Phoenix’s fading form at home a concerning trend

Victories on home soil are important if Wellington Phoenix are to succeed in building the A-League club’s fan base in long term, reports Andy Fyers.

IT should be one of the most difficult places for away teams in the A-League to visit, but in recent seasons Wellington Phoenix’s Westpac Stadium has become more of a graveyard for the home team, than the visitors.

During the first (almost) six seasons of the club’s existence under Ricki Herbert the Phoenix won 50 per cent of their home games.

In the three seasons since current manager Ernie Merrick took the reins that record has fallen to 33 per cent.

In short, despite obvious improvements in style of play and a strong season in 2014-15, the Phoenix have lost more often in New Zealand than they have won in the past three seasons.

On the flipside, Merrick has improved the club’s fortunes in Australia, winning 34 per cent of the time away, compared to 20 per cent under Herbert.

Essentially Merrick’s Phoenix team are about as good away as they are at home, winning 14 games in each of New Zealand and Australia during his reign.

The end result of this change is that the two managers currently have very similar overall records: Merrick has won 33.7 per cent of his games in charge, compared to 34.4 per cent for Herbert.

It should be pointed out that the quality of the A-League has improved in recent seasons, with the calibre of players being attracted to clubs like Sydney FC and the two Melbourne clubs beyond what it was during Herbert’s time at the Phoenix.

It’s also worth noting that Herbert’s home record in his final couple of seasons was poor compared to his record in the first four. So it might be the case this was a trend that began under his watch, one that Merrick has struggled to reverse.

Home ground advantage in football should come from familiarity with the ground, the conditions and of course the support of the home fans. Throw in Wellington’s ‘unusual’ weather conditions and you have a formula for a fortress – a place visiting teams should find it difficult to win.

The Phoenix also have another advantage enjoyed by no other team in professional club football – all of their opponents must take an international flight, of at least three hours, to take them on.

This then becomes a disadvantage when they have to play away of course, all of which makes their home form downturn and improvement in fortunes away all the more unlikely.

On the surface the Phoenix are no worse off under this state of affairs – they still win as often, they just do more of it in Australia than New Zealand than was once the case.

But the Phoenix need to maintain their home fan base and build on it or they may not exist in a few years.

Their current contract with Football Federation Australia (FFA) will only be renewed if they hit certain benchmarks – an important one being crowd levels.

One of the best ways to win new home fans and keep existing ones is to win games at home.

This was evidenced last season as the Phoenix faded badly.

After drawing crowds of 13,000 and 10,000 to Westpac early in the season, crowds dwindled over the course of seven games in Wellington to 5103 in their second to last home game of the season.

The Phoenix won one, drew one and lost five of these games.

A crowd of more than 10,000 did turn out for the last home game of the season – another loss.

The same number showed up for the opening game of this season to see the Phoenix lose 1-0 to Melbourne City.