Jump to content
Melbourne Football

Western United FC


jw1739
 Share

Recommended Posts

Not a bad signing for your first-up marquee. Making a strong start - just a pity they plan to play in Geelong for a while.

https://www.a-league.com.au/news/signing-news-western-melbourne-group-announce-greek-international-marquee-signing

Wonder how many South supporters will defect to the new boys?

Edited by jw1739
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also registered were:

Western Melbourne Athletic FC

Western Athletic FC

Western Melbourne Warriors FC

and

Western United FC

An online competition will start on Sunday to name the club: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/competitions/name-the-new-western-melbourne-aleague-team-for-your-chance-to-win/news-story/73e7e6c09e1ed8019a71d0b8c5b3833b

Edited by NuggetsMcGreggor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

52 minutes ago, NuggetsMcGreggor said:

Also registered were:

Western Melbourne Athletic FC

Western Athletic FC

Western Melbourne Warriors FC

and

Western United FC

An online competition will start on Sunday to name the club: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/competitions/name-the-new-western-melbourne-aleague-team-for-your-chance-to-win/news-story/73e7e6c09e1ed8019a71d0b8c5b3833b

Wyndham Vale Athletic 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I did the form.

Put another name. ‘West Melbourne Athletic’ instead of Western Melbourne Athletic, thought it was the best of the bunch.

Picked white for the colour. I actually think they should be black and white but what ever.

anyway not going to support them. But I want them to succeed and get their stadium to set a precedent. At least it might  give CFG a kick up the ass. 

 

 I still think once you support a club you really can’t let that go and support another, just not the same IMO. Happened with my AFL club, Fitzroy since I was a kid, did try to move to another few over the years and just reiterated my opinion that can’t do it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Team11 looked as though they were going for green and black too.

Western Athletic is the best of a bad lot I'd say. When you look at leagues around the world you see plenty of names that bring a touch of excitement and glamour to mind - we seem be so limited for choice here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, jw1739 said:

Team11 looked as though they were going for green and black too.

Western Athletic is the best of a bad lot I'd say. When you look at leagues around the world you see plenty of names that bring a touch of excitement and glamour to mind - we seem be so limited for choice here.

Bit cheeky pinching their colour scheme i would have thought, esp given they said they'd continue to bid. That's life though i guess.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 08/02/2019 at 11:35 AM, Harrison said:

I’m hoping for the name Western Athletic FC to get up.

Playing in a white kit with a small bit of green would be good, too. 

Happy with the name but not a fan of green and black. Green and white would've been better IMO. 

They couldn't have Melbourne in the name and they couldn't use a suburban name. 

'Western' covers the entirety of the West and also gives them a clear point of difference.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Harrison said:

Happy with the name but not a fan of green and black. Green and white would've been better IMO. 

They couldn't have Melbourne in the name and they couldn't use a suburban name. 

'Western' covers the entirety of the West and also gives them a clear point of difference.

Well there's a counter arguement to that. Why couldn't they use a suburban name? They want to encompass the whole west so everyone can feel represented. FFAs mandate is any new bids had to reach a pool of over 1 million people. However how many will turn up to games regularly? 5-15k? What if they went the local suburban route and set up in a big suburb with a high population with a big football community? Let's say Werribee with it 250k population. Or at the very least let the club represent the Wyndham region. Call it Wyndham Athletic. This whole generic representation is not how clubs and football has worked in its entire history. Football has established itself in the world because of local suburban passion for their city/suburb they live in. The FFA have got the whole thing wrong again and this club will most likely fail to live up to any great heights as well.

Edited by n i k o
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, n i k o said:

Well there's a counter arguement to that. Why couldn't they use a suburban name? They want to encompass the whole west so everyone can feel represented. FFAs mandate is any new bids had to reach a pool of over 1 million people. However how many will turn up to games regularly? 5-15k? What if they went the local suburban route and set up in a big suburb with a high population with a big football community? Let's say Werribee with it 250k population. Or at the very least let the club represent the Wyndham region. Call it Wyndham Athletic. This whole generic regional representation is not how clubs and football has worked in its entire history. Football has established itself in the world because of local suburban passion for their city/suburb they live in. The FFA have got the whole thing wrong again and this club will most likely fail to live up to any great heights as well.

