Are Victorians holding football back?

[Catlike]

The VFL/AFL has been the premier competition in Australia for 112 years now.

I would suggest interstate clubs concerntrate on getting a few bums on seats because right now it's the Victorian clubs propping up the competition with it's attendances.

 

[jpdixon]

This notion of a 'decent national competition' is a furphy though.

From this point, it's hard to see what form an improvement could take, but we do supposedly have a national competition.

We're seeing now that even two SA teams requires deft and careful management.

(A side track, but from the following discussion it's not clear how the financial issues in SA vary with the number of teams in the AFL - there are several related issues.)

The AFL is not the Senate. Not every state deserves 'equal representation'.

As I said above, I respect the hurt that followers of clubs like Sturt and South Freo must have experienced when their clubs were effectively relegated.

Yet they now still choose to follow the AFL clubs that effectively pushed them under. That's their choice.

There's a fair amount of space between 'equal representation' and 5/8 (or 5/9) of the teams in Melbourne+Geelong, but the distribution of teams is really just one part of this. As long as the mindsets are that the other teams are simply part of a big suburban competition, there are problems. Too much of the current setup is trying to be two things at once.

It's one thing to have your local team degraded for a national competition (whether Victoria has 10 teams or not), it's another to have it degraded by a team which is treated as an addition to Victoria's local comp, even 30 years on. If some people are happy to take an AFL team and whinge about what that team did to the local team, then there are others happy to take the benefits an expanded AFL and yet insist on seeing everything through VFL-tinted glasses.

 

[Ron The Bear]

As long as the mindsets are that the other teams are simply part of a big suburban competition, there are problems.

Whilst I'm sure the game's administrators don't have that perspective, that's essentially how most Victorian footy supporters see it, myself included.

There are bigger problems associated with rationalising the Melbourne clubs. The AFL could facilitate this within a decade by withdrawing financial support, but they fear the backlash, and rightly so. It'll be generations before Victorians will accept club rationalisation in the interests of a national competition.

 

[greatwhiteshark]

The VFL/AFL has been the premier competition in Australia for 112 years now.

I would suggest interstate clubs concerntrate on getting a few bums on seats because right now it's the Victorian clubs propping up the competition with it's attendances.

I am not sure which interstate club or clubs you are referring to but the Eagles are a sell out every game mate.

 

[tandino]

The VFL/AFL has been the premier competition in Australia for 112 years now.

I would suggest interstate clubs concerntrate on getting a few bums on seats because right now it's the Victorian clubs propping up the competition with it's attendances.

This will go over well.

 

[Papa G]

Whilst I'm sure the game's administrators don't have that perspective, that's essentially how most Victorian footy supporters see it, myself included.

There are bigger problems associated with rationalising the Melbourne clubs. The AFL could facilitate this within a decade by withdrawing financial support, but they fear the backlash, and rightly so. It'll be generations before Victorians will accept club rationalisation in the interests of a national competition.

Ron, with all due respect you like to see it as a Victorian suburban competition because that's the last time your club had any bloody relevance. Sorry mate but the world has moved on and clubs like West Coast and Adelaide dwarf yours in terms of clout and achievement. In the new world order Richmond is nothing but a middle power and really all this Big 4 crap particularly Richmond fans seem to go on about counts for pretty much Jack Shit.

 

[Ron The Bear]

Ron, with all due respect you like to see it as a Victorian suburban competition because that's the last time your club had any bloody relevance. Sorry mate but the world has moved on and clubs like West Coast and Adelaide dwarf yours in terms of clout and achievement. In the new world order Richmond is nothing but a middle power and really all this Big 4 crap particularly Richmond fans seem to go on about counts for pretty much Jack Shit.

Price paid for arrogance, and not adapting to changing times. The potential remains for the club to return as a force if it can ever get its act together.

I've never clung to the Big 4 thing, and see the comp as an expanded VFL because all the clubs I grew up with, bar one, are still running. I'll concede, I can never truly put myself in the same shoes as a non-Victorian follower.

 

[jpdixon]

I would suggest interstate clubs concerntrate on getting a few bums on seats because right now it's the Victorian clubs propping up the competition with it's attendances.

This year, all the crowds under 20,000 were home games for Victorian clubs except two Port Adelaide games. Apart from two, they were between a Vic and a non-Vic club, a fair few prosituted to interstate venues or at Kardinia. Of the two others, Port v Freo drew 2000 more than NM v Melb.

Obviously Geelong are doing fine, and the prostitution involves other factors - the issue isn't simply "bums on seats". In any case, the idea that non-Vic clubs should supply bums on seats for games in Victoria is just stupid. If that's the expectation, then there shouldn't be any sort of national competition.

Whilst I'm sure the game's administrators don't have that perspective, that's essentially how most Victorian footy supporters see it, myself included.

There are bigger problems associated with rationalising the Melbourne clubs.

