Does Melbourne City have/need an 'identity'?

[HeartOfCity]

54 minutes ago, HEARTinator said:

Lynch has read this forum and turned it into an article. Nice work.

 

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/who-are-ya-frustrated-fans-yearn-for-city-identity-20181221-p50nlz.html

 

Who Are Ya? Frustrated fans yearn for City identity

 

By Michael Lynch

 

What makes a club?

 

Is it their shirt and colours? Their name? Geographical location?

 

Is it their style, a particular way of doing things?

 

Is it their reputation or character? A team may be characterised as winners, fans rejoicing in arrogant fashion at their seemingly endless triumphs. Or they may be regarded as battlers, losing as often as winning, the stoicism of their supporters being their most defining feature.

 

Is it their ground, their nickname, their star players, their reputation as a nursery? There are many reasons why supporters gravitate to one team over another.

 

It is a question worth pondering as Melbourne Victory, the best-supported club in the country, prepares to take on local rival Melbourne City in Victoria's now traditional Christmas derby.

 

The game will be played on Saturday evening at AAMI Park and is ostensibly a City home game, but the crowd, if past experience is any guide, will be mainly decked in dark blue.

 

How, in a city where geography has played little part in identifying both clubs, where the two play at the same home ground, where both wear shades of blue and are restricted by competition rules on foreign signings and squad numbers, can there be such a disparity?

 

It's an issue that has become the subject of much greater debate this season as Victory embark on their title defence and City handle the fallout from the row over talismanic star player Bruno Fornaroli.

 

The soul searching among the fan group over the Fornaroli's axing has been far more than just about the exile of a favourite player. It has been a discussion about what City really is, and has acted as a catalyst for a wide-ranging discussion about the club's purpose and identity. The angst has not been lost on management.

 

Coach Warren Joyce has described the decision to axe Fornaroli as an issue of culture: that the club had set certain standards for all at Bundoora, from office staff to players, and that their star South American striker wasn't meeting them.

 

Fans, of course, care little for such niceties. Given a choice between a hard-nosed culture and watching an exciting player, they will choose the latter every time irrespective of his behaviour or whether he is meeting internal standards.

 

The leadership of City's active fan group announced during the week that it was giving up after the derby, a decision which prompted much reaction and debate about just what City is.

 

Is it a genuine alternative to Victory – something that offers more than a stopping place for those who didn't like the powerhouse club – or is it merely a farming factory franchise for an offshore superpower, the City Football Group; a club whose main function is to find, nurture and then harvest the best young Australian talent before passing them on to which ever club in the City network would best suit them.

 

There are many who look back fondly to the early days, when City was established as Melbourne Heart.

 

It was always up against it as few at that time really appreciated the power of incumbency. Victory had had five years to cement its place in the city's sporting landscape and had won two titles already.

 

Most soccer fans who had been yearning for a new club and a new league flocked to Victory right from the start, leaving Heart with the choice of mopping up the dissidents or trying to establish an identity for themselves that was really different to that of their powerhouse neighbours.

 

They tried. The red and white stripes could not have been more different. In hiring Dutch coach John van 't Schip they tapped into a link with the great European traditions of the game, back to the wellspring of total football.

 

Johan Cruyff, who had inspired a generation of players who were now coaches including then Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola, had been van 't Schip's mentor too.

 

Heart didn't have much success but they were beginning to gain some traction and a small foothold.

 

The purchase by the City Football Group brought radical change. The Heart identity was wiped out as the name was changed to Melbourne City, the colours changed to reflect the sky blue of Manchester and New York City, the CFG's two other wholly owned affiliates.

 

It is tempting to think that had the CFG nurtured that original identity, keeping the name and colours, things might have been better.

 

But it was never likely to happen. Buying the Australian club was part of a plan to own teams in major regions of the world to feed into the CFG's brand and network. Sky blue is the corporate colour, City is the brand name, and that was never likely to change.

 

Disgruntled fans hoped City's endless cash resources would at least compensate. Big name players would come in, stars would play exciting football and trophies would be won.

 

But that hasn't happened either. David Villa came and stayed four games. Attempts to sign Frank Lampard were stymied by other clubs. And Tim Cahill, well past his best, was a relative bust.

 

City are not stupid and recognise these are issues they must resolve.

