R19 vs Melbourne Victory | Fri 15 Feb | 7.35pm | Eden Park | Morningside Tavern

Well it's tough for him cos both Krishna and Williams are scoring.

Williams had to bide his time behind Burnsy (who is still no mug, and was part of kicking off our run of good results)

Hopefully he'll get a peno or something and get his scoring streak started. A few late goals for us could be handy.

Afterwatching that game, 

I'm wondering in 15 years at the end of their careers, which player's bio on wiki in terms of the European clubs they played for and the games they played will be the most impressive

At the start of the season I thought it would be Singh but I am thinking now it may be Carace

I know a lot of Wellingtonians went up for the game but as I watched the crowd disperse on Dominion road afterwards, I was very impressed with the number of people I saw wearing Phoenix gear. People whom looked like locals as in families and singles. Well done to them for coming along.

Carace puts me in mind of Gareth Bale who played the early part of his career as a LWB.   

There was a hilarious moment at the half time crossbar challenge where they all got asked which clubs they represent, one of the guys said Central United and most of the crowd jeered at him. Is there really that much hate in Auckland for certain clubs?

it's because he isn't from central united - he was a NZF employee (head of coach education) - although he may have left very recently.  so the jeer was because it looked like a massive setup to have him there.

Haha valid, what shadey guy

How many would have gone up from Welly. Couple of hundred max??

That still leaves 20,000 odd Aucklanders!

i hear the training gear (shirt) was on sale at the stadium - anyone know if it's available anywhere else?  I checked Football Central and they are not there.

I hope so. I'd love one.

ok. Re appraised after watching footage. Nicks ball from Barba and beats him on outside. Skins Honda twice and takes Denga out of the game and decent ball in which leads to free kick on edge of box. WOW

Makes me a little sad next game isn't at Eden Park v Sydney. I'm sure after the quality of the Victory game the crowds would have returned despite the draw.

I thought Kopa did a solid job, nothing to flash, but he makes me less nervous than Doyle. I have the feeling he his always in the right spot to intercept and clear balls.

What's the plan to get 20K crowd at the Westpac? Fly over 10K new fans from Auckland?

OOH OOH ME FIRST

It looks we are all friends now, we could adopt one Aucklander for a night and a free meal.

Makes more sense to fly 4000 old fans up from Wellington.

They dont give an arse about the old fans everything is aimed at the newbies.

I have to say the Eden Park experience was really very good. A really nice night and a good village vibe in the Kingsland bars, cafes and street before and after the game - all only 5 minutes walk from the stadium. Heaps of families and kids having a fun time. Plenty of dedicated support for Krishna and Singh in particular. An lively Fever Zone. Really great high-level views of the game from the high stands as well - gave quite a different perspective. Auckland turned on a good one for sure.  Its a pity we don't have a precinct like Kingsland close to the Cake Tin.

It seems to me there is definitely a market for that kind of football in Auckland if its set up well. And if their required 'metric' was 10,000 per game as Wellington's seems to be it should well be possible in Auckland with a 1.5 million population to draw from (assuming the performances stack up). What a shame they couldn't have the Sydney game in Auckland as well as I reckon they'd well beat the 10,000 again (subject to weather etc). Be interesting to see how many turn up in Sydney next weekend. 

They only got 12K last night v Central Coast (at Leichardt Oval)

Yeah this just shows up the absolutely unfair farce that is the 'metric' - here's Sydney with a population well over 10x that of Wellington and they can barely scrape above 10k even with what amounts to one of the much vaunted derbies (with CCM area just up the coast.... so they get away fans as well). 

No one at the FFA or in Australia cares about per capita stats, and nor should they. Crowds of only 5,000 don't impress them & fair enough.

They have given the Nix a licence allocated to NZ. They would agrue that if your biggest crowds are in Auckland, well just move the team there.

Numbers in Wellington have improved this season, which is great and hopefully they are strong for final few home games. Obviously a home final would be great for the metrics.

The Sydney game will be an interesting one re crowds, as all the season ticket holders will have to buy an additional ticket on top of there membership. Some won't show up. But I suspect we'll get a few from the Campbeltown locals who will want to show they are ready for A-league football in the next couple of years. 

Didn't the FFA take the license off Auckland and give it to Wellington?

