Competition "What If" Wednesdays - Time Traveller Sneezes Edition: Week 30 - South Sydney Rabbitohs to the AFL

[cannavo]

Back to back CCC's!

Welcome to …

Marty McFly has done himself a mischief and has altered the course of Aussie footy in ways you can't imagine!
Get ready to dive into alternate futures!​

What is “What If” Wednesdays?
"What if" Wednesdays was a competition comprised of real-life football team proposals, merger propositions, former teams and a few hypotheticals brought to life by the FJGD community (eg. If the Melbourne-Hawthorn merger went ahead, if University/Fitzroy/Bris Bears stuck around, if Gold Coasts nickname were the Lifesavers etc.) it became this boards longest running competition (8/9/14 – 29/5/19). It has been revived under a meme cultured spin-off! Time traveller sneezes memes are all about butterfly effects on various things caused by a time traveller altering the past by means of a simple sneeze.


What’s new this time around?
This time or these times around, we will be flung into various timelines where our universes former teams, mergers, relocation proposals never existed or had its outcome altered slightly or severely! The list below is comprised of alternate timelines and the butterfly effect caused by our cheeky time traveller. Your job is to envision this outcome! Each comp will run for 1 week and the poll will run for 3 days. The winner picks the next team from the list below.

There are some routes you can go by if you're stuck:

• The chosen team has entered their designated competition in the current year (unless specified) along with the current teams OR
• You may design kits at any point in time unless strictly specified OR
• Accompany your kits with a backstory on how the team came to be to help better envision the outcome OR
• Try using AI text to conjure up a scenario and AI images to envision potential concepts OR
• Use Google to search the history and stories behind what is being altered

Bare minimum for an entry is:

• A home kit with the front of the jumper showing
  (Back, shorts, socks are optional)
• OPTIONAL Away kit (Home with white shorts is acceptable)
• OPTIONAL 3rd kit
  • Clash kit
  • Heritage kit
  • Other kit
• OPTIONAL Club Logo (Highly Encouraged!)

Let’s see what has happened this time

Our Timeline: South Sydney Rabbitohs only play rugby league in the NRL
Altered Timeline: South Sydney Rabbitohs add 'Australian Rules' to their active departments and submit an AFL team​

Basic Rules (Read Carefully):

1. Kits and Logo must be in 1 picture (Makes polls easier to fit everything in)
2. The kits can consist of just a Jumper (Shorts and socks are encouraged to give a full identity effect)
3. Minimum 1 kit and there's no limit to how many kits you can include after that
   eg. Home and Away and/or Clash and/or Heritage and/or Others
   1. Designing a Home and away/clash kit is highly encouraged for that authentic feel and to develop that alternate universe experience
4. Attempt to stay close to the altered timeline
5. Directly copying current football team kits/logos are not allowed
6. Creating a logo is encouraged but you may take inspiration from and/or alter any existing sports logo to drive home your design.
7. Maximum 2 entries per person
8. Any questions at all, please ask!

Specific Category Rules:

Cross-Code Craze rules:

1. The kits are to represent what the NRL team would look like if they were to compete in the AFL
2. You may change the clubs moniker if you like, but the location must remain the same
3. Colours have to closely match the NRL teams palette, but you may use less or add more if you like

UPDATED Alternate timelines with categories
Bold - Completed with poll results
Italics - Newly added

Mergers

• Melbourne - St Kilda merger (1995)
• Tasmania - Fitzroy Merger
• Sydney - Fitzroy Merger
• Gold Coast Suns seek merger with Sharks to stay alive
• Fitzroy - Brisbane (Fitzroy Bears)
• Tasmania agree to merger with North Melbourne
• Port Melbourne granted VFL licensed but only if they merge with Fitzroy
• Williamstown merge with Footscray – 1989
• Norwood / Port Adelaide AFL merger (1991)
• South Melbourne - Footscray merger
• South Melbourne and North Melbourne merger

Relocations

• Saints relocate to NZ
• Essendon relocate to NT to become Alice Springs
• Hawthorn relocate to Canberra
• Fitzroy relocate to Canberra
• Fitzroy relocate to Brisbane in the 80s (Prior to the Bears existing)
• South Melbourne relocate to Tasmania
• South Melbourne relocate to Canberra
• Fitzroy complete move to North Sydney - 1980
• Footscray relocate to Queensland - 1981
• Fitzroy relocate to Perth - 1981
• GWS relocate to Canberra
• Melbourne relocate to Mars
  • Tiebreaker Poll
• Fitzroy relocate to South Africa - 1997

League transfers

• West Coast Eagles to the SANFL
• Brisbane Bears to the SANFL
• Fitzroy to the SANFL - 1981
• Footscray to the SANFL - 1981
• Adelaide Uni to the SANFL - 1991 (cannot use only black and white)
• Collingwood to the SANFL - 1997
• East Perth to the VFL - 1980
• Norwood to the AFL
• Launceston to the AFL
• Essendon to the WAFL
• Perth to the AFL (Merger of Perth, East Perth & West Perth)
• Glenelg to the AFL - 1997
• Geelong West to the VFL - 1976
• Swan Districts to the AFL - 1991

