A Victory for the Fans? Melbourne's New Football Club in Recent Historical Perspectives [1]

In 2005 a completely new football (soccer) team, the Melbourne Victory, was created in Victoria, Australia to play in a new national league, the A-League.[ ² ] Within a year it was drawing 50,000 fans to a regular season home game against Sydney FC in a league whose eight participants stretch from Perth, Western Australia to Auckland in New Zealand.[ ³ ] This was the third time in less than a decade that a new soccer team had been launched in a city which is best known for its devotion to Australian Rules football, cricket and horse racing.[ ⁴ ] The other two, Collingwood Warriors and Carlton, lasted one season and three seasons and eight games respectively before collapsing in acrimony and debt. Collingwood and Carlton began with on-field success. Collingwood won the National Soccer League (NSL) cup in 1996–97, while Carlton lost narrowly by two goals to one in the NSL Grand Final in its first season in 1997–98.[ ⁵ ] Collingwood drew a 15,000 crowd for its first game, which if sustained, would have underpinned financial survival, but neither it nor Carlton was able to hold the fans in anything like adequate numbers.[ ⁶ ] Collingwood and Carlton were associated with the Australian Rules football clubs of the same name, played their home games on the football ovals and sought to benefit from what were seen to be the superior administrative capacities of the clubs in the dominant code.[ ⁷ ] Yet both failed spectacularly. Is there any likelihood that the Victory will go the same way or is this a victory for the fans?