Jump to content
Melbourne Football

Football VS AFL


strider
 Share

Recommended Posts

Funny this gets posted literally 5 minutes after i read this article

 

 

 

What the AFL could learn from the A-League  

Rohan Connolly 
Published: October 27, 2014 - 4:17PM

COMMENT

In purely scoreboard terms, Saturday night's A-League derby between Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City was, in the finish, a bit of a rout. Yet the post-game talk universally was of a stunning night for local soccer. Why? It was the atmosphere.

I've been to something like 1500 AFL games in my lifetime and only a handful of A-League fixtures, but the different feel at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night was remarkable. The place simply buzzed.

The derby drew 43,729, more than for all but two of the 48 AFL games played at Etihad Stadium this year, but this was about more than numbers. It was about the noise, the colour and the excitement generated.

Which, heading towards 2015, and a season the AFL has unofficially dubbed "the year of the fan", is an example the indigenous code needs to study very carefully.

Soccer has always had it over the indigenous game for the quality of its crowd chants and singing, but this wasn't just about clever quips and taunts to opposition fans.

There were banners and waving flags aplenty, mass twirling of coloured scarves, and a constant wall of noise generated by the fans, not by ear-splitting and intrusive advertising booming across the PA system at the breaks, a staple of AFL on this occasion thankfully absent.

It was a salient reminder for us older football types of how AFL used to be as a live experience, and perhaps the extent to which the commercialisation and homogenisation of our own code has chipped away at it.

Watch any clips from the old VFL days and you're reminded again. For starters, there were up to eight or nine different venues, each with their own character and quirks, compared with just two in Melbourne now.

Have a look at any home-and-away game from the 1970s or '80s, let alone finals at the MCG or Waverley, and you'll see grounds decked out in club-coloured banners stretching around most of the stands.

They were works of art, slogans that borrowed from old verse or simpler rhymes, the lettering bold or in some memorable cases in Old English script.

Then there were the cheer squads, whose floggers stretched around the fence further than you'd ever see today. They threw copious amounts of crepe paper streamers and ripped up phone directories. Each week, the area behind each team's goals resembled a sea of colour and movement.

The reason you don't see these things any more is in most cases the same: overly draconian health and safety measures and corporatisation of the game to within an inch of its life.

First it was players tripping on streamers and a couple of silly escapades where floggers caught on fire, which led to restrictions on their size. Then came the complaints from sponsors about the streamers covering up the perimeter advertising that began to encase grounds. Good luck finding a square inch of an AFL ground these days not sold off to sponsorship.

There are a lot more AFL games per season than there were 30 years ago. But a lot less differentiation, too, as will happen when roughly 100 games are scheduled for just two multipurpose stadiums that a large contingent of clubs all call "home", though the term regarding Etihad and the MCG should be used loosely.

Social clubs remain anchored at the old suburban bases of those still retaining some connection with them. The grounds of today may have post-match function rooms for the clubs hosting games there, but there's a transient feel, the lack of club culture palpable.

Even beyond that, I hear consistent complaints from football fans about the "nanny state" intruding on their football-going experiences. Signs any more provocative than "Go Pies" being frowned upon or confiscated. And, believe it or not, supporters being warned by security staff for barracking too loudly.

The AFL has had enough trouble this year, amid confusing ticketing systems and unfriendly scheduling, convincing followers to actually turn up to games. The last thing it can afford is to make them feel like naughty schoolchildren when they do.

Which is why, for a hard-core AFL supporter, last Saturday night felt something like a trip back in time. Real passion and involvement, unstymied by over-officiousness. Loads of colour and movement. And lots of noise actually generated by fans rather than speaker stacks.

Of course soccer has its own cultural nuances, its own vibe. But occasions such as the Melbourne Victory-Melbourne City derby just serve to reinforce that, at this critical juncture in the AFL public's relationship with the game, it's a feel those running the show could do a lot worse than reacquaint themselves with.