The 20 odd thousand crowd in Auckland didn't just appear out of thin air and neither have the increased numbers at Westpac. People keep an eye on the Phoenix and track their progress then turn up when they believe the product on show is worth it. Its such an easy formula to understand and it bamboozles me why [until now] they have managed to stuff that up for the past several years. I'm hoping that the owners are now confident enough of longevity that they are prepared to make the effort and pay the bucks to make this club a success. We are getting good crowd numbers and we are 6th, so you don't have to sit in the top 2 to guarantee good crowds - just play good football with a hint of getting better.

Yeah but that just reflects how narrow their thinking appears to be. If simple bums on seat at a game (=ticket $) are their sole benefit aspiration and judgement of value then they're going to be missing out on a lot of insights and opportunities. Whoever has the best per capita crowd performance is going to be producing the best product and getting the most effective 'pull' from their catchment - maybe doing some things that others could learn from so everyone ups their game? Sure a 'winning team helps but thats only part of it (assuming they're not abject losers most times). Those sorts of insights could give club, corporate and/or sponsor interests some more productive leads on targeted investments/growth initiatives etc for 'their' team and the results they want from investing. 

Also larger sponsors are going to be more interested in the reach and message from their investment - not necessarily in what the crowd sizes are on game-days.  For example - getting access to audience/media in a whole additional country from the presence of one team in the competition has got to be of value surely - even the non-phoenix sponsors in the league will get some benefit/exposure from that. 

That said bigger crowds are mostly more fun on game days so the more the better (but thats not the whole picture). 

Maybe FFA could switch their thinking and try using metrics as a carrot rather than a stick. How about 'beat this target and you get good stuff' - not extinction if you miss it. That might give some of the easy-riding big-city clubs an incentive to innovate and try stuff. Right now they don't have much reason to anything much more than just open the gates of game day and their large populations do the rest - even if the capture rate is pathetic compared with what other less fortunately located clubs are getting. 

Just thoughts - probably should have been in the metric thread - but gee Auckland did alright the other night eh! 

It's not possible as one of the smallest clubs in the league, without the resources of the Sydney and Melbourne clubs etc., to be successful every year.  The club has to have a model that is sustainable even if we semi-regularly have seasons where we finish with or close to the spoon.

10k crowds may be a silly thing to have as a metric given struggles elsewhere in the league, as pointed out, but it's also the break-even mark at Westpac, so the club needs/wants to hit it anyway.

Think Mandi is much better at holding possession and getting out of tight spots

Watched all the org going into making that work as it was posted here. So congrats to all involved. 

We were seated at the opposite end of the same stand. And YF chants could barely be heard. Normally we are close to you guys at Westpac, and boost all the chants. Maybe a project for the club/YF to seat the travelling non YF fans near you guys, to help with the volume. Not sure how many that would be, but two of us went up and dragged out six Aucklanders and others we knew were in town that night. We'd have all got into the chants if we'd been adjacent to the YF Bay. Not sure if practicable at all, so just putting the thought out there. 

And p.s Everyone with us thought it was a good football game, good level of skill and pace, and great entertainment. 

And I thought Eden Park had a really high break even to? More than ten thousand?

Was said to be 12,000 when they last played there before last week, and the implication was it was lower given incentives from Eden Park this time around.

the WelNix group seem to be able to negotiate. I have to be honest experiences at Mt Smart and North Shore with the new rapid bus are perfectly decent, but a full Eden Park with Kingsland, Morningside and Dominion Road right there, is super convenient for the casuals and accessible from all over the city.

Did you see them play? Sydney plays unattractive football, this is only for hard-core fans.

I am still trying to work out why those of us who are season ticket holders (Silver) seated in 22R at the Westpac were placed at the very far end of Eden Park in 401 away from the Fever.  The visiting Victory fans were seated in the rows below us. Didn't make much sense. 

I think next time just open up the ticket sales for all the lower stands from the beginning.  Its much better to have crowd all around the ground.  I also brought our tickets South Stand halfway line one week out which was tough on those who had brought before then and only had north and east stand to choose from and got stuck near the ends.

Also no one mentioned the ground announcer.  Coming on for Melbourne Victory number four <long pause> <mumbled attempt> Honda.  He thought he had it easy 10 minutes later when we want with Coming on for Wellington Phoenix Number 7 Sillian Sheridan,  Obviously not a Mr Sherry Podcast listener.

His only job is to remember how to pronounce the names, you'd think that he'd put effort in to... remember how to pronounce the names