent standards - the SCG is undergoing some pretty major renovations but I wouldnt think thats a great factor. We should have a much larger supporter base than we currently have, but the AFL has effectively cut Sydney in two so I fear this will disadvantage the Swans in the long term - I know that's against the 'build it and they will come' mentality that is in vogue with the AFL, but that's exactly the sort of mentality which causes a lot of businesses to go bust.

Thanks for the fantastic tip too Erica - very handy and one I'll remember...

[stellation]

Wow, a rather biased opinion piece to say the least.

Main parts of confusion;

• The whole suggestion that the sport is only known as "Gay FL" in Western Sydney is absurd- I don't doubt that there's still a large group of knuckleheads around the traps that may call it that, but not the whole population.
• As far as goal posts being erected at his wife's school in the wrong spot, the author seems confused- he makes the point that the goals have been erected in a manner that nobody can use them, then goes on to say that nobody uses them just because they're Aussie Rules goals.
• He essentially says that kids won't do something different because of peer pressure, suggesting that schoolyard bullying is a valid reason not to do something different. An offensive notion.

Goody Stella's mother lives in the Penrith area, which is one of the true rugby league strongholds. As you drive to her house you go past a relatively rough high school that has Aussie Rules posts up, that I've seen kids using several times, and you go past a lovely little ground with a white picket fence that has footy posts up and looks to be the home ground of the local team. There are clearly people in the area who like to have a kick.

[stellation]

I think the article is reasonably on the mark, especially this bit:

"AFL followers will tell you that this is a long-term project and that the GWS team will succeed in five years. What they overlook is that if the experience of the Swans is anything to go by, on-field success will not translate to the long-term popularity of the code in Sydney."

Most of us here are diehard fans, but I haven't seen too many recent converts going around. We got 21,000 to the game on Sunday - great in terms of NRL but not wonderful by our recent standards - the SCG is undergoing some pretty major renovations but I wouldnt think thats a great factor. We should have a much larger supporter base than we currently have, but the AFL has effectively cut Sydney in two so I fear this will disadvantage the Swans in the long term - I know that's against the 'build it and they will come' mentality that is in vogue with the AFL, but that's exactly the sort of mentality which causes a lot of businesses to go bust.

Thanks for the fantastic tip too Erica - very handy and one I'll remember...

For that 21k crowd, keep in mind we were playing North.

[WeHaveTheGoodes]

For that 21k crowd, keep in mind we were playing North.

So whats that say about our attendences? We need other victorian teams to prop up our avg? That no matter what we have a dissapointing membership in Sydney?

The article is spot on. I don't expect AFL diehards to understand.

I was in Sydney recently and i didnt see much enthusiasm for the code, if hardly any. I drove past a school with afl posts and they were being used by a group of lads as soccer posts.

[wolftone57]

From what I can gather reading Mr Atkins material is that he is a right wing journalist in the same vein as Andrew Bolt. The difference with him and Bolt is more restrained in his comment and therefore doesn't get taken to the Anti-Discrimination Commission. He is pro uranium etc and writes a blog called 'The Shadowlands'. He was also 'Asian Correspondent' for a newspaper. I don't know what his credentials are as a Sports Journalist as he seems to have none. This seems to be his only article on this subject but I may be wrong and he can at any time refute this if he has the guts to post here.

[wolftone57]

So whats that say about our attendences? We need other victorian teams to prop up our avg? That no matter what we have a dissapointing membership in Sydney?

The article is spot on. I don't expect AFL diehards to understand.

I was in Sydney recently and i didnt see much enthusiasm for the code, if hardly any. I drove past a school with afl posts and they were being used by a group of lads as soccer posts.

What a load of rubbish! We don't have a disappointing membership in Sydney at all! You are looking at a city of between 5 & 7 million people from a Melbourne perspective. You have Aussie Rules Goal Posts everywhere and you expect to see the same here. Sydney has a VERY STRONG Rugby League base and it will take decades to eat into that let alone compete with it. RL started in Sydney that is a major point you are missing. The Swans have been and are still very successful here and given time and good promotion and development GWS will be too.

The fact is Sydney is a large enough city to encompass all codes quite comfortably and will do that given time. While Soccer is the most common sport played at junior level many that play at junior level never play at senior level. This may be due to the Senior clubs expecting players to pay a fee to play and 'A' League clubs expecting up to $20,000 from a junior to get listed.

Our game is expanding in the North Eastern states but this has always been a long term plan not a short term fix. The development of Aussie Rules in these states is different from the Southern and Western states due to another code being incumbent and dominant.

The crowd on Sunday, while being disappointing, was not terrible. Many of the members probably didn't turn up and didn't give their seat to someone or on sell it. The SCG Members area was almost empty, if it had have been Pies, Bombers, Eagles, Hawks, Cats etc we would have had a full house. North don't draw up here and a lot of Swans supporters are a little funny about North and refuse to go to see a North game even if playing the Swans. This is due to them trying to poach our members way back without making any commitment to Sydney.

[WeHaveTheGoodes]

As i said i don't expect AFL diehards to understand let alone form an objective opinion. As soon as anyone dares to suggest some home truths about the code up north with some actual facts things turn very nasty. We victorians are very sensitive to any kind of critique towards our code.

The gay fl comment might not have been needed but the reality is there, kids and adults and bogans call the code that. Just as many victorians call rugby league thugby or just simply call it rugby without bothering to differentiate between two codes.

The reality is, Sydneysiders don't care about the code as much as we, in Victoria, would like to think they do.

[WeHaveTheGoodes]

From what I can gather reading Mr Atkins material is that he is a right wing journalist in the same vein as Andrew Bolt. The difference with him and Bolt is more restrained in his comment and therefore doesn't get taken to the Anti-Discrimination Commission. He is pro uranium etc and writes a blog called 'The Shadowlands'. He was also 'Asian Correspondent' for a newspaper. I don't know what his credentials are as a Sports Journalist as he seems to have none. This seems to be his only article on this subject but I may be wrong and he can at any time refute this if he has the guts to post here.

It's an opinion piece dude. You might not agree with it but no need to start getting all hurt because somebody wrote an unflattering article about Aussie Rules.

Stop being so dam sensitive.