 

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/what-the-afl-could-learn-from-the-aleague-20141027-11cfic.html

 

makes some valid points. i love both sports and can see them coexisting for the foreseeable future

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Love both, but can't help but lol @ the fear shown by the AFL towards The World Game.

 

Even AFL loving people who have always been very skeptical towards Football are starting to come around, especially after the derby (as much as I hate to admit it for obvious reasons).

 

At the end of the day, I don't see why both can't co-exist, but yeah.

Edited by RedAndWhitePride
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know this will sound retarded to some people, but the thing that has always bothered me about AFL is that it just seems like such a waste of resources given it isn't played internationally, I can't help to think what if those fans and athletes instead belonged to soccer, but in reality it probably wouldn't work like that anyway.

On the other hand, Australia has a sporting culture that I don't think is matched anywhere else in the world. AFL is actually one of the best attended sporting leagues in the world, quite an achievement for a nation with a fairly small population. We think A-League crowds are shit, but many other football leagues in the world, including some quite reputable ones, have similar or lower crowd figures, it's only because of the huge crowds in AFL that we think A-League crowds are small. I think in some ways, AFL contributes to the huge sporting culture, which in turn helps other sports, and that's why we do have amazing turnouts at sporting events in this country, as well as very high participation in sports, and in turn we produce great athletes.

So while the different codes do compete for fans and athletes, I also think the prominent role sport plays in our society turns more people into fans and atheltes. In other words, we are splitting the pie by quite a few fairly mainstream sports, but I think the fact we have this many mainstream sports creates a sporting culture where people attend and participate in sports more, thereby increasing the size of the pie.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think for the first time soccer now has become the clear no 2 code in the country. Here in Victoria it's overtaken NRL, and N.S.W it's bigger than AFL. Both Storm and Swans are arguably the best run clubs in the country so imagine if you had weaker clubs in Sydney and Melbourne. The A league biggest task this next decade is to maintain this status and try to grow.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its very simple. If you think football is better then AFL you need to be deported because you're un-australian as fuck.

Sorry.

Why does one have to be better than the other?

If that post was meant to be serious mate you've got some issues. (I don't agree or disagree FWIW)

Edited by theresonlyonebzamora
Link to comment
Share on other sites

dont forget the media love drumming up a good spat too. If I'm to believe the morning news the AFL and Football relations have never been worse due to the possibility of a scheduling issue for the potential A-League Grand Final should it be played at Etihad.

Heard about that, locked out from Etihad and the MCG.

 

 

Renaming this thread football vs soccer

 

ffs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

If we got a home final this season (which we won't), I'd want it at AAMI anyway.

The ffa supposedly would rather make victory play a home final interstate than have a lower attendance at aami

 

 

They should be used of playing away from home considering they play a lot of their games in Melbourne

Edited by hedaik
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Its very simple. If you think football is better then AFL you need to be deported because you're un-australian as fuck.

Sorry.

Why does one have to be better than the other?

If that post was meant to be serious mate you've got some issues. (I don't agree or disagree FWIW)

 

Not srs.

 

This debate is pointless, the sports aren't even played in the same season ffs.

 

Both sports can co-exist so i don't know why people always think their going against each other?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

dont forget the media love drumming up a good spat too. If I'm to believe the morning news the AFL and Football relations have never been worse due to the possibility of a scheduling issue for the potential A-League Grand Final should it be played at Etihad.

AFL lash out at all other sports that cramp their style through the media. Wait until the cricket season starts and they'll attack that sport, especially with the world cup next year delaying the season start. What must really get up their nose is the success of the Wanderers when the Giants are struggling to draw a crowd in the same market.

 

I love both football codes here in Melbourne, following AFL in winter and A-League in summer. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

dont forget the media love drumming up a good spat too. If I'm to believe the morning news the AFL and Football relations have never been worse due to the possibility of a scheduling issue for the potential A-League Grand Final should it be played at Etihad.

