Football can only blame itself

The apathy of the Perth football fans, who are happiest when they have something to moan about, are sure as hell going to have something to moan about for a very long time. The fact that they did not get off their backsides and support Perth Glory in bringing two English Premier League sides to Perth is going to cost them long term.

Any hope of a rectangular stadium is now bound to be shelved. In fact one government official advised “Not The Footy Show” that the WA government had already resigned itself that should Frank Lowy’s ambitious World Cup bid be successful, that Perth would not host any games. Amazingly, because they could not create enough hotel rooms in time! That is by 2022, twelve years time, we really do live in a forward thinking state. As for developing Subiaco Oval, please just forget it once and for all.

Rugby fans got behind the Force when they played the Crusaders and packed Members Equity Stadium, but the footballing fans could not see the bigger picture.

To be fair Perth Glory have not helped themselves. The marketing of the two games has been very poor. For starters they made an error going ahead and organising everything, without involving Government at the very beginning. There is no good bleating about a lack of Government support when you have failed to give the powers that be any chance to get any mileage out of the situation; especially when you approach them after everything has been agreed.

Then we have the ticketing issue. Great idea to try and sell all three games, but don’t make that compulsory. As they discovered playing on a Wednesday night, every amateur and social club in WA trains on that night, so they are not going to buy tickets for games that they cannot attend.

Then when they did make individual tickets available hardly anyone knew about it, as it was not publicised. In fact many thought that the two games were sold out and so had not bothered to get tickets. The club were made aware of this on the Sunday prior to the Wolves game, but no message was distributed to the public.

The advertising that was done in the West Australian was dreadful. The most saleable point was the fact that two English Premier League teams were coming out to Perth, yet that did not appear on the advertisement until the day of the Wolves game. On the other advertisement there was not even a kick off time. In fact the Hockeyroos had advertisements running at the same time for games v Germany, and these stood out more than the Glory ones.

It seems harsh to criticise the Glory administration, when they have 50% less back room staff than any other A league club, however if you continually expect people to double up in jobs, they will miss things – like the kick off time – and make mistakes, they are after all human. Where you think you are saving money, it will ultimately cost you.

Mistakes have been made and marketing opportunities missed; the public have been, as they frequently are in Perth, apathetic. Its too late for the Perth Glory to capitalise on those missed marketing opportunities, but it’s not too late to get down to Members Equity stadium tomorrow. Look at the bigger picture, we need a new stadium, fill it and send a message to those who can make it happen!