How many years constitutes a Premiership drought?

[chiangmaipie]

Many commentators considered Collingwood's premiership in 2010 as the breaking of a "premiership drought" Is 20 years about right?

 

[conwaynmfc]

In a perfect world, a different club would win the flag every year, so basically if it's longer than the number of teams in the comp i.e. next year 17 years, 2012 18 years will be a drought IMO.

 

[Rack Watts]

In a perfect world, a different club would win the flag every year, so basically if it's longer than the number of teams in the comp i.e. next year 17 years, 2012 18 years will be a drought IMO.

What I was going to say, well said sir.

 

[Ando727]

In a perfect world, a different club would win the flag every year, so basically if it's longer than the number of teams in the comp i.e. next year 17 years, 2012 18 years will be a drought IMO.

I don't think that quite works. 18 years is just par, a drought is much worse than par. For example, with weather, if we have a year of poor rainfall, it doesn't mean much. A couple in a row we get concerned but it's still not a drought. Once we get many dry years in a row, we call it a drought. So it takes many below par years to call it a drought.

Likewise, in the expanded competition, 18 years is par. 26 years might be considered worrying. 36 years might be considered a drought.

I think people have an unrealistic expectation of what their team should be able to do. Statistically there is no reason a team should win more than 1 in 16-18 years, but because we've seen certain teams win multiple flags in such a period, we assume that the clubs that don't achieve this are in a drought (of course, some certainly are).

On a pure numbers basis, I think you'd have to define a drought as being twice as bad as what is to be expected. Soon par will be 1 in 18 years, a drought will be 1 in 36 years. Of course, a lot of teams are already in droughts and others are well on their way. For more successful teams, even 1 flag every 18 years feels lean.

 

[GameOver]

I don't think that quite works. 18 years is just par, a drought is much worse than par. For example, with weather, if we have a year of poor rainfall, it doesn't mean much. A couple in a row we get concerned but it's still not a drought. Once we get many dry years in a row, we call it a drought. So it takes many below par years to call it a drought.

Likewise, in the expanded competition, 18 years is par. 26 years might be considered worrying. 36 years might be considered a drought.

I think people have an unrealistic expectation of what their team should be able to do. Statistically there is no reason a team should win more than 1 in 16-18 years, but because we've seen certain teams win multiple flags in such a period, we assume that the clubs that don't achieve this are in a drought (of course, some certainly are).

On a pure numbers basis, I think you'd have to define a drought as being twice as bad as what is to be expected. Soon par will be 1 in 18 years, a drought will be 1 in 36 years. Of course, a lot of teams are already in droughts and others are well on their way. For more successful teams, even 1 flag every 18 years feels lean.

Exactly what I was thinking... 20 yrs SEEMS like such a long time but statistically it's only a couple of years past par... Western Bulldogs are in a drought... Collingwood had one going until 1990... Sydney/ Sth Melbourne had a serious drought until their last premiership... the only 3 I would consider in droughts now are Bulldogs, Saints and Dees... Richmond not far away

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Exactly what I was thinking... 20 yrs SEEMS like such a long time but statistically it's only a couple of years past par... Western Bulldogs are in a drought... Collingwood had one going until 1990... Sydney/ Sth Melbourne had a serious drought until their last premiership... the only 3 I would consider in droughts now are Bulldogs, Saints and Dees... Richmond not far away

I think Richmond could be added to that going by the logic from previous posts here.

They won in '80.
From '81 to '86 there were only 12 teams.
From '87 to '90 (West Coast and Bears) 14 teams.
From '91 to '94 (Adelaide) 15 teams.
From '95 to '96 (Fremantle) 16 teams.
From '97 to present day with the demise of Fitzroy and inclusion of Port there is still 16 teams.

Since '80 there has been an average of 14.8 teams in the competition each year.

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

Given how many teams there are, and how many years a team stays 'up' and 'down' for, I'd say anything over 15 seems about right.

 

[Riders of Rohan]

Anything over 70 years is a drought, anything under is merely a dry spell.

 

[Cudi_420]

Definitely 20+.

 

[no orange peeler]

It is from your last flag it's the length that varies. i;e Geelong are in a 1 year premiership drought, Ricmond 30 years, St kilda 44 years, hawthorn 2 years etc... A farmer doesn't have to be past dry point for a certain amount of time before being declared in drought. Once Dry point is reached he is in drought. Collingwood are the only club not in drought and will be untill someone else breaks the drought.

 

[JA27]

25 years - if no premierships have been won per generation then it is a drought

 

[Father Jack]

In a perfect world, a different club would win the flag every year, so basically if it's longer than the number of teams in the comp i.e. next year 17 years, 2012 18 years will be a drought IMO.

