When over 25,000 turned up last
weekend to Sydney FC’s first game in the new A-League, Club Chairman
Walter Bugno could barely control his exhilaration. The crowd size was
so unexpected that 10,000 fans missed the start of the game, as they
struggled to buy tickets from a couple of undermanned offices. The next
day, Football Federation Australia’s Frank Lowy and John O’Neill were
more circumspect, and they have every reason to be. Look no further
than the last great hope of Sydney football, Northern Spirit, for a
heart-breaking false dawn and another lost opportunity.

The
similarities between Sydney FC’s first game and Northern Spirit’s,
seven years earlier, are obvious to anyone who was at both events. Few
cared that the home team did not win on either occasion: most simply
wanted to be part of the spectacle and watch a piece of history. Almost
19,000 people crammed into a tight North Sydney Oval, and yelled and
screamed as if they had been devoted fans for years. Players like
Robbie Slater, who a couple of years earlier had won an English
Premiership with Blackburn, and Graham Arnold, now Australia’s
assistant coach, were among a team filled with internationals. Harry
Kewell posters were everywhere, signed on as a club supporter.

There
were fireworks and skydivers and cheer girls, and round ball football
without ethnic origins had finally arrived in Sydney. The Club was
supposedly well-financed by Mark Goldberg, who also owned the famous
Crystal Palace team in England, and Liberal Party heavyweight Remo
Nogarotto was Chairman. He brought his social and political connections
to the Club, and Kathryn Greiner and Kerry Chikarovski were on the
Board.

The enthusiasm continued with hardly a pause for breath
all that first season. Thousands working in Sydney’s second CBD, North
Sydney, would adjourn to the pub after work on a Friday night, and then
head up the road to the Oval for a couple of hours of sparkling
football. In the stands, those with season tickets had to fight for
their place if they arrived too close to kick-off. The average crowd
was over 15,000. On the night Spirit beat Marconi 4-0, thousands stayed
after the game to shake hands with the home team as the players paraded
around the ground. The team made the semi finals, and the outlook was
bright.

The second season started full of optimism, with an
opening crowd of 15,000, a few new players and more advertising signs
and sponsors. If the supporters had any ethnic dominance, it was from
the British Isles. Surely a group of devoted fans who had followed
Sheffield Wednesday or Preston North End or Partick Thistle through 40
years of miserable results would stay with Northern Spirit through a
few losses? But over the first few months of the season, Spirit seemed
unable to win at home, and the crowd stopped coming.

Read on here.