Dual drawcard. A big draw, and a scoreless draw.

50,333 is the magic number after last night’s match between Melbourne and Sydney, the slightly less magical number was the scoreline…0-0. You can read a full match report here.

With so much on the line for Sydney it’s no surprise that they settled for a draw. Melbourne had chances to win the game but as the night wore on it became clear that despite having the A-League’s three top scorers in Allsopp, Thompson and Fred, Sydney’s resolve at the back would hold out. It was a genuine injustice that the record crowd for an Australian domestic game failed to cheer for a goal, given the amount of noise they made for the various ups and downs during the game would only have been beaten by U2’s recent visit to Telstra Dome.

Sydney’s visiting fans “The Cove” went down the rather predictable path of taunting Melbourne about the Asian Champions League, but the reality is Sydney will struggle to get 50,000 total fans to all three of their group games (assuming they are midweek) this autumn. In a quick aside, Adelaide United could sell out Hindmarsh Stadium for all three group games and would be mathematically unable to get 50,000.

It was a championed statistic amongst football media and fans that the crowd was bigger than any Australian Rules game (AFL) at the Telstra Dome during the last two years, but as a dual-code fan I feel it’s important that Victory fans don’t get caught up in the wrangling. The Victory needs fans who also follow the AFL, so accepting dual-code fans will always be more productive than the “us vs them” approach, doomed to be baited by the “soccer is a game for sheilas wogs and poofters” attitude of diehard AFL fans.

So to next week and the New Zealand Knights, in what could well be the last ever A-League game at Olympic Park. One thing that does grind on me is the description of Olympic Park as the “spiritual home” of the Victory. How is a ground that shafted a Melbourne vs Sydney clash for a junior athletics tournament (meaning our 5-0 win last season was not shown live on Foxtel) be a spiritual home? The Knights are a bizarre proposition in terms of scheduling. In all honesty they don’t even merit a game against us in this country. I’m sure somewhere in the “Professional Sportspersons Act” legislation there would be something not allowing an institution as pathetic as New Zealand into a country like ours, we should just play them over there at North Harbour three times a season. Depending on Adelaide’s results this weekend and next Melbourne could be lifting the title after the game against the Knights, so it would be a minimum expectation that capacity, something in the vicinity of 18,500 fans, would fill the ground one last time.

There will be plenty of people both in Melbourne and elsewhere unable to get into Olympic Park next week, so listen to the game on SEN Radio, available over the internet, and you can also read the text commentary courtesy of yours truly on the Victory's official website. And if you want to get a look at the latest issues for the club's ever-growing fanbase, read the Victory forum. Kickoff is 7pm Melbourne time, Sunday December 17th.