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Brisbane Roar coach Robbie Fowler believes the A-League club needs to look at playing more matches away from Suncorp Stadium, saying the venue is "not ideal".
Brisbane Roar coach Robbie Fowler admits playing in front of a mostly-empty Suncorp Stadium isn't helping the A-League club.
The Roar play just their second match of the season at the 52,500 venue on Saturday when Central Coast come to town.
Just under 13,000 turned up to watch the 1-0 loss to Melbourne Victory in October, leaving almost four-fifths of the stadium empty.
The Roar's only other home match this season was a 4-3 thriller against Melbourne City at Redcliffe's Dolphin Stadium north of Brisbane.
While the 9387 attendance was lower than the Victory crowd, the packed stands at the 10,000-capacity venue provided an atmosphere which Fowler believed helped lift his team to the comeback win.
"Obviously the structure of Brisbane Roar as a club, we are a team that fundamentally plays out of Suncorp," Fowler said.
"Ideally, it's not probably spot on.
"I think it was proven the other weekend against Melbourne just how good that little boutique stadium is.
"The overall general game, was a lot better because of the atmosphere."
Since the start of the 2017-18 season Brisbane have managed a 15,000-plus crowd at Suncorp just once with 15,129 watching a goalless draw against Wellington in round two last season.
The average A-League attendance at the venue is 13,725 and there has long been a push among football supporters in Brisbane for a smaller boutique venue such as Parramatta's Bankwest Stadium to be built in the city.
The Roar will play two more matches this season in Redcliffe and Fowler admits if he gets his way he'd like to see more games in the whole A-League played at smaller venues.
"The A-League has been like this for a number of years now where we have teams playing maybe in stadiums that are too big," he said.
"I'm all for playing in little stadiums, getting the crowds as big as possible, as noisy as you can. We'll address that in the coming months and the coming year I think."
