Where are the football fans?

I went out with a friend to watch the Australia v China pre-Asian Cup friendly in Guangzhou in Sydney last night, and had quite a hard time finding a place that was screening the match live.

An NRL match was on, and while NSW is big on rugby league, I was still very disappointed to find that almost every establishment was screening the NRL match instead. Anyway, it was Star Bar of all places that was screening the match, so at least I managed to get some nasty pub dinner (Bangers & Mash - yum yum!) and down some beers while watching our Socceroos easily beat China 2-0.

I guess the first thought that came across my friend's and mine's minds was that support for football (or soccer) would never increase if there aren't places that are regularly screening football matches. It was great to see the high level of support for the Socceroos during the World Cup last year, but the World Cup only comes once every four years, and the national team needs to feel loved during the intervening years too.

I was also at the Sydney FC v Arawa Red Diamonds match at Aussie Stadium on Wednesday, and was disappointed that only 21,010 spectators turned out (I think the capacity of the stadium is about 45,000). I know Sydney fans are a fickle lot, but hey, get behind your team man! This is Australia's chance to be part of a truly international game that can really ignite passions and - I would even boldy say - help ethnic communities in this country connect with each other better. More embarrassing for Sydney is the level of support that Melbourne Victory gets (or even Adelaide United for that matter). I'm sure that when the Asian Champions League is played in Melbourne next year, there will be sold-out crowds and passionate cheering everywhere.



... and, the Urawa Red Diamonds fans - of which that were about a 1000 of them - really put The Cove to shame with their crazy chants, millions of banners and huge flags. That's the beauty of playing international matches, and I hope Sydney FC learns from this and comes up with a few attention-grabbing banners and flags themselves!