I don't see a way out of hte mess - I'm certainly not going as far as suggestion rationalising, but the administrators are quite happy to make use of the way most Vics see it. Perhaps if people in general saw it a bit more evenly, things would be different - either because the problems are diminished, or because more solutions become viable. Who knows, perhaps GC and WS will tip the balance, for better or worse.

 

[Ron The Bear]

I don't see a way out of hte mess - I'm certainly not going as far as suggestion rationalising, but the administrators are quite happy to make use of the way most Vics see it. Perhaps if people in general saw it a bit more evenly, things would be different - either because the problems are diminished, or because more solutions become viable. Who knows, perhaps GC and WS will tip the balance, for better or worse.

It'll help, if that's the right word. More interstate clubs means more reliance on TV to follow your team. It's a spectator sport, and I don't class TV viewers as spectators.

 

[Zvim]

I would eventually like to see 2 divisions of 10 teams.

10 vics = 18 rounds. Draft only Vics.

10 teams for the remainder of the country = 18 rounds.

4 prelims.
2 GF's

1 super dooper GF.

I think as more teams are introduced we will end up in divisions so it doesn't create longer seasons.

I don't think there will be drafting restrictions, half the AFL players each year comes from Victoria and quite often a lot of the top end talent is Victorian, it would be unfair to interstate sides to restrict them from access to those players.

 

[legend166]

A conference system that wasn't simply Vics and non-Vics would do wonders in terms of changing the perception of the AFL.

Sadly, the AFL administrators showed their true colours after the ridiculous attempts to come up with some enquiry into the poor performance of non-Victorian sides.

 

[FrankenLynch]

IMO the only way a truly national competition could have been formed in the past with all state associations (VFL, SANFL, WAFL) remaining self-less would have been to take several clubs (either individually or merged creations from all leagues) from each competition and start the national comp.

Obviously this would have been extremely difficult to decide the number or total teams, the number of teams from each state, which teams, merges etc. but it would probably have been the only way to start a national competition from scratch, rather than expanding a current state league.

Thinking about it more, another alternative could have been to introduce all state teams as is and create divisions and promotion/relegation like soccer leagues.

All this is massively speculative and it obviously would've been a massive punt either way as there would have been so much uncertainty (crowds, acceptance, money in the sport, enough population etc.) but IMO it would've been the only truly national comp possible. That's my 2c anyway.

 

[twentydollarnote]

Doesnt really need to be a national comp Frankenlynch the AFL gets what they want out of SA, WA, NT & tassie having victoria as a center is a strength not a weakness as the northern states arent going to support the game.

 

[SweetLeftFoot]

Again you know I hate correcting you Sweetie, but Glenelg were never proud or that successful. In fact the Crows took a fair chunk of the Bays support staff in the formative years which would explain why they were so shit until Blight came along.

I wouldn't call the Dogs or St Kilda partuicularly proud or successful over the journey either.

Yet I know people love them (The deluded fools!) just as much as I love North.

And people loved Glenelg with the same passion.

 

[FootyJunkie]

IMO the only way a truly national competition could have been formed in the past with all state associations (VFL, SANFL, WAFL) remaining self-less would have been to take several clubs (either individually or merged creations from all leagues) from each competition and start the national comp.

Obviously this would have been extremely difficult to decide the number or total teams, the number of teams from each state, which teams, merges etc. but it would probably have been the only way to start a national competition from scratch, rather than expanding a current state league.

Thinking about it more, another alternative could have been to introduce all state teams as is and create divisions and promotion/relegation like soccer leagues.

All this is massively speculative and it obviously would've been a massive punt either way as there would have been so much uncertainty (crowds, acceptance, money in the sport, enough population etc.) but IMO it would've been the only truly national comp possible. That's my 2c anyway.

Promotion/Relegation with AFL and VFL/SANFL/WAFL underneath.

AFL - 8 teams
VFL - 8 teams (4 in the AFL)
SANFL - 7 teams (2 in the AFL)
WAFL - 7 teams (2 in the AFL)

 

[SweetLeftFoot]

Its never going to happen.

It will be the current sixteen teams plus GC and GWS for a generation at least.

Only possible change may be a Vic team reloacting to Tassie.

 

[TooFar]

I wouldn't call the Dogs or St Kilda partuicularly proud or successful over the journey either.

Yet I know people love them (The deluded fools!) just as much as I love North.

And people loved Glenelg with the same passion.

But don’t you see, that is the whole ethos of Port supporters. It is piss easy to follow a team that is constantly winning flags, anyone can jump on a bandwagon. It take a lot more guts to continually show support for a team that struggles. That is why Port supporters have disappeared, that are mostly bandwagoners . Look at Richmond supporters, continuously let down by their team, but without fail they front up year after year – that is character, that is passion for the club, something Port supporter obviously don’t have as there poor attendance of late shows.

