That’s fair, but if there’s an active culture of collusion/ turning a blind eye, then it’s not just the ones we know about that we have to worry about, it’s the fact that there’s nothing to stop new muppets coming along. I’d prefer to make games as easy to attend as possible but if what Micah said is true and the club has abdicated responsibility for getting rid of these people in the past, then requiring ID is better than playing behind closed doors.
You know, I can trace the attitude back to the very first SFC v MVFC game at the SFS, through the Gate 7 bullshit at Docklands and onto the current Nomadi/Horda/OSM bullshit.
I just don’t give a fuck anymore. If they can’t self police and allow this to happen, fuck them. Have the entire fucking city of Melbourne report to the Coppers at kick off. Play behind closed doors for a decade.
I’ve had people on Reddit say they’re not MVFC fans when they are. I’ve been accused of using the “all Muslims are terrorists” approach when I ask MVFC fans to just acknowledge they are also MVFC fans.
They’re angst ridden teenagers who refuse to grow up and need to be sent to their rooms. They don’t deserve to be at the table for the party with the rest of us.
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It would be strange if people who weren’t mvfc fans, were running their home end imo…
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I fear they skipped the logic class in first year philosophy …
They are the real heroes
Microchips
That avenue basically means you want to pre-punish people in case they are bad - and also annoy every other person who buys tickets. Keeping in mind that almost all tickets are now bought online and would mean another place where you have to provide ID online for a company to hold.
730 report is doing an excellent story on Football
Didn’t the pitch invasion happen in the 22nd minute? Didnt see anyone leaving.
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I was there, was watching out for it and saw City fans start leaving, there was zero movements for the exits from the ahem (rules have changed since I was last posting ;)) ‘other end’, we were just starting to wonder why they weren’t when it kicked off. They (someone? Maybe it was City I guess) had posted banners on light poles, in the station and streets around the ground telling people to walk out at 20th minute, if it was indeed the MV fans who posted them it just seems odd that at least some fans somewhere in the end didn’t start heading out, unless the Capos were yelling out for them to stay?
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The bucket hit Glover at the 21:19 mark in the game. This video shows the pitch invasion and runs for eight minutes. Add 21:11 to the time on the slider to get the game time.
It’s inconclusive, people may have been hanging around to watch the car crash that was happening on the field, but it does take a long time for the crowd to start leaving and most are still in the stand at the 29 minute mark.
What stands out for me is that after having watched a player and official being assaulted the whole bay is still in place and chanting Fck the APL. Only a minority (approx 100) people were on the field but the whole away end is enabling the actions of the few.
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They didn’t announce in the ground that the game was over until game time 45 minutes or so, so almost 30 minutes. In fact I’m not sure they announced it. 60-70% at least of the crowd were still hanging around chatting and waiting to see what would happen till then. In fact they didn’t actually announce anything that I heard, people just got the message when almost the whole City squad came out and clapped the crowd. Somewhat bravely I thought, a few of them they actually went right up to the fence on three sides of the ground and high fives all the kids and people who were all still sitting there and signing autographs. With like no security around them or anything. We even wandered down to behind the MV end at about 15 minutes after it happened and it was all quiet, people just hanging around chatting, two small groups of cops chatting to security guys. The whole thing was surreal.
Was there any effort to just keep fans in their places? I imagine that if people just upped and left in numbers straight away, there could’ve been issues outside of the stadium as well.
When the 15 or so PORS cops came out on the field, a chunk of the obvious ‘active’ part of the end scarpered, pretty much pushing their own out of the way to get out. Pretty much everyone else stayed. A few bottles and that were thrown at the cops, they just ignored it, then 5 or so minutes later they headed off. Few more bottles on their way out, they just ignored them again. No announcements, no blocking of exits, nothing. Seriously more than half of the ground just hung around chatting.
When everyone did eventually leave after the City boys came out and clapped everyone off it was perfectly peaceful outside and on way back to the station. Most people around us walking back to the station were just grumbling that they only got to see 20 minutes of what was looking like a decent game. City and MV fans were just all walking normally
I did a screenshot of the away bay in the first frame of the video. It is 21:11 in game time. There have been flares but the pitch invasion and assault has not happened yet. I can see no-one going for the exits.
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Yep, didn’t see a single person heading out. If I’m not mistaken half or more the city end was gone by then
My position on the GF decision is even clearer now. It was a difficult decision to accept - and I think it is potentially very harsh for people from Perth and Adelaide, in particular - and very poorly communicated (which it clearly was). However, from the start, I accepted it as necessary given how I had been reading the A Leagues’ finances, focus of activities and survival. And I understood that any organisation in a competitive commercial environment did not wish to broadcast its internal weaknesses, particularly regarding finances. To me these challenges just shouted out after 2 seasons ruined by Covid, major cuts to the Fox deal, a NJ without an owner, BR on the ropes and the added costs of eg accommodation during the bubble, no fans and constant schedule changes. Have we any idea as to how, eg, greatly increased airline costs may be affecting the cost structure of the leagues?
People accuse the APL and DT for being so bad at business, so hopeless at running the show when DT and APL brought in the Paramount/10 deal, the Isuzu deal, the Liberty deal and the VC deal (plus other sponsors) all at short notice when the A League men was on the ropes, and no one wanted us after 2 years of Covid, zilch media interest and no or terrible crowds and viewing figures. And DT brought in the DNSW deal and promised to announce others in the new year.
These are FACTS that we know. Why not give DT and APL the benefit of the doubt until then (new year), given all this; it would just mean delaying our final, holistic assessment of costs and benefits (and not just material ones) of this project?
The allegations as to money wasted or badly spent by APL are merely CONJECTURE, at best based on SOME people’s dislike of the streaming service and of KeepUp platform (FWIW, I find Paramount cheap as chips, vastly cheaper than Kayo and vastly better). In any case, that rationale as a basis for those attacks should never wash in an analysis of organisational/corporate strategy unless you consider other factors to form a holistic picture.
At worst, allegations of financial ineptitude are extrapolated (and exaggerated) from hearsay and misinterpretations of what people apparently have said (eg repeatedly confusing - in bad faith?? - the meaning of monies ‘committed’ as against ‘spent’). Monies committed may be for a dedicated fund account to sign up star imports after the WC - something that both our clubs and broadcaster might really want (and many of us fans do too). It would be a debacle to fritter away those financial assets on recurrent expenditure. Once spent, it is gone forever and you have nothing left to cover the ongoing leak or to build to a better future.
The barn-burners seem intent on misunderstanding the difference between operational spending (year to year) and investment in capital/asset building for medium-long term lift (Ronaldo, Suarez etc; centres of excellence, tours of big name teams from overseas?). This differentiation is entirely and necessarily standard for budget planning and operations across public, private and NGO sectors. But those wishing to do DT down don’t want to know and don’t seem to care. Some people strongly prefer to back negative conjecture over positive facts. Or they don’t care, they just want DT gone and the APL to collapse. I really wonder what is happening among you?
The furore over the GF decision seems to be about feelings rather than facts, senses of identity rather than strategy; demands that the APL/FA/Clubs/owners recognise some supporters’ own imagined over-importance as the most crucial part of the A leagues ecosystem. We are important, but we are not more important than the major sources of sustainable funding that keep our leagues alive and hopefully growing and thriving.
We supporters don’t all agree on lots of things (obviously and happily), including this GF issue and the place of fans in the A-leagues’ decision making processes. And, I don’t see any further strategic need to hold DT and APL to account, even if I think they did a terrible job in communicating their reasoning.
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OSM getting rinsed in the fb comments on their weak announcement.
They’ll slink away before rebranding under some new dumb name for next season.