This is fair, I reckon. 18 years is a long time without a flag after all, and by rights you should have won one in that time.

Carlton are getting close, aren't they?

 

[vjknight]

id say it depends on the club.

carlton would consider themselves in a severe drought right now, considering the level of 'expected' success theyd have.

essendon likewise are approaching that.

richmond & melbourne are clearly & obviously drought affected, considering the time & again level of previous success.

as for footscray & stkilda, with only 1 flag, and it was yonks ago, its hard to guage what they consider drought - theyve always had it.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

id say it depends on the club.

carlton would consider themselves in a severe drought right now, considering the level of 'expected' success theyd have.

essendon likewise are approaching that.

richmond & melbourne are clearly & obviously drought affected, considering the time & again level of previous success.

as for footscray & stkilda, with only 1 flag, and it was yonks ago, its hard to guage what they consider drought - theyve always had it.

I agree with this on some level. A drought is more about expectations based on what is normal.

That sounds condescending to teams that haven't won a lot of flags, but it is not meant to be.

If you have to wait longer for your flags, winning one will probably sustain you longer. Sydney for example. I suspect their last flag being 70 odd years in the making will sustain them as long if not longer than this year's flag will sustain Collingwood supporters.

Having been a Carlton supporter since the start of 1979, and experiencing 3 flags in my first 4 seasons, making the finals every year until our next flag in 87, my expectations were high. We then missed the finals which was unthinkable to me, and took 8 years to get to another flag. I thought that was an eternity and I shed tears of relief and celebration.

Now it has been 15 years, that is a bona fide drought for me. However, the fact that we have barely been near the flag in the last decade has given me more realistic expectations. I realised we moved into the Sahara Desert and patience is a virtue.

I also think droughts are more evident when you are so close to achieving your goal. Saints supporters would be more agitated and aware of their drought having come so close to winning a flag the last 2 years. It is like they have moved into a rainforest and it suddenly stopped raining.

 

[Marlin01]

I think Leigh Matthews (or it might have been Sheedy) said he considered 1 premiership every decade to be an excellent performance. So, 1 premiership about every second decade is about par and one every three would be considered underperformance. I reckon 30 years is a drought.

 

[TP86]

There are a lot of factors. As a Hawthorn fan, I knew it would be ridiculous to claim "17 year premiership drought" even though in my life I'd never seen a flag (born in Sydney and knew nothing of Aussie Rules, didn't go to my first game until 1994). I was actually bracing myself for a lifetime hoping to see one premiership...thankfully 2008 happened. I thought it was also a bit much to claim Collingwood's 20 years constituted a drought - I think the meida/opposition fans just enjoyed overstating how long it had been in order to rub it in and evoke a response.

I think a good gauge rather than years, is the percentage of your active fans who haven't seen a premiership. Many of Richmond's adult fans, and 100% of their young fans, have not seen a premiership, that well and truly constitutes a drought even though there would be fans in their mid-30s who remember a premiership from their childhood, or fans in their 50s and 60s who remember the days when Richmond was the VFL's king. Melbourne, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs all obviously fit in that category.

Fremantle have now reached 15 years without a flag since entering the competition, and given every other Non-Vic team has won a premiership, and GC17/GWS will be given every opportunity, I think this constitutes a drought.

However I would consider it spurious for opposition fans to berate Carlton, North Melbourne and Adelaide as suffering a "drought", or for their own fans to claim they are in one.

 

[Blue and Silver]

Personally I haven't experianced a Carlton premiership, having been born in 1991, I was a little too young to appreciate 95'. In my mind that constitutes a drought, but perhaps that is becuase I long to celebrate a premiership to the full extent and fail to appreciate the difficulty of a 30 year break.

 

[GameOver]

I think Richmond could be added to that going by the logic from previous posts here.

I hadn't considered that obviously there were fewer teams when they won their last flag and if the average amount of teams in the comp has been around 15 since 1980, then you could chuck in the Tiges as well... the thing that pushes them over the edge is the number of times they've played finals during that time (what is it, 2-3 yrs out of 30)... Premiership drought? Yes, just. Success drought? Definitely

 

[ROCKETT24]

Id say anything over 25 years is a drought...depends if your playing finals or not.

Collingwood played GF 2002, 2003...and won 2010...so does the other GF appearances amplify the drought thing, because they played in 2 gf's but then dropped off again.

Richmond havent done anything for 30 eyars, so thier drought i believe isnt as amplified as what Collingwoods was, despite being only 20 years.

Id say a premiership drought is anything more than double the amount of teams in the league...so 16 teams = 32 years.

If with 18 teams a club has no premiership after 32 years, id still class that as a drought. THATS A LOOOOOOONNNNNG TIME.