After all the hype and all the still continuing fighting between Pro Tigers and Pro United fans it was finally time for Melbourne United to show NBL fans what they had for the competition, their opponents for the match were the Cairns Taipans and the Taipans bit United hard early and by the end of the afternoon killed them with a convincing 89 to 61 win, United simply had no answers against the Taipans making United seem to be unable to walk their walk and talk their talk.
Hisense Arena was not sold out with a reported crowd of 5,704 people watching the game (including free ticket users), spectators and TV viewers reported that sections of the Arena were empty with TV making it glaring obvious play by play, reports on crowd atmosphere vary with some saying the game had a good atmosphere while others report that the crowd were lacking energy and were never into the game, the next couple of games will be interesting to see if crowd levels raise, hold or fall with Victorians thirst for competitive teams set to dictate terms for if United wins crowds will rise and losses will send crowds spiraling putting United’s owner’s aspirations into a deep hole.
Melbourne United have given the audience of OneHD show ‘The Thursday Night Sports Show’ double passes to this Sunday’s game, there is no doubt now that Melbourne United are working double time to ensure that their first game of the season is described as a sell out although it is certain that hundreds of those in attendance are able to attend by the passes given on the show or by the tickets given to various Basketball Associations by Melbourne United.
There are suggestions that Basketball Associations who were promised tickets have been changed to kids passes, this will no doubt bring confusion and frustration to many who might of hoped to been able to go see a game, there is no doubt that Melbourne United has shot itself in the foot with this bungle which adds to a growing list of problems from members not getting proper information, Facebook team making blunders, Tigers fans getting calls when they’ve asked United not to call or have gotten a phone call on a number never listed and more.
Melbourne Tigers fans reading the newspaper today would of been amused at the sight of seeing the Melbourne Tiger beside the Cairns Taipans logo for the game coming up on Sunday instead of Melbourne United’s logo.
Amusement would of turned to amazement when looking below the picture and seeing Mark Worthington’s comments would of noticed that his comments on the Tigers situation were word for word to comments made by Chris Anstey earlier this week when he was live on SEN with him answering a text message submitted to the station by a Melbourne Tigers fan, those who want to see Mark Worthington’s words can see them below while Chris Anstey’s appearance on SEN can be heard here.
The word for word usage by Worthington and Anstey has lead to questions of whether or not that Melbourne United has a tight leash on what players, coaching staff and other members of the organization are allowed to say to the media and other outlets.
We Are Not United thank all the fans who provided us with the information and pictures for this article.
Melbourne Tigers fans may be facing it’s first season out of the NBL since it’s existence in 1984 (with United claiming they are a new entity) there is some comfort to know that the Melbourne Tigers that play in the BigV are still going strong and needs fans to attend their matches in their next season, it is important for Melbourne Tigers fans to remember that without the BigV side’s 1931 birth there wouldn’t be the Melbourne Tigers that played (and will play again) in the NBL, for further incentive it should be noted that United are supporting the Mckinnon Basketball Association which has teams in the BigV and therefore are a Tigers rival should any of the Tigers team meet them.
Fans of the Nunawading Spectres, Coburg Giants (aka North Melbourne Giants), Frankston Blues (formerly Frankston Bears in the NBL) and the Geelong Supercats are also playing in the BigV therefore fans of those sides should also flock to their matches and support the teams instead of joining United’s aim to ‘unite’ all the fans under their umbrella.
Despite the optimism expressed by Melbourne United, it seems that newspapers are taking their time marching to the beat of Melbourne United’s drum, The Age and The Herald Sun has given Melbourne United only a small slice of space available in the sports section of the paper with the only news in the last two days being on import Stephen Dennis’s attempt to recover from injury and the hopes for a massive crowd at their opening game following the team’s corporate success in the off season.
United are doing a better job on the radio front with interviews on SEN and 3AW, both radio stations have generously read texts from Tigers supporters opposing United in the same segment allowing a fair conversation to take place although the answers from Chris Anstey appearing scripted lacking the personal touch with the majority of time spent discussing past Victorian NBL teams needing to be honoured as well as the Tigers.
Perhaps in the coming days the papers will take more interest but with around a million Victorians reading the papers daily compared to the number listening to the radio, United are late getting to the party when it comes to getting attention from the state.
Australian Basketballers Patty Mills and Andrew Bogut on Twitter have questioned Melbourne United’s move to not honour the retired jersey numbers that were retired by the Melbourne Tigers, Melbourne United have decided to use jersey numbers 6 and 21 that were retired by the Tigers in past seasons.
Melbourne United say they plan to ‘honour’ the Tigers legends are well as South East Melbourne Magic, North Melbourne Giants and all other former Victorian NBL clubs but they will not be keeping the retired Tigers numbers retired, Melbourne United believes that since the club was ‘born’ out of the Melbourne Tigers it is a new entity therefore will not be following Melbourne Tigers history and records.
