you have your head in your arse... and your arse in the sand. how many of your friends are Knights fans? be honest, now. i'm talking fans that actually spend money on the club by turning up to games and buying merchandise. i'm betting you may have 2 or 3 at most.
what happened last time we built a team of locals? how did that work out for us? where are the locals you speak of that will dig us out of the sh*t? how many of the old farts don't recognise Aku as a local product... and how many of them would hold the same bias against a Pete Mata'utia? WHERE ARE THE LOCAL PLAYERS TO DO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING? stop living in a fantasy world! it may take us 15 or more years to build a team of locals again. the only time in our history we've been able to field close to a full team of locals and be successful we happened to have a certain Andrew Johns carrying them on his shoulders. some of our club greats are adopted from other areas - in fact HEAPS of them are. the lack of locals being our problem is a myth. an absolute myth... and in order to pull it off you have to, at some stage, give preference to local players over those that are more skilled from elsewhere. furthermore, if the locals get a sniff that there is a local policy in place it breeds apathy and laziness... because they know as locals they will be looked after. i don't have to speculate on this at all, because we have seen it all before! it has happened in the past and will happen again in the future if we go down that same road. this is suicide in a professionally run club or competition. it isn't sustainable, it isn't viable and it is ridiculous to try and make a case that it is. all professional teams go through ebbs where they will produce bumper crops one generation of juniors and then dud crops for others. we are in a dud generation, pure and simple. people will adopt non-local players extremely happily if they are winners. there is no more to it than that. i have no doubt that all things being equal we would always take a local product over an import... and with the exception of a single cleanout when Smith got here, i have zero doubt that has remained the same. the locals simply are not there. the production line is halted.
now, back to our generation. go and do a tiny bit of field research like i have. just canvas your friends, people you meet out in town, without bias or leading them on. how many of your friends and peers are genuinely proud of Newcastle and what it stands for? how many of them would prefer to live in Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne? how many have already left? how many are planning to? how many of them can even get jobs in the area? i'll tell you what i've found, across the board... a complete feeling of apathy, or disgust about the town in general. if you fail to see what me going out and getting herpes, as you put it, has to do with a lack of pride in our team then it only completely reinforces my belief that you are ignorant as f**k. this town is deeply connected to the knights, and vice versa. what happens when pride in our town drops? what happens when people begin to resent the way our town is run? it equally reflects in the club is what happens. the club represents our town in the NRL, and will be supported just as our town is supported. this club lifted newcastle out of a deep depression in 1997. the town is now doing the complete inverse of the to the Knights. people don't want to support something that they don't feel represents them.
it has taken me 7 years just to get my best mate interested in the Knights... and even then he's a casual supporter at best. outside of people i have met through footy itself, i am the only person i know that supports the knights. there was a single classmate from my school and none from another i spent a bit of time at. there is a massive disconnect between the knights and this generation, and if you can't see it living IN that generation then you are absolutely 100% in denial. the knights are DREADFULLY uncool to support. i don't need to canvas every young knights fan in the country, because the young knights fans arn't the problem you muppet. it's the people our age that ARN'T knights fans that are the problem... and they are absolutely plentiful. i mean it's not like we're storm fans living in melbourne, we are knights fans living in a bloody rugby league stronghold! we shouldn't be able to walk down the street without tripping over knights supporters! instead it was and probably still is considered a subject of ridicule to support the knights at both schools that i have experience with in the area, and from generally asking around over the years, that is pretty much the rule rather than the exception to it. i live in and of this generation, and i don't need a survey to tell me there is a problem. i see and live it every single day of my life, and you are lying or living in denial if you haven't seen it too. that, or you simply haven't thought about it. i knew more Knights fans as a boy living in Lightning Ridge than i do as a Knights fan living in Newcastle. that is 100% fact.
filling the stands with Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers is a short term solution at best, and a complete PROBLEM as far as atmosphere at the ground goes. you aren't talking about people who have super maturing, you are talking about people that LOST a great deal of their super in the GFC. you are talking about a bunch of old farts that don't want to go out on a cold winters day and make some noise to the team. WE NEED the Gen Y'ers and below to start the chants, to make the noise. Gen X'ers and Baby Boomers want to sit in the stands and have little golf claps when a try is scored. look around next time you're at a game and tell me that isn't true with a straight face. i don't know that a single club in the NRL would target Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers over youth. youth is always the best policy. to say that a Baby Boomer or a Gen X'er is willing to drop as much cash on footy as a 20-something, typically single Gen Y'er is a complete fallacy and poorly thought out. you are a muppet for even thinking this age demographic consuming our supporter base is a good thing. it is a giant problem and must be addressed. a successful team will bring these people back, and it is the only sure fire thing that will. the fact is, our supporters are an aging population. please explain to me how an aging population is beneficial? i honestly don't think you understand that i'm not talking about people that ARE knights fans (massive minority), but the HUGE majority that are not knights fans, and don't contribute a damn cent to the club.
ask roopy what he thinks of staying for the main game, because his opinion is completely, 100% typical of his age group. his age group were the ones filling the stands 15-20 years ago... and EVERYONE filled the stands just to watch Joey play. now what? we're a dead set uncool bunch of losers that certainly bugger all people my age want a bar of.
and champ? really? you went there? how about go f**k yourself with an angle grinder. i love this team and this town and it sh*ts me that everyone i meet does not feel the same way. not only that, but they think i have some sort of disease for doing so. when i moved to Newcastle as a naive 15 year old, i thought i was coming home to a sea of red and blue support. what faced me instead was complete uncare for our town and our team that has only worsened dramatically since then. this was in our premiership year, i might add. i was shocked then and i am disappointed with it to this day. i do my small part where i can, i have gotten 2 of my mates into the footy over the past 2 years and they are now both season ticket holders, and i would anticipate will continue to be into the future. i hope to add one to that list each year if i can. it's not much, but hey it's more than most people do. acting small but thinking large. the only way to solve these problems on a grand scale, though, is to put a winning team on the park. a fantastic way to guarentee that we won't have a winning team on the park any time soon is to re-instate a locals-before-imports policy. it's not viable at the moment at all, and may never be again looking head, and no-one who is going to help dig our club out of the financial sh*tbog gives a sh*t about it, either. win and they will come. it's that simple.