AFL lash out at all other sports that cramp their style through the media. Wait until the cricket season starts and they'll attack that sport, especially with the world cup next year delaying the season start. What must really get up their nose is the success of the Wanderers when the Giants are struggling to draw a crowd in the same market.

 

I love both football codes here in Melbourne, following AFL in winter and A-League in summer. 

 

 

Can you provide an article where a representative of the AFL has attacked cricket?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

dont forget the media love drumming up a good spat too. If I'm to believe the morning news the AFL and Football relations have never been worse due to the possibility of a scheduling issue for the potential A-League Grand Final should it be played at Etihad.

AFL lash out at all other sports that cramp their style through the media. Wait until the cricket season starts and they'll attack that sport, especially with the world cup next year delaying the season start. What must really get up their nose is the success of the Wanderers when the Giants are struggling to draw a crowd in the same market.

 

I love both football codes here in Melbourne, following AFL in winter and A-League in summer. 

 

 

Can you provide an article where a representative of the AFL has attacked cricket?

 

not an article but an example is when they complained about the fact cricket vic has control of the mcg until the end of march(?)

and how the AFL has been trying to force cricket vic to junction oval for years

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

 

dont forget the media love drumming up a good spat too. If I'm to believe the morning news the AFL and Football relations have never been worse due to the possibility of a scheduling issue for the potential A-League Grand Final should it be played at Etihad.

AFL lash out at all other sports that cramp their style through the media. Wait until the cricket season starts and they'll attack that sport, especially with the world cup next year delaying the season start. What must really get up their nose is the success of the Wanderers when the Giants are struggling to draw a crowd in the same market.

 

I love both football codes here in Melbourne, following AFL in winter and A-League in summer. 

 

 

Can you provide an article where a representative of the AFL has attacked cricket?

 

not an article but an example is when they complained about the fact cricket vic has control of the mcg until the end of march(?)

and how the AFL has been trying to force cricket vic to junction oval for years

 

 

Ok well provide a source then where an AFL representative has attacked cricket

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

At my gym we have a mixture of football and AFL fans. After eavesdropping on both sets of fans I heard the following:

 

Football fans:

See Messi take on 5 players and score that peach of a strike?

 

AFL fans:

See the hawkers on Satdy night? See Jezza take that speckie on Bazza? Surely the mark of the year!

 

Two very distinct cultures. Having said that, I used to be a fan of AFL and personally now I couldn't give a rats behind. Everyone is entitled to support whatever they want but I just don't like how it's always the AFL fans constantly bringing down football and saying our game is the greatest game! Greatest game? Says who?Perhaps greatest in their eyes.....and greatest in Victoria only but only in crowd numbers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

It only took 2 sentences, but there is that word "Yet the post-game talk universally was of a stunning night for local soccer". For fucks sake it called Football, get it right, then he is a dumb journolist.

Get over it...

 

Everyone called it Soccer (Skips and Wogs) right up until the Liverpool Fifa Nerds jumped on the game for the 2006 World Cup and we were told that we had to call it Football.

 

:clap:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/president-resigns-from-afl-fans-association-20141111-11km1d.html

"We've always dismissed soccer as the sleeping giant of Australian sport, but it hasn't been for some time. it's now the cane toad of Australian sport."

 

I wonder if he knows his replacement is at AAMI week in week out over the summer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/president-resigns-from-afl-fans-association-20141111-11km1d.html

"We've always dismissed soccer as the sleeping giant of Australian sport, but it hasn't been for some time. it's now the cane toad of Australian sport."

 

I wonder if he knows his replacement is at AAMI week in week out over the summer.

 

 

Has he been there this season?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/president-resigns-from-afl-fans-association-20141111-11km1d.html

"We've always dismissed soccer as the sleeping giant of Australian sport, but it hasn't been for some time. it's now the cane toad of Australian sport."

 

I wonder if he knows his replacement is at AAMI week in week out over the summer.

 

 

Has he been there this season?

 

Yea ive seen him having darts at half time, seems to be sitting in GA not active though.

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...