Melbourne Victory, Melbourne united

The cliche question, as one mingled with the 55,000 pre-game at the A-League grand final, was: ‘Did you ever think you’d see this?’

Despite being properly mindful of the last words of my late friend, Johnny Warren (‘I told you so’), the reply that came to the lips was: ‘no’.

It’s true. Not even the most passionately optimistic Australian fan of the world game, weighed down by all the forces that were holding football back for all those years, could possibly have expected this, at least not this soon.

Johnny Warren had faith, as did most of us around him, but even the great man would now be delightfully surprised by the heights his beloved football has reached just two years and three months after his death.

Popularity, especially of the sudden-surge kind, breeds timely fondness from the princes of society, especially politicians, and they were at the Telstra Dome in droves: the Prime Minister, the Opposition Leader, Premier Bracks, Treasurer Costello, Foreign Minister Downer, former Sports Minister Rod Kemp, former Premier Neville Wran and an assortment of senators and members of the House.

You would be hard pressed to see such a roll-out at a state reception for the Queen. Johnny would have been stunned.

In amongst the guests clicking champagne glasses in the VIP lounge were, of course, many bona fide football people. Standing out as genuine links between old soccer and football as we now know it, were Frank Lowy (who sparked the old NSL in 1977), Joe Marston, Jack Reilly and wee Johnny Thompson.

Thompson, despite his years, is as bubbly and full of laughter as ever. He of the Scottish brogue still as thick as that of Ernie Merrick, was a sweatshop pioneer in the grand mission to plant roots for football in Australia more than half a century ago. He was the classic immigrant on a plan to supplant his sporting values from the old country into the new: awaken the dominion from its utter isolation and bring it into the world.

He was an official with Gladesville in the old NSW Soccer Federation, later with Pan Hellenic and its successor, Sydney Olympic, and for long lingered as an omnipresent sight in football officialdom, always ready to give a hand for the game wherever he could.

After his use-by date, or was it when he became disillusioned, he reverted to being a fan. I recall many overseas tours with the Socceroos through the 1980s when the one solitary fan accompanying the team, his trip always self-funded, was Johnny Thompson.

He went to the World Cup last year, of course, but now he was joined by 30,000 boisterous youngsters who barely knew who he was. It was perfectly appropriate, deserved and touching that Thompson should be among the invitees.

Outside the lounge’s smoked glass windows the game was reaching a crescendo, as the Victory rampaged, the Dome was a mess of noise and colour and Archie was galloping into history.

As the seconds ticked towards half time and the man at the microphone announced two minutes of time added on, the blond woman to my left asked her husband, ‘Why?’. Hubby didn’t have an answer for he didn’t have a clue. Having overheard, I courteously leaned across and explained.

Out in the outer it was a different story and a different clientele. The blonde and her husband were in the minority.

Memories came flooding back of 1979 when the visit to Sydney of the New York Cosmos, because of the presence of Franz Beckenbauer, had the fans so sexed up they trashed the gates and an estimated 80,000 crammed into the 45,000 capacity Sydney Showground.

And they were mostly immigrants, people who knew who Beckenbauer was and knew their football, ‘wogs’ in the street vernacular.

Looking around the Dome at the heaving and pulsating 55,000, witnessing their passion, their rhythmic chanting and singing, their responses, their boos and cheers in the right places, the chants of ole, ole when the Victory was taking the mickey, I was driven to suspect that this was actually a soccer crowd, and an educated one at that, despite its size.

This was later confirmed on my walk back to the hotel post-game, as youngsters barely out of their teens, in their many thousands and boundless in their bouncing joy, were marching to nearby pubs in readiness to kick on and celebrate.

They were people, all of them young, smiling and eager, of all colours of the Australian rainbow. Chinese, Indian, Anglo, Indonesian, Italian, Greek, Croatian, Serbian, Greek, South American, whatever, all of them rallying behind the flag, unified behind a single cause and all of them asking if I was a Victory fan. One, of an ethnic extraction I do not remember and can’t recall recognising, wrapped me in a dark blue scarf and demanded my oath of allegiance.

The average age demographic of Melbourne Victory’s supporters, according to surveys commissioned by the club, is between 18 and 24. These are most impressive numbers. As young fans, their passions are innocent, without prejudice and intensely tribal. They are not middle-aged and middle-class and therefore are not likely to seek alternatives and abandon their idolatry every time their team loses a game.

Unlike, say, the faddish, bourgeois followers of the Sydney Swans, who discarded their faith in the late 1980s when the team was losing, and then returned when it started to win again.

Inside the Dome the kids were creating an atmosphere and an occasion that matched any experienced in a European arena. I know because I have been to many of them, from Old Trafford to San Siro. The smaller pocket of Adelaide kids at the other end of the ground, vibrant in their red and yellow, retorted in kind but in the end they were silenced, not just because they were outnumbered but more because their team was outclassed.

The unsavoury post-match behaviour of some of the Adelaide personnel, at its best undignified and crass, should be ignored in assessing what happened on the field.

Adelaide was outplayed and outclassed from go to woe and one suspects that would have been the case whether it had a man sent off or not. No team ever wins 6-0 without deserving it.

Sure, Muscat’s early clobbering of Diego was wicked, and the Victory captain was lucky not to get a straight red much less a yellow. But beyond that Adelaide had no cause for complaint.

Aloisi deserved his first yellow after going in on his man with all studs showing. His second offence, which came close to decapitating his opponent, was an invitation to an early shower even without his earlier yellow.

As for the other complaints, and the unfortunate references to the three blind mice by an ageing player who should know better, all of Victory’s six goals, after video examination, were on side.

Neither could the officials be blamed for John Kosmina’s off-day, in picking Owens at left back and waiting until the 70th minute, with the score at 0-4, before responding to the send-off, sending on an attacker for a defender, Spagnuolo for Alagich.

But all this takes away from the Victory’s utter brilliance on the day. Their confidence and want were high and irresistible, their movement and crisp passing were sweet, and they struck gold by having Fred and Thompson singing in tune and in total harmony at the one concert. That was the solitary factor that killed Adelaide and, despite the one-way traffic, it was an absolute joy to watch.

All this a just reward for the fans who were the real stars of the attraction that Melbourne Victory provided this season.

It was not so much the 6-0 in the Grand Final but the numbers on the terraces that writes the Melbourne Victory success story this campaign.

In attracting a total of 407,860 fans, at an average of 31,373 per game, the Victory was responsible for one third of the league’s season total attendance. Its contribution to the league average, a 22 per cent jump on last season, is monumental.

If the league crowd averages are to continue at this pace, they will hit 20,000 per game within two seasons. Now that suggests a serious dent on the sporting norms of this nation and that football will be more than a bona fide member of the so called mainstream of the Australian sporting commune.

But what wants noticing, more than anything, is who these fans are.

In Melbourne’s case they are mostly pre-disposed soccer fans, young people who liked the game but didn’t much like the old NSL. The old ethnic divides, not to mention the city’s besotted fascination with AFL, had kept them at bay.

Now the Victory, with its spice, sweet football and proud swagger, has conquered Melbourne and has united the city.

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