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The Australian Championship 🇦🇺🏆

Gotta say, I don't think it has anything to do with being Croatian, rather the worship, busts, portraits etc. of certain people at certain clubs.

E.g. this guy:

"German spies who had been established to watch over Pavelić even wrote to German SS leader Heinrich Himmler of the Ustaše’s methods of violence, stating that they were equally torturous to “helpless old people, women, and children.”
Pavelić’s men would reportedly gouge out children’s eyes and hack them to death with shovels. They would hang men upside-down, castrate them, then strangle them or allow them to be mauled by dogs"


It's a shame then that when SU58 have genuine concerns about over-policing that it kinda gets lost with an unsympathetic audience.
From the comments it very MUCH does look like it has to do with anything Croatian... There are a dozen or so posters on Reddit that seem to have a very real hatred of all things "Fasho" and not afraid to tarnish a whole group of people with their hatred... whether its warranted or not...
 
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Hey did I see Brescia as a front of shirt sponsor for Marconi in round one or am I just imagining it?
Maybe you’re thinking of bialetti, the coffee company. I could be remembering it wrong, but Brescia himself recently died and was honoured with a minutes silence at a Marconi game earlier this season i believe. Brescia furniture would probably be Sydney’s equivalent to Franco cozzo in Melbourne
 
Maybe you’re thinking of bialetti, the coffee company. I could be remembering it wrong, but Brescia himself recently died and was honoured with a minutes silence at a madocni game earlier this season i believe. Brescia furniture would probably be Sydney’s equivalent to Franco cozzo in Melbourne
Yeah I went back and checked, I must have been projecting past memories.... :) Seeing SU with BOCA and Marconi with Brescia as front of shirt, would have made me want South to play with Marathon sprawled all over ours... lol.
 
But its “wests club” not the tigers per se which also fall under its umbrella. It’s a general social and sporting club which also has a non sporting element to it. They had the tigers under their umbrella as an nrl team and now they’re getting APIA as a soccer team, and they also want others sports. For a vic reference point the first thing that comes to my mind is like the Veneto club in Melbourne which bulleen lions falls under its umbrella.
Yeah Bulleen and Green Gully pretty much the only similar in Melbourne I can think of.
 
Have said here before, to me it’s one of the things which sets apart/differentiates Marconi and APIA as clubs. Despite both being clubs founded by Italian migrants in the same city, Marconi has a much stronger, more coherent and more consistent sense of club identity over the decades. On and off the field

Imo APIA have shown more of the tendencies Italian clubs in Melbourne have displayed over the years to compromise and dilute their identity. To a lesser degree obviously.
Look I hear you Glenardo but there's lots of reasons the different directions between our clubs despite our same roots.
We also never know all the behind scene facts and how things have unravelled over the many years.
On one hand your proximity/club/venue makes for the perfect model and revenue whereas APIA in the dense inner developing west that in hindsight 20/30yrs+ we should have already developed Lambert when we could have - meaning less red tape compared to later years.
We've squandered $'s galore, who hasn't out of all our clubs.
Club Marconi need I say more and a former CEO - your fortunate and I'm happy for the Club ahead.
The old APIA Club was a gold mine (ala CMarconi) we know why that fell apart - smarter management would have made farfar better use of all that cash hence Raciti chasing his/our tails to survive and be viable/competitive Club.
Both clubs have had their typical ethnic way to business challenges haha
The $ that Wests have supported for near on 30yrs now (isn't that unusual compared to sponsers come and go) and kicking in more just how the opportunity presents business 101.
I agree I don't like whats doing from a personal perspective but its still APIA first and foremost and WE are great fellow Italian clubs with a good typical rivalry that is brilliant and healthy - thats all that matters.......
Wests or not on the shirt everyone will still want to beat us for we have been pretty damn consistant the last 10yrs :) and long may it continue.
 
Maybe you’re thinking of bialetti, the coffee company. I could be remembering it wrong, but Brescia himself recently died and was honoured with a minutes silence at a Marconi game earlier this season i believe. Brescia furniture would probably be Sydney’s equivalent to Franco cozzo in Melbourne
Don't you luv how these early italian migrants backed their passion (also the Cro/Greeks etc) - (sure they like making money but they gave as well) without these types way back in the day the clubs would have got no where !.........
It made me wonder about another very successful Italian who's around 92 now who I see when playing with the Italian Golf Club here that he was the 1st founding President back in '96 !
Nick Scali.
It amaze's me he only dabbled much later into the game of all clubs bloody SFC 2012 - 2014.
Anyway lets move on just some trivia.
 
