According to John: The A-League

Readers may or may not have heard of the horrendous US sitcom "According to Jim" starring (I use the term loosely) James Belushi (or is it Jim?). Briefly occupying a primetime channel 7 slot it has now been relegated to sometime mid afternoon, that's how crap it is. Although the fact that it screens on channel 7 in the first place should be a dead give away to the crapness.

Anyway this pitiful excuse for humour gives rise to the far better "According to John". In this issue of "According to me" I will examine the newly formed A-League, elaborating on my own views of the competition given my prolonged love affair with the beautiful game.

Firstly however a (very) brief Iron Chefs report: There isn't much to say really, we won..... wait for it...... 24-1 !!!!!!!!!!!! The opposition, Enfield Utd were without a doubt the crappest opposition ever. They fielded 2 girls (I am no sexist but this was definitely not a winning tactic) and the remaining 3 male players were possibly Glenside escapees (I mean it in the nicest way possible). Iron Chris Assikas who had until this week only managed a solitary goal single-handedly savaged the visitors piling on a whopping 10 goals! El capitan contributed with a mere 6, Bucky Reitano with 5 and Thearle with a slightly underachieving 3. It was however slightly embarrassing that we managed to concede just one goal and highlights a need to work on defence. And so the wildly warped goal tally looks like this:

Leading goalscorers (total as after matchday 10)
El Capitan- 20
Thearley- 16
Chef "I only score when the opposition are disabled" Assikas- 11
Bucky- 9
Andre- 3

Now to the A-League: I don't wish to start over again with my A-League thesis, those of you who have not read my formative views will find them at www.shaunsalright.blogspot.com under the comments of an article titled "Blueprint for success- Craig Foster speaks some sense".

Essentially I am very happy with the new look A-League and I am indeed pleased that the world game at last has a viable platform in Australia. However there are I feel some points to be improved on if the game is to flourish. In an ideal world the A-League will rightfully come to prominence in Australian sport usurping all other codes and bringing Australia in line with the rest of the world (with the exception of the fuckwit US) worshipping the round ball game. This however is perhaps a pipe dream and unlikely to come to fruition. My first problem is people like Les Murray on SBS. Some of you may have read his columns and books and realise that he is one of the leading proponents for football in this country and indeed he has I feel done a lot for the game. However his chief failure I believe is not securing the TV rights for the A-League for SBS. Rather when one's side is playing away, one must have access to Rupert's "Do me up my foxhole"TEL in order to watch the game. On this vast continent it is unlikely that all that many fans are able to travel frequently to away games, putting the games on free-to-air TV however would allow all to see all of the games. Furthermore when one does have access to FOX, one is far more likely to be watching the football, rugby or other "exotic" channels. My point here is that the A-League needs to tap potential markets where the AFL and NRL haven't already gone. If good quality football were screened on free-to-air TV, then I think it would gain a lot more interest. However currently the only good quality football that free-to-air viewers have access to are early morning european games and the occasional Australian national team game (please debate quality).

To be honest I am all ranted out at the moment and cannot be bothered writing further, however I have other issues with geographic representation of clubs, the marketing of clubs as cheerleader backed side shows and the scheduling of fixtures. Watch this space.