So whats your solution to this issue? Kick Manly out for having lazy fans?
Prior to this game there was some controversy relating to staging this game at the SFS against an out of town team with next to zero local support ie. small crowd and guess what - it came true!
Of the 13000 or so who made the trek, 12,900 were Sea Eagle supporters, and looking at historical crowd stats for Manly its safe to say that these comprise the core of supporters. Its not a large number, but thats the way it is and the way it always has been. Manly is not that widely supported outside the Northern Beaches, which itself is not all that big an area compared with the population base of many other clubs. Hence relatively smaller membership, attendance and club income of the Manly Sea Eagles.
So were this game to be held at Brookvale you'd have this core of 13000 attending plus the 6-7 thousand half arsed local fans who think "oh yeah, theres a game at Brooky lets go". Last night these are the people who instead chose to watch the game at the pub or wherever instead of f**king around with trekking to the Eastern Suburbs. The game should have been at Brookvale - having the game at the SFS benefits nobody.
So some of you feel outraged. What did you expect? An army of supporters marching across the city ala St George or the Bulldogs? That just aint reality, and unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past 60 years what happened last night should come as no surprise.
So again I ask - what should be done? Cut the club and abandon the region to Union/AFL? Seriously, do you have any constructive suggestions?
Whatever the case what matters to me and the other "pathetic" sea eagles fans is that we flogged the Cowboys, and we only have one more game to win before we progress to the grand final. So while you choke on your outrage we can enjoy watching the club we support play some good footy.