Many would think that Melbourne United was made official on May 20 2014 but the sad reality is that Melbourne United sneaked into the Tigers den way before then, on January 30 2014 Melbourne United Basketball Club was registered as a business name while the entity name officially changed from Melbourne Tigers Pty Ltd (existed from the 27th of June 2012) to Melbourne United Basketball Club Pty Ltd on the 13th of June 2014 which interestingly was weeks after the announcement of the change.
Melbourneunited.com.au was registered on the 20th of March 2014, the Registrar was TPP Wholesale Pty Ltd and the registrant was BIZ-AUS Pty Ltd, the registrant contact name is Bill Geldis who appears to be the Network Support Representive at Dodo Australia, formerly owned by the owners of Melbourne United,
For those wanting to see all the details themselves can click on here to be taken to the ABN lookup site and for all the details on Melbourneunited.com.au click here.
There is no doubt that two teams in a City or Town can provide emotions that are higher many times over than playing a team far away, rivalries like the West Sydney Razorbacks vs Sydney Kings, SE Melbourne Magic vs North Melbourne Giants, North Melbourne Giants vs Melbourne Tigers, South Dragons vs Melbourne Tigers, Victoria Titans vs Melbourne Tigers and perhaps the biggest of them all Melbourne Tigers vs SE Melbourne Magic, the two teams filled the Rod Laver Arena to capacity and the games didn’t disappoint, there were major comebacks from both sides, tense finals, revenge finals, K-Mart vs Big M, Magic Man vs Tigerman and players like Gaze, Bradkte and Copeland against Ronaldson, McKinnon and Anstey
Why Larry Kestelman, Michael Slepoy and Vince Crivelli decide to rip apart the Melbourne Tigers to create a new identity is one of the sport’s biggest mysteries, if they wanted an alternative to the Tigers to draw in the non Tigers fans then buying a new license and making a team from the ground up would of been the logical answer but it is suspected they wanted the lazy approach which was buy a team, keep the list, rename it and then promote it like crazy hoping that the fans of the teams that died due to mismanagement or disagreement with the NBL would flock back to the NBL games and set up a new golden era but fans of the gone from the NBL teams aren’t stupid because they know the shell of Melbourne United has the DNA of the Melbourne Tigers all over it.
A new golden era would be missing one thing and that is rivalry, with Melbourne United being ‘new’ there is no long standing rival for them to face, if Melbourne United didn’t take over the Tigers and went their own way they would of had the 30 year old Tigers as a rival team to fight for Melbourne and the state of Victoria, a new team will soon come to Melbourne but unless it is the Tigers, Giants or Magic it won’t be big for a couple of years if it survives because there is no emotion in two new sides playing and both are just babies in terms of the age of the league.
Maybe Melbourne United will try make a rivalry with the Adelaide 36er’s and go for the Victoria vs South Australia angle of things but will people buy it? Probably not because the Tigers had a fierce rivalry with the 36er’s thanks in part to some signature stomping on Adelaide’s turf and nothing United could do will replace it.
The NBL and Melbourne United should watch the video in this article, it will show you that two big successful Melbourne teams will bring the desired result of a golden era instead of the stealing a team, ripping it apart, painting over the colours and name and hope for the best approach and when the NBL decide to make a new Melbourne team there is no doubt that Tigers fans, Magic fans, Giants fans and the generally curious will be putting their hands up to help form the team that will take United on, then United’s sales pitch will be moot and the games will begin.
We Are Not United looks back to those days when the announcement was that Melbourne United was coming and the Tigers were going, Nate Tomlinson had a lot to say on Twitter about what happened and Tigers fans were really upset by his words, his first act was to say that people who didn’t go to ‘Tiger’s’ games consistently couldn’t talk about how upset they were and it went on to say things that they were still Tigers players and much more, thankfully for us Nate didn’t delete his words like most sportsmen and sportswomen do when they say something controversial and so all 8 tweets are below for readers to see for themselves in their unedited glory.
It should also be noted that Nate is wearing #6 this year which is the retired number of Tigers great Warrick Giddey, so much for Nate claiming they are ‘still Tigers players’ when he is wearing the number that is supposed to be retired and retired is sports way of saying not to be used again.
Melbourne United introduced Daniel Kickert to the fans in a short video presentation but the spell checking department overlooked a very important detail and that is Kickert played for the Nunawading Spectres as a junior and not the Nunawading Specters, since Melbourne United claim to represent the Nunawading Spectres and other Victorian clubs that played in the NBL one would expect the club to make sure they got the spelling of the team right.
This error adds to the ever growing list of errors made by Melbourne United including failing to check the wording on their history page with one example being the following;
“But when the Magic left the floor after Game 2 of the 1998 grand final – beaten by the Adelaide 36ers – it was for the final team, swept up in an off-season merger that created the Victoria Titans.”
We Are Melbourne Tigers Fans 