The Football Match Australia Deserved

For those who’ve been involved with South Melbourne FC over the past few decades, it’s a pretty surreal experience receiving this amount of media attention. Not only attention, but positive at that. While I’ve done my best to try and enjoy it, as in the past, it’s hard not to automatically begin mobilising. As advocates of the club, we’ve learnt that any opportunity to present our case has to be taken. 

But we often reach an impasse. When discussions about A-League inclusion inevitably occur, South Melbourne is treated as an individual case study. Everything becomes a muddle of arguments, some with merit, some misguided, some banter from rival fans, and it all fizzles out.

Sometimes, the conversation broadens to Australian football more generally, but it feels like such an overwhelming (and unmoving) prospect, and so these little blips of relevancy from lower-league clubs act as a chance for armchair punditry about what could be. When you get into this mindset, improving Australian football becomes a case-by-case basis, which always eventuates into nothing. Because nothing in this structure is automated for improvement.

To understand the magnitude of what we witnessed on Saturday, it’s important to understand the context behind it:

Let’s just say that, when the inaugural A-League season began in 2005, there was a promotion-relegation system in place. It would sting for former National Soccer League clubs to be excluded from the top flight, but through their own merit, they could eventually claw their way back to the top. But that was not the case. To be excluded from the A-League was essentially a death sentence. 

So then, what could those clubs forced into state leagues do? I suppose they could try to win the their league every year, and hope that enough press comes from this to force the hand of those involved in the A-League. A point to be made here is that several NSL clubs never lacked quality historically; they didn’t need to prove themselves on the pitch. That was not the reason for their exclusion. Unfortunately, without a system that rewards winning a lower league (i.e. promotion), no one (who has serious involvement/stakes in) is advocating for manual inclusions or additions to their upper leagues. 

And thus, what occurs can be dubbed the “NPL Death Spiral”; you have to win every season, in the hopes that it will lead to some rallying for your inclusion in the next season of the A-League. In not being in the top flight, you lose access to resources, coverage and relevancy; you no longer can attract full-time, top quality players, as the league is essentially part-time. The quality cannot consistently remain the same, you are travelling to facilities that aren’t the same, and the whole experience cannot be compared to a top-tier football match.

When you win your league, it means nothing. When you are (inevitably, as is the same in any league, for any team) unable to reclaim the championship, you are told “Well, you couldn’t even win the league in the second tier, how could you compete in the A-League?” The longer you are away from top flight football, the less resources and relevancy you have to rebut. There is no way to win. 

The "NPL Death Spiral" many NSL clubs have experienced

I’m not trying to knock lower leagues, which are integral to a football period. These leagues have the thankless task of drumming up interest for competitions that have been severed from domestic relevancy. I’m also not expecting for grass-roots, community-backed clubs to compete with the facilities of multi-million dollar clubs, who are designed for mass appeal. But if we are willing to contextualise their scope, why won’t we do the same for clubs that have been forced into similar positions? There is no way for the club to win, because it’s not just being asked to justify its own value, but to take on the shortcomings of playing in a league that is not built to compete. 

The only option that has been possible up until this point has been advocacy, which normally comes from within the fan base. This is met by banter from rival clubs, who are always going to be inflammatory/derogative. These arguments feed into the idea that current NPL clubs can’t compete with A-League clubs, as if they should be able to in the first place. There is no love lost between rivals, and when we’re criticising each-other, it stops us from zooming out, holding off opinions on one particular fan base, and wondering, “actually, why are things the way they are?”

For those who saw the attendance as a novelty, and believe South could not consistently bring a fan base with them, are making a false comparison. If Melbourne Victory had been in the NPL as long as South had, they would also have periods of minimal fan attendance. That’s not to say that Victory fans are fickle; clearly they are one of the most passionate fan bases in the A-League. But after two decades of watching dead rubber matches every week, any fan would eventually say “What’s the point?” To argue that fan attendance wouldn’t increase if competing in the A-League, where matches are billed as important, and have several international implications, is also absurd. Further, South Melbourne’s Lakeside stadium has a capacity of less than 15,000. It is a boutique stadium that would not require record attendance rates in order to create an excellent football atmosphere. 

For the longest time, I’ve wondered why the same several arguments have been levied against culturally (and still) relevant NPL teams, which are incredibly harsh and unfair. In particular, I sometimes see the arguments of non-A-League supporters and wonder “Where is this coming from?” If it’s frustration from recurrent advocacy and self-aggrandisement, I hope this article has made the necessity of these spectacles understood. 

This Australia Cup final was not just retribution for a club subjected to a death sentence. It was not just vindication by defeating the club designed to ultimately replace it. It was the most significant match in Australian football history because it showed that, after all this time, football is still loved in Australia. Whether you believe the entity that is the A-League has failed says nothing about the relevancy of football in Australia. The frustration should not fall on individual clubs and their fans who vocalise their issues, but on the system, and those involved in its workings, for putting these clubs, their fanbases, and the fans of Australian football in this position.