If new owners can build on club’s connection to the community, Adelaide United, it could be the start of something brilliant

ADELAIDE United is now longer a locally owned club. But if the new owners embrace our football-loving community, it could be beautiful, writes JOHN KOSMINA.

Adelaide United must capitalise on fan parochialism. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

FOOTBALL is a global sport, of that there is no doubt. The biggest clubs in the world are under the governance of foreign ownership and so it comes to pass that Adelaide United is now in the hands of an offshore entity. Is this a good thing?

I’m ambivalent. Why you might ask? Because I was there at the start way back in 2003 and I know what it meant to the football community of Adelaide to have a team that was truly representative of it … that brought all the old rivalries together under one banner.

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Gordon Pickard really connected with Adelaide fans in the early days.

Led by local philanthropist Gordon Pickard, that initial Reds incarnation was synonymous of the state. Pickard actively engaged the punters and within a month of conception did enough to get the gates at Hindmarsh Stadium closed with the ‘House Full’ sign up for the first ever game.

They were heady days that I will never forget and even as I write about them the mere memory of those times tugs on my heartstrings. The club, importantly, had a soul and I wonder if that is less of a consideration in the modern era.

But times do change. The world is not the same place it was back then. Australia and the local football scene is vastly different and there’s not much room for soulful sentimentality. Rightly or wrongly the game is corporate — meaning global — and money takes precedence over everything.

Reds fans were No.1 back in 2006.

Am I wrong — what is the current governance dispute all about? The clubs want more money which means the owners want more money among other things but it’s the $ that takes precedence.

That’s not to say clubs don’t have soul anymore. Those that were built on the old foundations have plenty but as the game becomes more corporatised the more diluted that becomes.

United has a great base and the advantage of history backing it in the new realm of foreign ownership.

More importantly, it exists in a smaller, more parochial city where, to be honest, it is much easier to generate this kind of emotional response in the fans. It is easier to build that special connection.

I’ll give you two conflicting examples of what I mean.

Newcastle have reconnected with local fans. (AAP Image/Darren Pateman)

The Newcastle Jets are flying on the park at the moment, but they are doing just as well off it, under foreign ownership. The club has gone out of its way to engage the local community and its inherent parochialism.

The results help but the primary reason over 18,000 turned up to watch them last week is that connection between club and community.

On the opposite side of the equation is Melbourne City. Privately owned by the City Football Group, a massive player on the world football stage. Doing OK on the park but despite the backing of the CFG they can’t really crack it when it comes to capturing the hearts and minds of the non-Victory followers of the game in Melbourne.

Money doesn’t buy soul and you have to ask if they have any soul about them… In the previous existence as Heart or the present manifestation as City. The Jets have a long football history, and culture to draw on, City don’t … they’re a business that’s almost too big for its own good.

Despite the money, City still struggles to find an identity. (AAP Image/Joe Castro)

So, to the Reds Version IV. There is enough history, enough pre-existing football culture in the city to rely upon. In fact, with more resources available from the new owners (I imagine) they could grow the club back to the glory days of its early years.

I read ex-Chairman, Greg Griffin’s comments about being proud of having a team of local youngsters in the draw against Sydney a few weeks back.

That’s a different mindset to the one I had to deal with in my second spell at the club under his tenure but that’s another story. What’s important is that it’s the local flavour that is imperative for South Australians to identify with.