Have I mentioned that "my" football team has taken out the minor premierships after having gone through an undefeated season, and is now set to compete in the semi-finals (on my birthday, no less)?
This whole "supporting a team that doesn't lose all the time" thing is quite a novel experience.
Back when the Fury existed (and I was paying attention to the "boring league"), I once mentioned that supporting a team that usually loses makes winning seem sweeter. It may be true, but it's nice to have something you support win a lot.
If Canberra United make it to the finals, I will be rather happy.
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
In Green...
My membership pack for Canberra United finally arrived (only six months after I sent in my membership form).
I'm ridiculously excited, and currently wearing the scarf. It's a bit of a dorky scarf, being made of a material that would be a) not warm in colder climates and b) not cool enough to get away with wearing in warmer climates without getting it all sweaty. Plus, it has "member 2011-2012" written on it, which is a touch annoying. I don't like things that are self-dating. Oh, and it's a scarf for a football team, so wearing it at work is also a bit dorky, I suppose. Must remember to take it off before leaving my cave... er, office.
But still, you know, I just got it, and I was beginning to think I never would, so I'm wearing it, darn it.
I actually joined the club to get a hat. I read somewhere that members got a hat. Instead I got a scarf and a flag and tickets to every game.
Sadly, there are only two games left, and I'm not likely to be "in town" for either of them. Such is life, when you follow a league that is based entirely in the bottom half of the continent and you life in the top half.
Oh, and I also got a ridiculous number of bumper stickers, which are also self-dating. Now I can tell the world that I was a member of Canberra United during the 2011/2012 season by applying these stickers to an entire fleet of vehicles.
At least the flag doesn't have a date-range applied to it.
The other reason I applied to be a member was the promise of regular updates. Surprisingly, it's actually getting harder and harder to find out what is happening in the national women's football league. The ABC, which is my hero because it screens one of the games every week, used to have a fairly easy access to stats and things. Now, not so much. The W-League website (which is based on the same useless structure as the A-League website) has never been the most easily navigable source of information.
It still bothers me greatly that our major newspapers don't even give the barest amount of information about the women's league. Women's basketball has a slightly better run of it, but it still gets short shrift in the grand scheme of things. As I may have mentioned before, it's the 21st Century. Surely we can give some attention to women's sport? Especially football, which is such a global thing...
Anyway, it's nice to support a team that's actually winning (we may take the premiership this year). Makes a pleasant change from the Fury.
I'm ridiculously excited, and currently wearing the scarf. It's a bit of a dorky scarf, being made of a material that would be a) not warm in colder climates and b) not cool enough to get away with wearing in warmer climates without getting it all sweaty. Plus, it has "member 2011-2012" written on it, which is a touch annoying. I don't like things that are self-dating. Oh, and it's a scarf for a football team, so wearing it at work is also a bit dorky, I suppose. Must remember to take it off before leaving my cave... er, office.
But still, you know, I just got it, and I was beginning to think I never would, so I'm wearing it, darn it.
I actually joined the club to get a hat. I read somewhere that members got a hat. Instead I got a scarf and a flag and tickets to every game.
Sadly, there are only two games left, and I'm not likely to be "in town" for either of them. Such is life, when you follow a league that is based entirely in the bottom half of the continent and you life in the top half.
Oh, and I also got a ridiculous number of bumper stickers, which are also self-dating. Now I can tell the world that I was a member of Canberra United during the 2011/2012 season by applying these stickers to an entire fleet of vehicles.
At least the flag doesn't have a date-range applied to it.
The other reason I applied to be a member was the promise of regular updates. Surprisingly, it's actually getting harder and harder to find out what is happening in the national women's football league. The ABC, which is my hero because it screens one of the games every week, used to have a fairly easy access to stats and things. Now, not so much. The W-League website (which is based on the same useless structure as the A-League website) has never been the most easily navigable source of information.
