A Betrayal Of Active Support

One of the highlights for me of the A-league has been the support and crowds that have been attracted to the league. Three years ago just about nobody would have foreseen that Melbourne Victory would be averaging 26,000 to home games and have a membership of 21,000.

It is with deep sadness then that I read my membership renewal form for this year. For those that are not aware the league has decided to implement a reserve seat system for active support areas (Home End Memberships or HEMs), after advice from a external consultancy who were engaged to assess how to better improve the match day experience and reduce the risk of violence.

This system is an outright disaster for the active support and Melbourne Victory officals must be fuming at the possible impact to membership this could have.

For the first three years I have held a GA membership and spent most of my attendance in the south end bays. I abhor the idea that I will have an allocated seat (I mean what if I don’t like the person sitting next to me? Do I have to put up with them for the whole season?).

The system will be implemented with very little flexibility by the FFA and allows only a small degree of scope for the clubs to work with supporter groups. Effectively the two areas behind the goals at Telstra Dome will be fully ticketed with members (& general public) being allocated dedicated seats. This will most likely have a severe impact on the numbers of people within these areas and also the quality of the active support.

The Melbourne Victory north end support groups appear to be leaning towards a total rejection of the HEM model and at this stage are encouraging all active supporters to not buy memberships into these areas. Anybody who attended matches last year will know that the atmosphere suffered heavily when the North End boycotted the area behind the goals and moved into the upper levels. It would appear this again will be repeated this year.

The South End supporters groups are in the process of coordinating with the club set bays to be put aside for them and are trying to organise a system whereby non member friends can join them in their reserved bay on match day. This is a compromise and it remains to be seen if this can be made to work successfully.

The main concern of both groups of supporters is that HEM destroys the ability of new supporters to join in with active supporter groups. HEM has only a small impact on the regular active supporter as these people will be well organised and will ensure they have allocated seats within the supporters areas. No the real impact is on the supporters who want to try active support or friends of the regulars who want to see what all the fuss is about. Imagine inviting two mates to the ground but having to wave goodbye to them once you enter as their allocated seats are two bays across.

It would have been so much better if whole bays could be designated Home End bays and memberships sold for those bays. The memberships could have allowed you to sit anywhere within the bay. Any remaining tickets to the bay could have been coordinated by Victory staff to ensure tickets were available to friends of members attending a particular match day. This would still have achieved the goal of restricting numbers to the active bays to stop overcrowding while still allowing the independence that has seen these supporter groups bring a match day experience that cannot be found in any other sport within this country.

As is stands though I don’t think I will be standing in the South End this year. Maybe if enough members boycott the HEM system we can force a rethink next year (we can only hope). In the meantime I trying to decide between a GA membership or just buy tickets as I attend.

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