Welcome to Aussiezone, the 230th edition of our humble Zone. This is the most in depth and professional Zone I’ve put together yet, with local content ranging from A-League reviews, playoffs and previews – revealing the winners of all the competitions and discussing the new season, National Cup articles, AIHL, plus National Team news and how the Aussie Legends fared in the inaugral legends league, with the second round inductees introduced.
There are articles and special interviews courtesy of our international RA partners in Brazil – Maxximus, Turkey – Isk42 and Cankuthan, Italy – Theking94 and Sweden – Bebben delivering content with a global relevance for us all to read, much appreciated. Isk42 has done a great job with several interviews from the higher ranks of crew, xA’s and the winning coach from the recent European Cup.
But it’s not all rosy, we are in for a fight to keep our Zone as a stand alone quaterly released. Our MA Yunus is on our side, so that’s a good thing, but crew want all countries to release 3 zones a season or be rolled into collective regional zones to do so.
I flatly told Yunus my opinion on the matter and he agreed with me, in short there is no way I’m releasing 3 Zones of this same standard every season, writing 10-12 articles a month. That’s the equivalent of doing a full-time job for free. There is a reason every HRA before me has burnt out and quit his post, they were overworked putting together a magazine they had to released to often.
This problem has been exascerbated with the Australian community contracting. I’ve been asked to find new RA’s to help me out and if any are out there that would like to be involved as active writers new or old then by all means get in touch with me. But neither will I force people to do a job they don’t want to do, a point on which Yunus and I agree. Being an RA is suppose to be fun and enhance the experience of playing the game for those who choose to get involved through their own free will.
It’s quality, not quantity and how fast you knock them out that makes people want to read the zone. Everyone knows I will release a zone the weekend before a new season starts, it’s regular schedule you can trust, released when Managerzone has it’s peak number of users online to maximise it’s exposure when the new season begins.
I went back to one zone a season to avoid the burnout of those before me and keep the workout manageable with a lack of contributing RA’s. Eric and Therk have been unable to write this time round, with Senile Old Men the sole fellow aussie to help out with the national team article as head coach, Senile it’s much appreciated.
This is an unusual welcome to Zone 230, but I wanted to inform you all of what is going on and where the future of aussiezone sits within the mechanics of the internal Managerzone beast. I’m willing to contribute to a regional zone, but they have been tried before and failed to engage with the users. It would be a shame to have our Blog become inactive because of an internal decision I fundamentally disagree with. Hopefully that won’t happen and I’ll do my best to keep things as they are right now.
In a smaller markets such as Australia, I believe a well done single zone per season, combining a local focus, with articles about the global game is a better option than a regional zone. From tracking wordpress’s views data on who reads from where around the globe. I know that this format of Aussiezone already has an international readership across Europe, Asia, North and South America through multiple countries on all continents. So Yunus and I will fight to keep aussiezone as you know it alive and well. Enjoy the read, Cheers, Matt
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