CRICKET HAD ITS TURN, NOW SOCCER FANS NEED TO RALLY
WE’VE talked about it plenty of times before.
If Geelong wants an ALeague presence in the future, then the region has to vote with its feet in tonight’s clash between Melbourne Victory and Central Coast Mariners.
There’s no point moaning about the need for a club in Geelong then not showing up when a game actually comes to town. And while it may not feel like it, things are simmering away in the background in regards to which code will nail its colours to the mast in Geelong first.
Cricket bosses would have been blown away with the response from the 23,586 fans who walked through the gates to watch the Melbourne Renegades earlier this week.
The A-League has never hit that mark at GMHBA Stadium before and with 42 degrees forecast for today, it’s unlikely we will see better than the 21,289 fans that watched Victory play in 2015, also on a stinking hot day.
Without wanting to start a code war, Geelong would almost certainly be high up in the pecking order of future Big Bash locations. It’s doubtful the region could host two major summer sporting teams right at this moment.
So what about the ALeague? Geelong’s bid for a soccer team hasn’t been forgotten.
The consortium behind the Victoria Patriots’ bid is still working in the background and there are some great plans in place, including a rectangular stadium.
But Football Federation Australia and the A-League are fighting numerous fires on different fronts at the moment and expansion of our top flight will take a back seat for the moment.
That’s why attendances in these one-off games are vital. It keeps Geelong in the shop window when expansion talk finally fires back up again.
Credit has to go to the Kardinia Park Stadium Trust and its boss Michael Brown.
They’re on the front foot pushing the region and have realistic expectations on what is achievable.
The Trust hopes for about 12,000-15,000 people tonight.
“The challenge with soccer is that because they have members, they don’t have to buy tickets they can just turn up,” Brown said.
“We don’t know because it depends on how many members travel. Normally that’s about 7,000 or 8,000. Crowds of A-League hover between that 10,000-15,000 (so we’d be happy with that). We have strong support within Geelong.”
Brown was confident the hot weather wouldn’t be a problem with the stadium going to extraordinary lengths to keep people cool.
“We have icy pole stations where people can get free icy poles. We have water stations, we have mist fans,” Brown said. “We are doing everything we can.”
Brown said the Trust, Council and the State Government are in talks to keep Victory playing games in Geelong. It would be a great result if we can keep them coming down here. But what we want — and what we need — is a team to call our own.
We will never get that unless we show the bean counters in Sydney that we care and tonight gives us another chance.