Look I tend to agree with the bolded. Appealing to specific, geographical-cultural regions has been the way football has established itself. In an ideal world, this would've been the way that the A-League developed. If we had our time over again, we should've gone for three Sydney teams in the north, south and west and two Melbourne teams in the south-east and perhaps the north-west. Perhaps they would've truly embedded themselves in the communities and grown a very passionate fan-base that could sustain a professional club. 

However, we have to look at the realities here. We already have two Melbourne teams representing/competing for the entirety of metropolitan Melbourne. Fox (the funder of the league) want an audience in the millions for any bid and so a team representing a suburb (even a relatively large group of suburbs) would not reach that criterion.

I think your figures are a bit off though mate. Werribee has a population of 40,000 and the City of Wyndham (which encompasses Werribee and other suburbs) has a population of 217,000.

Plus, Western Athletic will be playing out of Geelong for two seasons, possibly more. Asking the remaining, non-Victory-supporting Geelong football fans to support a Werribee team would be a very hard sell. At least this way they can attract everyone in that bigger region. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If we're looking at long term expansion you would think Canberra and a Tasmanian team would be coming in, by the time the comp expand's to 16 teams. So wearing green doesn't really make sense to me. Should've gone with red and white or black and white, and leave green for Canberra and Tasmania. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, n i k o said:

Well there's a counter arguement to that. Why couldn't they use a suburban name? They want to encompass the whole west so everyone can feel represented. FFAs mandate is any new bids had to reach a pool of over 1 million people. However how many will turn up to games regularly? 5-15k? What if they went the local suburban route and set up in a big suburb with a high population with a big football community? Let's say Werribee with it 250k population. Or at the very least let the club represent the Wyndham region. Call it Wyndham Athletic. This whole generic representation is not how clubs and football has worked in its entire history. Football has established itself in the world because of local suburban passion for their city/suburb they live in. The FFA have got the whole thing wrong again and this club will most likely fail to live up to any great heights as well.

The whole question of naming is a good discussion point. I feel that we're very narrow in our thinking. If you look into the history of club names - just pick a few that appeal to you personally - their origins are extremely interesting in many cases. Often the name the club is commonly known by is not the full name of it - PSV Eindhoven being an excellent example. I too would use the name of the City of Wyndham if that's where the stadium is going to be. Wyndham Athletic or AFC Wyndham would be fine with me.

I know my wife is going to ask me "Where do they come from?" every we time we play Western Athletic, just as she does with Central Coast.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing I do envy with the new boys, though, is the opportunity for WMG to have their own stadium and for that to be a focal point for supporters in terms of having a supporters club with bar/restaurant/cafe etc. and other facilities such as gym, so that supporters have an opportunity to really feel that they are part of a genuine club.

We just don't have that with City. We just go to watch matches and there's fuck all connection after that.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Legit, what chances do people think there are of CFG just biting the bullet and building their own 15-20k stadium? 

 

I know it's probably unlikely but surely with Western United having their own stadium will make them realise the benefits of owning your own stadium etc. 

 

Not sure where you'd build it, but in an ideal world it would happen, leaving AAMI Park to the scum.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Harrison said:

Look I tend to agree with the bolded. Appealing to specific, geographical-cultural regions has been the way football has established itself. In an ideal world, this would've been the way that the A-League developed. If we had our time over again, we should've gone for three Sydney teams in the north, south and west and two Melbourne teams in the south-east and perhaps the north-west. Perhaps they would've truly embedded themselves in the communities and grown a very passionate fan-base that could sustain a professional club. 

However, we have to look at the realities here. We already have two Melbourne teams representing/competing for the entirety of metropolitan Melbourne. Fox (the funder of the league) want an audience in the millions for any bid and so a team representing a suburb (even a relatively large group of suburbs) would not reach that criterion.

I think your figures are a bit off though mate. Werribee has a population of 40,000 and the City of Wyndham (which encompasses Werribee and other suburbs) has a population of 217,000.

Plus, Western Athletic will be playing out of Geelong for two seasons, possibly more. Asking the remaining, non-Victory-supporting Geelong football fans to support a Werribee team would be a very hard sell. At least this way they can attract everyone in that bigger region. 

 

My mistake I got those figure mixed up and meant to say the whole of the Wyndham region with reference to that figure. However the population figure off the Wyndham council website is 250,186. 