New Teams

• Port Adelaide crows join the AFL - 1991
• Papua New Guinea enter the AFL
• Limestone Coast join the SANFL
• Mount Gambier join the SANFL
• Sydney enter as a separate team (Bloods stay in Vic)
• Darwin join the AFL - 1991
• Public Service Football Club join the VFL
• Gold Coast fold, new North Queensland team take their place - 2030
• NZ enter 90's State of Origin
• Broome become the 2nd WA AFL team
  • Tiebreaker Poll
• Gold Coast hijack Brisbane Bears VFL entry - 1986
• Hobart to the AFL (Can't use Devils branding)
• Newcastle team to the AFL
• Southwest of WA to the AFL
• Tea Tree Gully & Modbury merge to make tenth SANFL team (2014)

Colour Corner

• West Coast Eagles VFL kits altered due to Williamstown sharing the same colours
• GWS keep their 'Team GWS' colours
• Port Adelaide retain their Magenta
• Adelaide's hurried concept
  (Adelaide board hastily attain clothes from local sport store and use the 5 colours to design their new AFL team)
• Fremantle keep Red & Green, remove Purple & White
• Williamstown join the VFL in 1925 - design a late '90s/early '00s clash/away guernsey for them (1995-2005)

Specials

• Hawthorn release Ochre jumper - 2000
• Skittle's sponsor Essendon and release special guernsey
• Heidelberg Warriors align with Collingwood for 1 season - 1996
• Melbourne remain as 'The Invincible Whites'
• Collingwood remain as 'Britannia'
• Carlton remain as 'The Cockatoos'
• Hawthorn remain as 'The Mayblooms'
• BigFooty becomes the majority stakeholder, and primary sponsor of Gold Coast, requesting a new jumper set with the deal

New Category - Cross-Code Craze

• Newcastle Knights to the VFL - 1988
• Cronulla Sharks to the AFL - 1998
• South Sydney Rabbitohs to the AFL

 

[Sam Hall]

Dumped by the NRL after the 1999 season for failing to find a club to merge with, the South Sydney Rabbitohs decide that instead of taking the NRL to the high court they will apply to be the AFL's 17th team. The bid is successful as the AFL is keen to take on the NRL's "Oldest, Loudest, Proudest" club in a bid to gain Rugby Leagues largest market of fans in NSW. To appease old school fans who think the classic hoops design is sacred to Rugby League, the Rabbitohs design a new guernsey specifically for AFL which incorporates arguably Aussie rules most iconic design, the sash, with Souths extremely popular Rugby Sevens jersey from the 1990's, known affectionately as the "Minties jersey".

 

[BigChippa52]

ill have something for this week

 

[terrybull]

Sorry for this childish design, but first time doing this and got an iPhone and no clue what app to use.

But South Sydney one of the biggest rugby club in Australia wanting to bank in on the success of AFL in Sydney decided to put in a club. The South Sydney Rodents.

Their slogan “why follow a rebranded Melbourne club or a franchise team when you can follow a Sydney original”.

They went for their classic jumper

Hopefully I can fix this in time…

 

[troybe]

South Sydney have plans on becoming an all encompassing sports club. With the South Sydney brand having a netball team, cricket team, basketball team. Next on their agenda was to form an AFL club, not wanting to dilute the Rabbitohs name, Redferns was chosen as a nod to their spiritual home. The Myrtle and Cardinal Hoops synonymous with South Sydney was translated to the AFL jumper giving it the traditional feel the club wanted to convey to its fans.

 

[Mac Ropod]

 

[rabbitoh21]

So I should probably preface this by saying I was actually around when there was a non-zero chance we wouldn't play in the NRL again, so I've gone for what a jump to the AFL in 2000 would have looked like based off of our 1999 and 2002 uniforms.

I was actually among the tens of thousands marching through George Street as a 5-year-old with my mum and dad and you can actually spot us sometimes if you see the footage.

It wouldn't have been that farfetched and funnily enough we may as well have played elsewhere - most of us stopped watching the NRL altogether. We started watching the Swans and Wallabies instead, until we came back in 2002.

The clash is based off of our 2002 away - our first win came in R2 in that guernsey/jersey down at Canberra. The home is based off the 1999 home which is also where the Downtown Duty Free sponsorship comes in.

The Rabbitohs logo used is a recreation of our pre-1977 badge which the NSWRL/ARL/NRL had no claim to, which we used on fightback merch and our exhibition match jerseys. I kept Classic under the assumption that, had we somehow been given a franchise that quickly, they'd just cut up some jerseys and stitch some cuffs and a collar on for us.

 

[BigChippa52]

 

[KBLT]