This A-League season has been one of unprecedented success for Sydney FC, with only one defeat so far and the Premiers’ Plate all but sewn up with four games to go.

They have scored pretty freely, defended meanly and won convincingly, often against their bitterest rivals, with the single exception of a 1-0 defeat against Western Sydney Wanderers last month. New signings have performed brilliantly, injuries have been scarce and as a result the team has barely changed all season.



Sydney close in on Premiers' Plate with tight win over Mariners Read more

Only one statistic has marred their triumphant march – the number of people coming through the gates to watch.

A pitiful 8,380 saw Sydney beat Wellington Phoenix 3-1 in early February and only 13,130 watched last week’s 1-0 win over Melbourne Victory, a desperately poor figure for what should be Sydney’s second biggest drawing opponent, after Wanderers. More than 30,000 saw the corresponding game in Melbourne on Australia Day, itself somewhat down on what might be expected by Victory, for a decade the A-League’s most popular club.

After the win over Victory, playmaker Miloš Ninković and coach Graham Arnold all but pleaded with fans to come and watch the side’s three remaining home games, starting with Central Coast Mariners on Friday. It seems they weren’t listening, as only 11,148 turned up to see another solid, if less than thrilling, 1-0 victory.

The embarrassing rows of empty seats at Allianz Stadium have become the last available stick for other teams’ fans to beat Sydney with on social media.

Neil Sherwin (@neilsherwin) Usually fans stay away from games when their team is struggling, not the polar opposite 🤔 #SYDvCCM #aleague pic.twitter.com/WWVkPGq13j

Perhaps the most worrying thing for Sydney and for the A-League is that the further their lead at the top has stretched, the worse the crowds have become. More than 15,000 watched the first home game of the season against the Mariners, when few would have believed Arnold’s team was bound for glory.

What is going on here? First let’s look at some immediate factors that may have had a marginal effect. Scheduling has not helped. Other than the derby against Wanderers, Sydney have not played a home game on a Saturday since 26 November, and the decision to place the Phoenix game on a Thursday night was beyond baffling. Terrible weather certainly kept a good number away from the Victory clash. The start of the NRL season also works to depress numbers, and perhaps the very fact that Sydney are so far ahead of the pack has reduced the appeal of recent games.



But if these are enough to dissuade fans from watching one of the most successful teams in A-League history, it suggests engagement is exceptionally fragile.



A closer look at Sydney’s attendances over a longer period gives a bit more cause to view the latest figures with disappointment rather than despair – it’s easy to forget how small their core support has been.

Since the start of the A-League in 2005, four main factors have had a noticeably positive effect on Sydney’s crowds: the initial novelty factor; the arrival of Western Sydney; Alessandro del Piero; and success on the field. The last has been by far the least significant, as this season has emphasised.

After averaging 16,669 in the first A-League season – the only time any club other than Victory has topped the attendance charts – Sydney’s appeal gradually subsided, with fluctuations roughly following their form. In 2010-11 they contrived to finish eighth (in an 11-team league) and drew an average of only 8,014, the only time their figure has come in below the average for the whole league.

Two years later, the first season of both Del Piero and Wanderers, it jumped to 18,637, even though performances under Frank Farina were largely woeful and they could do no better than seventh in the table, missing the finals. The second Del Piero season brought the club’s highest average, 18,682 (again despite very modest form), which was a whopping 150% of the A-League average.



The numbers are now significantly affected by the fact that there are three derbies against Wanderers each season, each club hosting either two or one in alternate seasons. With Sydney regularly pulling 40,000-plus for their home derbies, you would expect the seasons when they host two to show a bump, but last season that advantage was undermined by another dismal showing on the field, dragging the average down.

The demographics of a two-club city are still working themselves out. While the arrival of Wanderers has produced dramatic derby crowds, it has also increased competition for support – only when the two clubs are in comparable stadiums and have comparable seasons (so far one has always been up while the other is down) will we get an accurate idea of which is now the bigger club, but my money would definitely be on Wanderers.

Until the events of the past weeks it could be said that Sydney had done reasonably well to hang on to most of the Del Piero boom fans – even after the poor showing against the Mariners, this (one-home-derby) season’s average is above 16,000. But their failure to capitalise on an extraordinary year should be ringing alarm bells.



The league as a whole has no reason for complacency, with the Mariners and the Phoenix tanking, and the apparently stable overall figures masking a growing divide between huge derby crowds in Sydney and Melbourne, and much more modest figures almost everywhere else. Above all, though, the numbers must cast further doubt on the proposal for a third team sort of in a part of Sydney, which appears to have none of the geographical identity of the Wanderers and plenty of potential to mirror the lukewarm reaction to Sydney FC even in the best of on-field times.

