News that the Penrith Panthers tried to buy the Western Sydney Wanderers came as a shock to me. I am in the unique position of being a supporter of both the Penrith Panthers and the Western Sydney Wanderers. I’ve lived in Western Sydney all of my life and grew up playing both sports.
I would describe my support for the Wanderers as casual support. I watch most of their games and I want them to do well. To finally have an A League club to support is fantastic, and after the amazing first season that the Wanderers had, how can you not get behind them!
I would describe my support for the Panthers as a depressing grind towards nothingness. Rare moments of excitement are crushed by a club that has a complete disregard for it’s fan base and that seems completely directionless right now. Still, they are my club. I watch all of their games and I suffer through every single one of them. I’ll be honest, it’s not fun being a Penrith Panthers fan.
With that in mind I thought it would be fun to sit down and look at this latest news from both a Panthers point of view, and a Wanderers point of view. I want to stress that see two points of view are written by the same person, me, The Glorious League Freak:
Penrith Panthers
What the fuck! The Panthers have been terrible for nearly a decade now. The club was stripped down to nothing, they got rid of all of the star players, we are still terrible, crowds are rotten, there is a complete disconnect between the club and the fan base….and they want to get into Soccer!
How about we try putting together a half decent Rugby League team first!
So far Phil Gould’s five year plan has given us Ivan Cleary, Jamie Soward and a ridiculous fucking bell at one end of the stadium! This is a club that hasn’t got the spare time it thinks it does to run an A League team!
By the way, have the Panthers looked at the way A League clubs are run? They are not exactly making all that much money. A League clubs lose money hand over fist at the moment. They are the biggest pits of burning money this side of the GWS Giants!
Clearly they are not looking to move into Soccer because it’s a good business to be in, because it’s not! So what they hell are they thinking!
Maybe the Panthers could look into buying another NRL club and slapping their new logo for 2014 onto their jersey? Just a thought….
Western Sydney Wanderers
What the fuck! What makes the Penrith Panthers think they can run a Soccer club? They can’t even run a Rugby League club by the look of things!
Did they not notice that the Wanderers are based at Parramatta? That the club just secured a funding upgrade to lift the capacity of Parramatta Stadium at accommodate the growing fan base?
The Panthers work on five year plans. We only needed five months! The last thing the Wanderers need is the decaying stretch of the Penrith Panthers becoming associated with us!
Sure Soccer is huge in Western Sydney at a junior level, but have a look at every single sporting club based in Western Sydney that isn’t wearing black and red. They are all struggling!
As a club we need to be proud that we represent Western Sydney, but we also can’t confine ourself to a small part of Western Sydney either. We need to represent everyone, and we can’t do that based out at Penrith!
The FFA did a great job setting up the Wanderers. We found our feet very quickly with some smart buys and a bunch of players that really stood up and played with pride. I’m glad that David Gallop stepped in and put a stop to this. The Wanderers can’t be allowed to become someone second priority. They need to continue to be successful.
Success is something the Panthers don’t know too much about….