It still bothers me greatly that our major newspapers don't even give the barest amount of information about the women's league. Women's basketball has a slightly better run of it, but it still gets short shrift in the grand scheme of things. As I may have mentioned before, it's the 21st Century. Surely we can give some attention to women's sport? Especially football, which is such a global thing...
Anyway, it's nice to support a team that's actually winning (we may take the premiership this year). Makes a pleasant change from the Fury.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Sports Pages (or, Support the Team in Green)
It's very strange, having a football team and then not having a football team.
I spent two years of my life reading the sports pages of the news papers looking for any reference to the A-League and caring where people were on the ladder. Now I still feel vaguely compelled to read the sports pages, but I can't say I actually care about any of it.
Especially the A-League. Before they gave me a football team and then let it whither and die, I more-or-less followed the Brisbane team and was vaguely interested in what happened to them. Then there was My Team, and Brisbane didn't interest me as much anymore.
So, now I read news about this competition, to which I paid an insane amount of attention for two years, and I can't figure out if I care about it or not. It's as though part of me is compelled to know what is happening, but the compulsion wears off within seconds after I remember that I don't have a team in that competition any more.
And I have developed an irrational hatred for Melbourne Heart. I don't see why they should still exist when My Team was so brutally put down. If they couldn't afford to keep My Team afloat, then they had no business supporting another team in Melbourne. They should have put that money and energy into making the Fury work, not starting another expansion club.
The sense of ownership (My Team) that I once gave to the North Queensland Fury has been more-or-less transferred to Canberra United, which is in the W-League, so you never hear about them in the sports pages anyway.I'm thinking of joining the club, though. It's much cheaper than joining the Fury would have been (and I was going to do that if they were still around), and then I'll get a hat and a newsletter. Also free admittance to all of their home games... which would probably be more useful if I lived in Canberra.
When FFA decided to torture the Fury to death, they lost a lot more than a team - they also lost a lot of the supporters of that team, who now harbour not-very-pleasant feelings about Australian football. Thankfully I found the W-League, which is keeping my footballing interests onshore.
Now, if only the sports pages would actually report on women's football occasionally, I'd be happy.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The Losing Team
I have two hats with the word "Fury" on them at home. One is a proper cost-me-$25-from-a-merchandise-stand hat, the other is a $5 cheapy I picked up from an in-store display. I'm not sure they were actually meant to be for sale, but I asked and they sold it to me.
The "real" hat was my celebratory hat. I bought it when the Fury won their first home game, and decided that I would wear it whenever they won. The other had was sort of my way to still show support even if they weren't winning. I wore the cheap hat a lot.
I think I'm going to have to rethink my "winning hat" and "not winning hat" strategy from now on, due to the fact that my team has permanently lost.
The thing that really urks me - that urks all of us in North Queensland - is the fact that it was painfully obvious FFA had no real intention of letting us continue. This for the past six months.
For six months (at least) FFA has been dangling an impossible carrot in front of the team - effectively saying "oh, yeah, of course there's a chance you will survive, you just have to do this thing we all know you will never be able to do, without any real sense of support from us".
We all feel as if the FFA wanted to axe the team after the last season, but also wanted to look like they were trying to give us a chance. "Oh, look, fans of this team, we are supporting your team as much as we can, so don't hate us when we inevitably kill it."
It would have been so much fairer to everyone - especially the players and staff - if they had said "Right, this is definitely your last season. Make the most of it and find a new job next year".
Sure, we would have hated them for not giving the team a chance, but we hate them so much more for jerking everyone around.
Man up, FFA. If you're going to put the cat down, then put it down. Dragging out the process out didn't make anyone look good.
The "real" hat was my celebratory hat. I bought it when the Fury won their first home game, and decided that I would wear it whenever they won. The other had was sort of my way to still show support even if they weren't winning. I wore the cheap hat a lot.
I think I'm going to have to rethink my "winning hat" and "not winning hat" strategy from now on, due to the fact that my team has permanently lost.
The thing that really urks me - that urks all of us in North Queensland - is the fact that it was painfully obvious FFA had no real intention of letting us continue. This for the past six months.
