I wouldn't say that the Central Coast doesn't care about the Soccer - there seems to be a fair amount of grass roots support and I think that is one reason the Mariners are settling in here. I take the point that the media jumped on a bit of a bandwagon at the end of the A-League season but I think you are kidding yourself if you think the support for the Mariners was entirely manufactured. I think you need to bear in mind that it was an innaugural season...
But I think you'd be kidding yourself just as wholeheartedly to say that we don't care about rugby league. Last time I looked there was a thriving local senior comp. with most teams fileding first and second grade teams. Sure there's some big discrepancies in terms of how well the teams perform with some being absolutely blasted off the park by others - you probably couldn't call it a very even comp... But it is there, and people go to watch.
On another note - as a Balmain supporter who only really came to terms with the merger towards the end of 2004 (my first trip to Campbelltown) I'd have to question the comparison between the mergers of Wests & Balmain and St George & Illawarra, and Norths & Manly. For one, Manly as a team are one of those love/hate teams. If you don't love them, you hate them. So of course there would be problems with them merging with another team - but especially another team from a similar geographical area - that would be like merging Souths and Easts, or Cronulla and St George, or Balmain and Canterbury. After years of good old fashioned local derbies, to have to suddenly share a team with these people? You're gonna piss more people off that way...
Also I am not sure on this - can someone clarify for me whether the Bears were traditionally a Central Coast team before the merger? My recollection is that they were not, and that they agreed to relocate to the Coast as part of the merger? If that is so, then why should we have the Bears thrust on us again instead of a new Central Coast team?
Well said t=ba
