Victory in Numbers

50,333 people rocked up at Telstra Dome to create the largest ever club crowd for a league football match in Australia on Friday night. And amazingly i wasn't there.

That Melbourne Victory have achieved this is a great achievement for a club that last year finished 7th on the table. Sadly, they still haven't sorted out their financial problems, amazing in a club that has over 11,000 members and an average crowd of almost 30,000.

I've been to 6 home games for Victory. The curse of living in a different state to your own side is that you end up going to things simply to see football. 5 of these game shave been at the Dome, and although i would still rather watch the game in a purpose built rectangular stadium that holds 50,000, the atmosphere, even in the smallest crowd of 23,000 odd, is fantastic.

Sadly, in a crowd of that many you will always find a number of thugs and idiots. The larger the crowds, the more noticable it will be. The game against Sydney had some elements of this, as did the game against Adelaide. I have read Victory fans on some forums saying that the FFA should stop trying to make it a family atmosphere and allow flares and swearing etc. That the more it becomes "family friendly" the less it becomes football.

This is utter rubbish. Of the 50,000 people there on Friday night, 43,000 of them would have been average punters, amused by the chanting and bobbing up and down of the fans at either end. Without out these people all you'd have at games would be extreme fans, and this is not what the A-League needs.

has the media exagerated the after game antics of some fans that think they are just "well 'ard?" More than likely. The melbourne media is not a fan of football. They would have been praying for something bad to come out of the game, otherwise they would have needed to actually report on the football. However, fans need to remember that the game is more important than their stupidity. I've been to 6 Melbourne games and had a great time at all of them, even when my team lost. I've even been drunk at a couple. And yet i've never had police feel the necessity to spray me with pepper spray. Maybe there's others that should think about trying the same.