For six months (at least) FFA has been dangling an impossible carrot in front of the team - effectively saying "oh, yeah, of course there's a chance you will survive, you just have to do this thing we all know you will never be able to do, without any real sense of support from us".
We all feel as if the FFA wanted to axe the team after the last season, but also wanted to look like they were trying to give us a chance. "Oh, look, fans of this team, we are supporting your team as much as we can, so don't hate us when we inevitably kill it."
It would have been so much fairer to everyone - especially the players and staff - if they had said "Right, this is definitely your last season. Make the most of it and find a new job next year".
Sure, we would have hated them for not giving the team a chance, but we hate them so much more for jerking everyone around.
Man up, FFA. If you're going to put the cat down, then put it down. Dragging out the process out didn't make anyone look good.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Good Australian Football
This is a saying deserving of acceptance: "If you want to watch good Australian football, watch the W-League".
If you want to watch "elite" Australian football, watch the A-League. Sure, you have to pay for the priviledge as it can only be seen on Pay TV or at a live match, but you can see the high-paid high-flyers of what football talent can be bothered staying in Australia or thinks Oz will be a nice stepping stone on the way to somewhere better.
Alternatively, if you'd like to watch good Australian football, you could watch the W-League. You can see them for free of a Saturday afternoon by tuning into the ABC.
Well, you could. The grand-final is this weekend, and I recommend you tune in to watch it. These girls are good. I mean, really good. I've been watching the A-League just long enough to forget what good football looks like, but an afternoon with Canberra United reminded me. Sadly, they aren't in the grand final. They lost out to Brisbane Roar after a game that was so well played and hotly contended that it came down to a shootout in order to determine the winner.
Now, I have seen some good football matches in the A-League. Mostly involving teams other than the Fury, but that's beside the point. The women in the W-League just seem to play a better class of football entirely. It's even better than some of the Bundesliga matches I've seen.
What really annoys me is how long it took me to discover the W-League. I don't usually read the TV listings for a Saturday afternoon, and no one advertised or mentioned the fact that the game was on.
And, I mean no one. Even in this day and age, women's leagues don't get listed in the "What sport is playing on TV this week" lists, they are rarely (if ever) covered in the sports pages of the news papers - and even the ABC can't be bothered advertising them during the week.
This is pathetic, people. It's the 21st Century, and we are in the most sports obsessed country on the face of the earth. Surely we could start giving women's leagues better coverage?
If you want to watch "elite" Australian football, watch the A-League. Sure, you have to pay for the priviledge as it can only be seen on Pay TV or at a live match, but you can see the high-paid high-flyers of what football talent can be bothered staying in Australia or thinks Oz will be a nice stepping stone on the way to somewhere better.
Alternatively, if you'd like to watch good Australian football, you could watch the W-League. You can see them for free of a Saturday afternoon by tuning into the ABC.
Well, you could. The grand-final is this weekend, and I recommend you tune in to watch it. These girls are good. I mean, really good. I've been watching the A-League just long enough to forget what good football looks like, but an afternoon with Canberra United reminded me. Sadly, they aren't in the grand final. They lost out to Brisbane Roar after a game that was so well played and hotly contended that it came down to a shootout in order to determine the winner.
Now, I have seen some good football matches in the A-League. Mostly involving teams other than the Fury, but that's beside the point. The women in the W-League just seem to play a better class of football entirely. It's even better than some of the Bundesliga matches I've seen.
What really annoys me is how long it took me to discover the W-League. I don't usually read the TV listings for a Saturday afternoon, and no one advertised or mentioned the fact that the game was on.
And, I mean no one. Even in this day and age, women's leagues don't get listed in the "What sport is playing on TV this week" lists, they are rarely (if ever) covered in the sports pages of the news papers - and even the ABC can't be bothered advertising them during the week.
This is pathetic, people. It's the 21st Century, and we are in the most sports obsessed country on the face of the earth. Surely we could start giving women's leagues better coverage?
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