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Alen Stajic speech on Australian football

biggiemic said:
So you were just happy with the top tier continuously just plodding along? Whether or not it was the right way, change had to happen one way or another and Lowy was the only one willing to stump up the cash.
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Sorry mate, I follow a club through thick or thin, don't really care about "tiers" ... The best league is the one my club is playing in for the season.
 
biggiemic said:
Don’t know mate, Gold Coast United are still alive 😁

Well yeah, SU58 not happy about being “expelled”, now they had there chance to shine on the national level and they suddenly don’t give a fuck?
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its the question that will be asked at the AGM in two weeks.

We've been on the national level multiple times before through the Australia Cup.
 
biggiemic said:
So you were just happy with the top tier continuously just plodding along? Whether or not it was the right way, change had to happen one way or another and Lowy was the only one willing to stump up the cash.
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To be honest, if Canberra Cosmos had not folded and been booted I may have been happy with the NSL plodding along myself.

My team existed and was in the top flight and that meant something.

It is the appeal and horror of P/R. To play among the best and try to be the best with the risk of dropping out, losing sponsorship/money and players, and slowly fading down through the ranks to obscurity.

Community clubs have the huge advantage of belonging and ownership to remain strong or at the least relevant in their community. Plastics like my Roar not so much if they have not engaged well enough with their community. Newcastle, Adelaide and Glory (as mentioned above) existed in the NSL and still do - but so did 'Brisbane' in some form.

The 'one thing' missing from our top league - due to its very design and nature - is the openness to permit others to genuinely work at getting into it and earn a place at the big table. Open competition.

Same objections as always - Lowy paid so he gets to choose the format. Buyers don't want to spend heaps to drop out a season later so there had to be guarantees. We plastic fans can be proud of our clubs and always hope for better next season in the top flight because we know we will be there.

Can we take the Championship into a higher level by having an aleague and Championship home and away system and build some form of P/R competition? Foundation clubs, top so many NPL winners, and top so many aleague winners playing off. I don't think the calendar and resources are free enough to do that - and the shortness of the competition would always make it a novelty rather than growth.

The issue is that everything we talk about is coloured by history and perspective. We cannot talk football without talking this league or that - this new system or the truer old system. Instead of just fighting over our clubs being better and building true historic hatreds in the spirit of good sport, we are also constantly fighting between FA and APL, league versus league.

We can acknowledge we are part of the problem - but we are still going to do it. How hard it is to blind ourselves to history, or accept the risk of losing our place in the current system.

We are a federation of states. We are a conglomeration of divided clubs. We are by nature a disjointed country. Imagine being brought in as a 'disruptor' and trying to move forward. I have more respect for Ernie Merrick the more I think about it. What could he actually achieve in reality?
 
grazorblade said:
people have been trying to pressure fans of nsl clubs to get on board with the a league for the sake of unity for 20 years. It doesn't really work and it doesn't strike me as particularly just.

Eurosnobs I'm not sure what to do with. I wrote an article about how our crowds are actually not unusual for a league with our level of wages, if anything we are overperforming and perhaps the continued slide is just a long term correction. In the early years of the a league I think crowds massively overperformed. There were of course some odd decisions along the way which didn't help - the war on active support and the grand final decision - but every franchise club bar adelaide united, whether they were introduced in the a league or nsl era has declined after an initial bang.

Unfortunately, the majority of football fans around the world are eurosnobs (I'm an aussie snob - I watch every a league/championship game and won't even watch the epl despite being in england because there are no aussies). The irony is that if eurosnobs are concerned about quality, if every eurosnob regularly attended the footy in Australia (whether a league or npl) there would be enough money in the game to lift the standard

It is what it is though and we have to find a way to make football work in Australia
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Hot take: actively converting Eurosnobs to domestic 🇦🇺⚽️ is only marginally-more/less futile than converting AFL/NRL etc. b0g@ns..

Indeed, I can speak from personal experience that Eurosnobs in this country rank among the most ⚽️-illiterate people around - and it’s only getting worse, care of the younger generations who are even less-inclined to expand their horizons within the game😔
 
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RIMB said:
To be honest, if Canberra Cosmos had not folded and been booted I may have been happy with the NSL plodding along myself.

My team existed and was in the top flight and that meant something.

It is the appeal and horror of P/R. To play among the best and try to be the best with the risk of dropping out, losing sponsorship/money and players, and slowly fading down through the ranks to obscurity.

Community clubs have the huge advantage of belonging and ownership to remain strong or at the least relevant in their community. Plastics like my Roar not so much if they have not engaged well enough with their community. Newcastle, Adelaide and Glory (as mentioned above) existed in the NSL and still do - but so did 'Brisbane' in some form.

The 'one thing' missing from our top league - due to its very design and nature - is the openness to permit others to genuinely work at getting into it and earn a place at the big table. Open competition.

Same objections as always - Lowy paid so he gets to choose the format. Buyers don't want to spend heaps to drop out a season later so there had to be guarantees. We plastic fans can be proud of our clubs and always hope for better next season in the top flight because we know we will be there.

Can we take the Championship into a higher level by having an aleague and Championship home and away system and build some form of P/R competition? Foundation clubs, top so many NPL winners, and top so many aleague winners playing off. I don't think the calendar and resources are free enough to do that - and the shortness of the competition would always make it a novelty rather than growth.

The issue is that everything we talk about is coloured by history and perspective. We cannot talk football without talking this league or that - this new system or the truer old system. Instead of just fighting over our clubs being better and building true historic hatreds in the spirit of good sport, we are also constantly fighting between FA and APL, league versus league.