With the bolded areas above I would say firstly there's the issue that Fox is dictating chosen teams for viewing rather than membership bases. Secondly I work out of Geelong sometimes and I know people there generally like to not associate themselves with anything 'Melbourne.' So Victorys impact on membership would be minimal to nil. Again it comes back to my example of having a smaller represented region which would quite possibly equal more bums on seats during games. Having the whole west represented by one club is another mistake in a long line of mistakes that have been made by the FFA. 

 

20 minutes ago, RedAndWhitePride said:

Legit, what chances do people think there are of CFG just biting the bullet and building their own 15-20k stadium?

0% 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, RedAndWhitePride said:

Legit, what chances do people think there are of CFG just biting the bullet and building their own 15-20k stadium? 

TBH, based on what we've seen from CFG after they built CFA, and Marwood's most-recent comments about "return on investment"...absolutely no chance of it ever happening.

I know that Western's stadium is to be financed through land sales, but there's a huge risk that it may be a white elephant nevertheless. For example, if relegation is introduced and Western go down to the second division. Or they fail to draw many fans.

City is a perfect example of doing a few things wrong and seeing support drop.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

TBH, based on what we've seen from CFG after they built CFA, and Marwood's most-recent comments about "return on investment"...absolutely no chance of it ever happening.

I know that Western's stadium is to be financed through land sales, but there's a huge risk that it may be a white elephant nevertheless. For example, if relegation is introduced and Western go down to the second division. Or they fail to draw many fans.

City is a perfect example of doing a few things wrong and seeing support drop.

Not sure if you've read but they've had their backers pull out recently and now the stadium plans is on hold

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The more I think about it, especially if the stadium deal has a possibility of not going ahead, I don't know why this club isn't going to be based in the existing population centre of Geelong and called Football and Sports Club of Geelong - FASC Geelong for short - (or something like that). It's going to play out of Geelong for at least two seasons as it is.

Edited by jw1739
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great chance for Western United FC who play in the Vic Churches league and are based in Tarneit to cash in and get some big dollars to re-brand.

 

edit: they moved to FFV and changed their name to Wyndham United on January 22nd. Opportunity missed.

Edited by mus-28
  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 13/02/2019 at 0:47 PM, jw1739 said:

The more I think about it, especially if the stadium deal has a possibility of not going ahead, I don't know why this club isn't going to be based in the existing population centre of Geelong and called Football and Sports Club of Geelong - FASC Geelong for short - (or something like that). It's going to play out of Geelong for at least two seasons as it is.

Talking to @bt50 the other night, he was saying that one of the backers was potentially setting it up so that if the property developments fell through, then the team would just become a Geelong team.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As soon as I saw the poll was put on the herald sum website...immediately thought, we have another Heart on our hands...

I actually cannot remember how the process was done with Heart, but I do remember one poll? Someone remind me.

 

Edited by Dylan
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/13/2019 at 1:35 PM, mus-28 said:

Great chance for Western United FC who play in the Vic Churches league and are based in Tarneit to cash in and get some big dollars to re-brand.

 

edit: they moved to FFV and changed their name to Wyndham United on January 22nd. Opportunity missed.

Do you still get sent off for swearing in the Churches League?

 

 

Edited by Dylan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

In 18 months, as Football Federation Australia completes its expansion with a second team in Melbourne for the 2010-11 season, Melbourne Victory will have a competitor in its own backyard. A consortium headed by publishing and racing identity Peter Sidwell has won the negotiating rights for this licence and is expected to be given formal approval within months. In an exclusive interview with The Sun-day Age Sidwell talks with chief soccer writer Michael Lynch about the challenges facing the group, how it will win fans, where it will be based, what it could be called.

Sunday Age: Will the club be called Melbourne Heart? During the bid process, and subsequently, you have used that working title, but I have also heard speculation it may be called Melbourne City.

Peter Sidwell: There are legal implications (in using) the name Melbourne Heart, so that might not actually be the name we go for. The probable outcome is that we will have a different name when we go out on the field.

 

Where will the club be based? The talk has been of the Cranbourne/Berwick/Dandenong area so it can plug into one of the fastest-growing demographic regions in the country - the city of Casey and surrounds.

That hasn't been determined. The identification of Cranbourne is about Casey Fields. We have been speaking to the people there, but we also want to make sure our profile in Melbourne is solid. It's a balancing consideration

lel Jan 18 2009

Edited by Dylan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...