 

Nobody likes playing in semi-deserted stadiums and while they have been competitive, their 2016 FFA Cup win remains their sole trophy.

 

Their research, if it is telling them anything, is that their fans would rather see an exciting team play a thrilling brand of football and losing 4-3 than a competitive one grinding out 1-0 wins.

 

City do have plenty to be praised for.

 

Their W-League team has been a standard-bearer for women's football for the past three years, winning successive titles. They have a dedicated professional training set-up and invest in their players more than any other club in the competition.

 

Their youth strategy is also best in class. For the last Under 19 Young Socceroos tournament, City had seven members in the squad, while in the most recent Joeys set-up they had five.

 

City's stated aim is to improve the quality of the game in this country. It's something they are achieving at most levels outside of the senior men's team.

 

It might not ameliorate the discontent of fans right now, but it's a narrative they need to push, as it can at least give them an identity beyond the amorphous one they currently possess. The incoming West Melbourne team next season makes it even more necessary.

 

Spot on!!! Both Lynch's are all over this shit show, was a very good read i thought. If we still had JVS i think we would be a better club right now. Love it that he points out that we would rather play exciting football and lose 4 - 3, and i cannot agree more with this. As much as it was disapointing giving up leads and looking flakey as f@#k at the back it was still a better experience.

[jw1739]

3 hours ago, HeartOfCity said:

City's stated aim is to improve the quality of the game in this country.

That's the first time I've seen this. Where does the club state this, or where has the club stated it? It's such a broad aim that I can't see how it can ever be measured. 

Edited December 21, 2018 by jw1739

[HeartOfCity]

1 minute ago, jw1739 said:

That's the first time I've seen this. Where does the club state this, or where has the club stated it? It's such a broad aim that I can't see how it can ever be measured. 

Yeah i know what your saying, "stated aim" would incur that its in writting but im not sure about that, i do think it is more actions than words really with the young players theyre bringing in and growing into possible future socceroos.

But if it is the "stated aim" to make the game in this country better my first thought would be putting a team on the park that has top quality marquees and possibly being the standard for the league. Which ever way they measure this, i think they are failing miserably at being the standard for the league in the mens comp.

[jw1739]

11 minutes ago, HeartOfCity said:

Yeah i know what your saying, "stated aim" would incur that its in writting but im not sure about that, i do think it is more actions than words really with the young players theyre bringing in and growing into possible future socceroos.

But if it is the "stated aim" to make the game in this country better my first thought would be putting a team on the park that has top quality marquees and possibly being the standard for the league. Which ever way they measure this, i think they are failing miserably at being the standard for the league in the mens comp.

Actions are not a "stated aim." I think most people would assume that a "stated aim" of an organisation is something that it can point to in writing. At the very least, even if only expressed orally and not in writing, "state" is a stronger word than "say" and "stated aim" means an aim explicitly expressed leaving nothing to be implied.

As I said, I don't recall ever having heard or seen that statement before.

[CityWildcat]

Lynch wrote an insightful article there. BANG. Nail hit.  On head.

[jw1739]

12 minutes ago, CityWildcat said:

Lynch wrote an insightful article there. BANG. Nail hit.  On head.

I still wish that the media would really go for the jugular, be much more specific, and name names. 

[HeartOfCity]

49 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

I still wish that the media would really go for the jugular, be much more specific, and name names. 

I kind of agree, but maybe as supporters/members we should do more, i mean really its our club theyre ruining. 

[Shahanga]

2 hours ago, HeartOfCity said:

I kind of agree, but maybe as supporters/members we should do more, i mean really its our club theyre ruining. 

Well if we were fair dinkum we could start a long term grass roots campaign aimed at getting CFG to leave and sell out to s group of Melbourne based investors. You’d need to have the stomach for a long term fight though, with no doubt s fair bit of “street brawling” because I reckon these guys won’t play nice.

having said that there might be a Sydney family of former retail/mall business people with a lot of spare time and cash interested in helping out.