We can acknowledge we are part of the problem - but we are still going to do it. How hard it is to blind ourselves to history, or accept the risk of losing our place in the current system.

We are a federation of states. We are a conglomeration of divided clubs. We are by nature a disjointed country. Imagine being brought in as a 'disruptor' and trying to move forward. I have more respect for Ernie Merrick the more I think about it. What could he actually achieve in reality?
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Here here for the most part!
 
RIMB said:
To be honest, if Canberra Cosmos had not folded and been booted I may have been happy with the NSL plodding along myself.

My team existed and was in the top flight and that meant something.

It is the appeal and horror of P/R. To play among the best and try to be the best with the risk of dropping out, losing sponsorship/money and players, and slowly fading down through the ranks to obscurity.

Community clubs have the huge advantage of belonging and ownership to remain strong or at the least relevant in their community. Plastics like my Roar not so much if they have not engaged well enough with their community. Newcastle, Adelaide and Glory (as mentioned above) existed in the NSL and still do - but so did 'Brisbane' in some form.

The 'one thing' missing from our top league - due to its very design and nature - is the openness to permit others to genuinely work at getting into it and earn a place at the big table. Open competition.

Same objections as always - Lowy paid so he gets to choose the format. Buyers don't want to spend heaps to drop out a season later so there had to be guarantees. We plastic fans can be proud of our clubs and always hope for better next season in the top flight because we know we will be there.

Can we take the Championship into a higher level by having an aleague and Championship home and away system and build some form of P/R competition? Foundation clubs, top so many NPL winners, and top so many aleague winners playing off. I don't think the calendar and resources are free enough to do that - and the shortness of the competition would always make it a novelty rather than growth.

The issue is that everything we talk about is coloured by history and perspective. We cannot talk football without talking this league or that - this new system or the truer old system. Instead of just fighting over our clubs being better and building true historic hatreds in the spirit of good sport, we are also constantly fighting between FA and APL, league versus league.

We can acknowledge we are part of the problem - but we are still going to do it. How hard it is to blind ourselves to history, or accept the risk of losing our place in the current system.

We are a federation of states. We are a conglomeration of divided clubs. We are by nature a disjointed country. Imagine being brought in as a 'disruptor' and trying to move forward. I have more respect for Ernie Merrick the more I think about it. What could he actually achieve in reality?
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Now THATS a speech that deserves to be spoken of with reverence... well said.
 
Beretta said:
based on what? one championship campaign that our club didn't give a fuck about? all of a sudden we are a mess.

if A-League clubs got expelled from top tier football in this country, they will cease to exist within 5 years. You think Macarthur, CCM, Brisbane Roar would exist 30 years later?!

The fact that our clubs are still around 30 years later is a credit to the people who kept the lights on. Sydney United have become one of the most successful NSW NPL clubs in this time.
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Why didn’t Sydney United give a fuck? I understand the over-policing, what else was involved? South Melbourne and maybe all the other teams apart from maybe just Sydney Olympic seem to really care about it and devoted resources towards it.
 
Kitwally said:
Why didn’t Sydney United give a fuck? I understand the over-policing, what else was involved? South Melbourne and maybe all the other teams apart from maybe just Sydney Olympic seem to really care about it and devoted resources towards it.
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i think losing 9 of your regular players before the tournament began was one of the main reasons. But they should of tried harder to recruit, and not just replace with kids.
 
RIMB said:
To be honest, if Canberra Cosmos had not folded and been booted I may have been happy with the NSL plodding along myself.

My team existed and was in the top flight and that meant something.

It is the appeal and horror of P/R. To play among the best and try to be the best with the risk of dropping out, losing sponsorship/money and players, and slowly fading down through the ranks to obscurity.

Community clubs have the huge advantage of belonging and ownership to remain strong or at the least relevant in their community. Plastics like my Roar not so much if they have not engaged well enough with their community. Newcastle, Adelaide and Glory (as mentioned above) existed in the NSL and still do - but so did 'Brisbane' in some form.

The 'one thing' missing from our top league - due to its very design and nature - is the openness to permit others to genuinely work at getting into it and earn a place at the big table. Open competition.

Same objections as always - Lowy paid so he gets to choose the format. Buyers don't want to spend heaps to drop out a season later so there had to be guarantees. We plastic fans can be proud of our clubs and always hope for better next season in the top flight because we know we will be there.

Can we take the Championship into a higher level by having an aleague and Championship home and away system and build some form of P/R competition? Foundation clubs, top so many NPL winners, and top so many aleague winners playing off. I don't think the calendar and resources are free enough to do that - and the shortness of the competition would always make it a novelty rather than growth.

The issue is that everything we talk about is coloured by history and perspective. We cannot talk football without talking this league or that - this new system or the truer old system. Instead of just fighting over our clubs being better and building true historic hatreds in the spirit of good sport, we are also constantly fighting between FA and APL, league versus league.

We can acknowledge we are part of the problem - but we are still going to do it. How hard it is to blind ourselves to history, or accept the risk of losing our place in the current system.

We are a federation of states. We are a conglomeration of divided clubs. We are by nature a disjointed country. Imagine being brought in as a 'disruptor' and trying to move forward. I have more respect for Ernie Merrick the more I think about it. What could he actually achieve in reality?
Click to expand...

The current licences of A league teams expire in 2034 I think it is?

From then on we will have Promotion and Relegation.

Will everybody be happy then?
 
Beretta said:
its the question that will be asked at the AGM in two weeks.

We've been on the national level multiple times before through the Australia Cup.
Click to expand...

Yes, home game against Brisbane was a great occasion, along with the final, Nazi salutes didn’t help though.
 
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