Yeah I went back and checked, I must have been projecting past memories.... :) Seeing SU with BOCA and Marconi with Brescia as front of shirt, would have made me want South to play with Marathon sprawled all over ours... lol.
There were a few Brescia shirts around, including Harper's son wearing one. Good promo of the legends game. What these NST/Championship clubs have got to do to connect with their supporters. Good to see.
 
There were a few Brescia shirts around, including Harper's son wearing one. Good promo of the legends game. What these NST/Championship clubs have got to do to connect with their supporters. Good to see.
There were heaps of 90s, early 2000s South Melbourne shirts on display at Lakeside these past few weeks... A lot of faces I haven't seen turn up for a couple of decades in some instances.... Its amazing what even the smallest sniff of relevance can do to revitalise a club.
 
There where heaps of 90s, early 2000s South Melbourne shirts on display at Lakeside these past few weeks... A lot of faces I haven't seen turn up for a couple of decades in some instances.... Its amazing what even the smallest sniff of relevance can do to revitalise a club.
this is the thing - its all there underneath - layer upon layer.
Be it old and young.
My eldest sons mates - early 30's and couple of other younger bros were with us Friday night.
All aussie born from italian migrants football devotees who play/follow NPL and 1 or 2 go to AL.
I asked why here - because these clubs are the roots of football here, they want it to succeed.
2 of the blokes bought the APIA Championship members packs - I was damn impressed and proud.

Hillybilly55, all this game needed was a platform on a scale as such.
As long as our fellow Clubs don't screw up badly and the FA maintain their balls this has huge potential to grow and grow as we dream of.
Small steps but its all there and they will come as time goes by - we don't need AL metrics outlook just good local ground football with decent numbers.
 
Wests at Ashfield has been sponsoring the junior teams at all levels for years. Shaun Mielekamp, ex CEO of the Central Coast Mariners is now the Club’s General Manager of Football. He knows how to connect to the local community and the local clubs. He will be a great pick up going forward.
 
There were heaps of 90s, early 2000s South Melbourne shirts on display at Lakeside these past few weeks... A lot of faces I haven't seen turn up for a couple of decades in some instances.... Its amazing what even the smallest sniff of relevance can do to revitalise a club.

Problem is best case you see them 2 more times, then what? They arent coming to watch us play in npl.
 
Nah - I was standing with you 6 months ago when you needed a shoulder.

Now I use my powers for darker things...

Edit: ...never ignored ;)
Same back at ya brother... Don't worry if Valkanis starts getting shaky he can always get his family to fire up the food truck..... Lakeside legends :)
 
Problem is best case you see them 2 more times, then what? They arent coming to watch us play in npl.
That's the curse of having a 'champions league' format for the Australian Championship.

You've worked hard to re-engage with the supporter base, attract decent crowds at matches, bring in new sponsors etc ..... and then its over for another year. And then we go back to 500 crowd attendances in the dead of winter NPL matches.
 
Problem is best case you see them 2 more times, then what? They arent coming to watch us play in npl.
I don't know if thats necessarily true of all of them... I was chatting to a lady who brought her elderly dad (and two young girls) for the first time in years. She said her hubby (absent) was a Melbourne Victory tragic but they where an old Hellas family... She was bubbling with pride at how her girls and their pappou bonded over Hellas and tells me she will drag her hubby to Lakeside kicking and screaming if she has to... Small sample size I know, but these past two weeks have had a massive "feel good" factor amongst the latent supporters....

Maybe Im just an eternal optimist but I think this going well.
 
That's the curse of having a 'champions league' format for the Australian Championship.

You've worked hard to re-engage with the supporter base, attract decent crowds at matches, bring in new sponsors etc ..... and then its over for another year. And then we go back to 500 crowd attendances in the dead of winter NPL matches.
Dont forget OCL in Jan-Feb .... plenty of "attractions" for us to build on....
 
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