[Defibrillator]

I personally lost interest big time about 18 months ago. We’ve had several identities along the way - the early JVS youth development model as a foil to the big cross town rival, then the Aloisi “wtf” identity where we were treading water, then the CFG takeover with all of the initial promise of being the rich club in town and two magic seasons of the Mooy and Bruno show. Then for me we just totally lost the plot.  Selling Mooy for more than they paid for the whole club was exciting and we all sat and waited for the big re-investment, the stellar high profile marquees and the results that would follow with 32 scouts putting together a brilliant squad. And what did we see? Tightening of the belt and a poor manager whilst the mother ship was spending money like drunken sailors to woo Pep and put together a squad that dominates the EPL. A fraction of that money our way would have been amazing in attracting some seriously entertaining marquees amd a decent manager.  From that players want to come.

So we’re not the underdog financially any more and yet we’re not flexing our muscle financially. At that point I realised that really this club didn’t really give a shit about it’s fans and that they’re only really here to hopefully cash in on speculative youth sales. It’s hard to follow an identity like that and this message doesn’t go down well when I tell the club. 

[Mr MO]

54 minutes ago, Defibrillator said:

I personally lost interest big time about 18 months ago. We’ve had several identities along the way - the early JVS youth development model as a foil to the big cross town rival, then the Aloisi “wtf” identity where we were treading water, then the CFG takeover with all of the initial promise of being the rich club in town and two magic seasons of the Mooy and Bruno show. Then for me we just totally lost the plot.  Selling Mooy for more than they paid for the whole club was exciting and we all sat and waited for the big re-investment, the stellar high profile marquees and the results that would follow with 32 scouts putting together a brilliant squad. And what did we see? Tightening of the belt and a poor manager whilst the mother ship was spending money like drunken sailors to woo Pep and put together a squad that dominates the EPL. A fraction of that money our way would have been amazing in attracting some seriously entertaining marquees amd a decent manager.  From that players want to come.

So we’re not the underdog financially any more and yet we’re not flexing our muscle financially. At that point I realised that really this club didn’t really give a shit about it’s fans and that they’re only really here to hopefully cash in on speculative youth sales. It’s hard to follow an identity like that and this message doesn’t go down well when I tell the club. 

I reckon the majority on this forum will agree whole heartedly with this.

[JMSTEP123]

7 minutes ago, Mr MO said:

I reckon the majority on this forum will agree whole heartedly with this.

Hole Heartedly. Massive hole.

We were building. There was momentum. Then Ctrl Alt Del. Promises stripped; squad rebuilt; football redefined - City 2.0 welcome to a new era.

I think we all can agree that City has had a fluid identity. As to this threads question - do we need an identity? That is perhaps something this thread has yet to establish.

For me Yes. The identity is the reason I became a member and fell in love with the team and football. Same reason I have fell out of love and feel disconnected. The identity is not what it was, and there seems little desire to bring it back. I just hold out hope what is yet to come is better than it ever has been. 

[Shahanga]

To me our identity is the busted arse poor cousins of Man City.

a poverty stricken mini-man city if you like, with all the negatives of being part of a global football group but non of the positives.

[Imtellingyou]

If we are really worried about identity then we can start with the simple steps. For instance, when you look at the visitors stand you can see uniformly navy blue colour. Our end has a lot of non red or light blue colours. Active leaders are always like undercover, in a drab non descriptive outfits and colours. The whole picture is so much alike first Heart game. 

We are still in the search for visual identity, at least.

[jw1739]

21 minutes ago, Imtellingyou said:

If we are really worried about identity then we can start with the simple steps. For instance, when you look at the visitors stand you can see uniformly navy blue colour. Our end has a lot of non red or light blue colours. Active leaders are always like undercover, in a drab non descriptive outfits and colours. The whole picture is so much alike first Heart game. 

We are still in the search for visual identity, at least.

That's because of the colours themselves. Many people - especially males - dress in shades of dark blue on a regular basis in their non-football lives. It's therefore something they feel comfortable with and in, and they're comfortable with wearing a Victory jersey to the match.

Try going to work or just out generally in a sky blue jacket (I've got one - people immediately think I'm gay or something) or red/white. You've got to be "bold" to do that.

A second factor is that many City supporters were originally Heart supporters and don't like what happened to our colours.

[Rasputin]

Correct.   Supporters don't know what colors they identify with.  Red and white or sky blue?  Why do so many wear the away red white tops to games.  Which other club has so many of it's supportets wear away colors?  Combinig red white and sky blue in its home shirt would go a long way to solving this.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Rasputin