Look at Glenelg, we played in 17 grand finals and won only 4, most of them between the late 60’s to the early 90’s. How much disappointment is that? Yet we continued to show up in large numbers year after year.

Port supporters can go on and on about all the flags they have won, but what really counts is do they continue to support the club when then team is performing poorly, the answer is a resounding no.

 

[SweetLeftFoot]

Its interesting. I have a lot of time for Port supporters like dyertribe who strike me as 'real' footy supporters.

But then in types like PapaG, I realise that they really were the Collingwood ... Carlton even ... of the SANFL.

PapaG was all for a savage economic rationalism in the comp when North were being shafted to the GC.

Fast forward a year or two and some desperate losses down at Alberton, and he's suddenly seeing things a bit differentley.

 

[TooFar]

No to sure about dyertribe either. Notice how he disappeared when I met his challenge yesterday...

 

[SweetLeftFoot]

No to sure about dyertribe either. Notice how he disappeared when I met his challenge yesterday...

He likes North so that's good enough for me!

 

[feenix67]

See the problem with all this is that the original reason for the expansion of the VFL was not about any grand plans to nationalise the comp - it was about "how can we (Victorians) save our comp". Expanding the comp was a way to generate immediate income so that Victorian clubs who were on the brink of financial collapse would be sustained.

The thing is, having done so, the question became "ok so what now?". The result has been a half assed attempt to transform an expanded state league into a national league, all the while trying to hang on to the traditions of the past (in Victoria) and maintain that "tribal feel" (in Victoria) while sipping chardys from the corporate boxes.

Its utter fabricated crap.

We had 3 state leagues that were thriving with rabid supporters and fierce intra and interstate rivalries. 4 if you include Tassie. 5 if you include the untapped wonderland of the NT. We had the passion, all that needed to happen was for the three leagues to get together on equal footing and work out a new business model to take the game into the 21st century financially. Instead, we got a bunch of narcissistic Victorian Football Board members wrecking the fabric of the game for the benefit of their own club's balance sheet.

Look at Port Adelaide as a study in everything that has been stuffed up in the game. PAFC (I hate them) are the most successful sporting club in Australia. They had a rabid supporter base, struck fear into the hearts of their rivals and had been around as long as any other footy club on the planet. For the Victorian readers, think Collingwood except with success. In the space of 12 years in the manufactured world of the AFL, where they have had to compromise their traditions and culture for the sake of "opening up the club to new markets", and they are a shadow of their former selves, broke and losing supporters. As much as I hate them with a passion, I find their circumstances extremely sad, because I know it illustrates perfectly the bigger picture of today's game of Aussie Rules.

Sadly, I cant see anything changing any time soon - there are now just too many pigs with their noses in the troughs. But I sure wish we could start from scratch and build a true national comp underpinned by thriving state leagues made up of the traditional clubs.

 

[Wonaeamirri33]

I've got to agree with this. Certainly as a Fitzroy supporter - it doesn't take Einstein to figure out that things would've been infinitely better for us now if the national league had been drawn up along those lines...

 

[Slattery_20]

wonae - If they re-did the whole comp, picking only the strongest state teams, Fitzroy wouldn't have made it in anyway.

Port had everything in 2004 - seems like (to me) they basically ran themselves into the ground.
There has to be some element of sink-or-swim at some stage. Clubs have to know what is within their financial limits and spend accordingly. Running a nationally marketed club with $7M on player wages is probably not going to work with 15000 crowds.

Exactly how has the fabric of the game been ripped?

 

[The Fireman]

Victoria, is, was , will always be the home of football.
Just the way it is.

 

[Wonaeamirri33]

wonae - If they re-did the whole comp, picking only the strongest state teams, Fitzroy wouldn't have made it in anyway.

Well my point was that we would have much rather ended up in the VFL, and had the ability to chase promotion back to the AFL, instead of being forced by a process of deliberate and continued whiteanting to bow out of the AFL permanently.

For that matter, the Roys would have most certainly survived and the future of the club would have been eminently secure, were it not for that continuous campaign of Oakley, Samuel, Collins et al that went on for well over a decade.

Particularly if we had been able to set up our base in Canberra, which would have been every bit as financially beneficial to us as the Hawthorn move into Tasmania, because we had a strong base of support in the ACT.

As I said to someone else on another thread, not only did the AFL under Oakley hamper Fitzroy to extreme levels regarding the operation of the Club in Melbourne, we were also prevented from setting up any long-term base either in Canberra (where we planned to play 8 games a season, and had a strong base and willing long-term backers), or in Tasmania prior to that time (where we also had a strong base), amongst other things.

Here's a record of most of the ways the AFL kicked us in the teeth over the last decade and a bit of our time in the league- you'll probably find it a real eye-opener:

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showpost.php?p=15294169&postcount=60