THE AFL AND THE HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

by Max Sayer

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Subiaco's Austin Robertson junior looks set to mark against Richmond in the 1973 championship of Australia final at Adelaide Oval.  These matches were important foundation stones for today's national competition, but have been completely ignored by the AFL.

  Introduction

  The AFL's 'Memorable Moments' Promotion

  The SANFL And The WAFL In Comparison To The VFL:-

                By Standard Of Football

                Elite Competitions? Where Did The Star Players Choose To Play The Game?

  How Can The National Nature Of Elite Football History In Australia Be Promoted By The AFL?

  Representation In The Australian Football Hall of Fame

  The National Perspective And The AFL Statistical Yearbooks

  Why The AFL Has To Do More To Preserve Australian Football History

[All the images which follow are clickable]

Introduction

Growing up in the South Australian bush in the 1970s, my presence at a league football match was restricted to the odd occasion when my parents had taken my siblings and I to Adelaide for a weekend. But in my dreams, I was never far from the action of the SANFL. Many a Saturday afternoon was spent carrying a transistor radio around, listening to the commentary from the match of the day on ABC radio. My club's guernsey was a prized possession, and my spirit rose or fell according to the performance of the team. By Saturday night it was time to catch up with the SANFL action on television with 'The Big Replay'. It was my weekly chance to see my idols in action. Like many others growing up in South Australia at that time, it was the SANFL stars who were my sporting idols – and men like Ebert, Robran, Blight, Cornes and Bagshaw were household names.  

Thirty years later and we are nearly twenty years into a real national competition which came about when the VFL expanded with new teams based in Perth and Brisbane, a few years after the South Melbourne club had moved to a Sydney base. We now have two teams from each of Western Australia and South Australia competing – but have my dreams about the fusing of football heritage from the various footballing states been fulfilled?  The opportunity has presented itself, but, sadly, it has almost completely been ignored by the AFL and by the national football media.  

When the VFL became the self declared custodian of the game nationally, it was able to make the transition to a national competition whilst preserving the history of its own past. That is, of course, most appropriate – and the league has continued to preserve and celebrate its own history in good fashion. Yet, when the league abandoned the NFL after the 1976 Wills Cup competition, and instead went down the path of forming its own national competition, it assumed the responsibility of running the game not only in Victoria, but in the rest of Australia as well. In regard to football history, it became morally bound to preserve and promote not only the VFL’s past, but also aspects of football history from outside Victoria that are of national significance.

It has to be conceded that the strength of football culture in both Western Australia and South Australia has assisted in the successful expansion of the VFL from a suburban competition into a successful, professional, multi-million dollar national organisation. If not for the vibrant and successful SANFL and WAFL competitions, each with over a century of tradition, the transition to a national competition may have proved far more complex. One imagines that Western Australian and South Australian fans have learnt a lot about VFL football history since teams from those states joined the league, but how much have Victorian fans learnt about the football heritage of Western Australia and South Australia? I can hear many Victorian fans saying “who cares” but I imagine such a reaction is just a continuation of the unfortunate parochial mindset that has set back the celebration and growth of our game over many years.

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The AFL's 'Memorable Moments' Promotion

  The Barrie Robran (pictured above, right) inspired victory by North Adelaide over Carlton in the 1972 Championship of Australia final.

  Western Australia attaining national champion status with victory in the 1961 ANFC carnival.

  Port Adelaide’s remarkable undefeated 1914 season which culminated in a victory over VFL premiers Carlton in the Championship of Australia match.

  South Australia’s victory over the Big V at the MCG  to claim the state of origin national championship in 1993.

  Peter Hudson’s goalkicking exploits in Tasmania which saw him kick over 2,000 goals at senior level.

  Haydn Bunton senior’s third Sandover Medal which gave him his sixth state league medal overall.

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The SANFL and the WAFL in comparison to the VFL:-

        By Standard Of Football

After the South Melbourne club relocated to Sydney in 1982, the VFL expanded with new teams based in Perth, Brisbane and then Adelaide. It renamed itself the Australian Football League, and the ANFC/NFL became redundant as the AFL assumed custodianship of the game around the country. The SANFL and WAFL were officially relegated to feeder league status as their competitions became the second tier of competition. But what of the first 86 years of the twentieth century – before Western Australia and South Australia fielded teams in the VFL-AFL – were they really second tier competitions then?  

When South Australia defeated the VFL in Melbourne in 1926, it was the 10th victory for the Croweaters in the 26 matches against the Big V that had been staged since Federation in 1901. In other words, South Australia had achieved a 38.5% success rate in its matches against Victoria in the first 26 years of the century. When one considers that at club level during the first quarter of the 20^th century, South Australian clubs had been successful in 6 of the 7 Championship of Australia matches that had been played between the premier clubs of the two states, it is difficult to comprehend an argument that Victorian football was a full tier higher in standard than South Australian football during that era. 

Contests between the state teams of Victoria , South Australia and Western Australia were relatively evenly balanced during that first quarter of the 20^th century. Whilst Western Australia had enjoyed success against the VFL only once in 7 encounters, they enjoyed a 6-5 advantage in matches against South Australia .  Five ANFC championships had been staged – and the three states had shared the spoils – the VFL had won 3 titles, South Australia and Western Australia one each.

During the second quarter of the century, in the years from 1926 to 1950, the VFL won 17 from 25 encounters against Western Australia , and 25 wins from 33 encounters against South Australia . There was no doubt that the VFL had established a superiority over the other states – but, there had still been nearly 1 in every 3 games it had competed in against South Australia and Western Australia in the first half of the century where it had not claimed victory.

In matches between the league clubs, South Australian clubs had won more games than they had lost (12 wins, 10 losses and a draw) against VFL clubs in the first half of the 20th entury. Whilst all but 7 of these 23 club matches had been played in Adelaide , and some of the matches could only be regarded as of exhibition status, it is still a significant fact that the South Australian clubs had won the majority of these games. It is true that by 1950 Victoria had established itself as the strongest football state, but it is equally as certain that there would have been few in 1950 who would have regarded the VFL as being a full tier above the South Australian competition in quality. This is why I don’t think we can draw a line back through time and assume that the VFL has always been the only elite competition in the nation.

THE GROWING STRENGTH OF THE BIG V - INTERSTATE MATCHES 1901-2000 (see footnote 1)

Note: The above table does not include state league games played between the VFL and the SANFL or WAFL since the expansion of the VFL into the AFL incorporating teams from SA and WA.

At club level, the premiership clubs of South Australia met the VFL premiership teams on 23 occasions during the twentieth century, for 7 wins and 16 losses. In the years between 1901 and 1976 (which was the last year that VFL teams competed in the NFL competition before embarking on a bid to create its own national competition) there were also a further 37 matches between clubs from the two states in end of season exhibition games, mid-season tour matches, the 1971 Rothmans Channel Seven Cup and the 1976  NFL competition, with South Australian clubs winning 17, and Victorian clubs 19, with 1 match drawn. The overall record then, for the 1901-1976 era, was 35-1-24 in favour of the VFL clubs – a winning rate of 59.2%. If the 23 matches between clubs from the respective states in the era the VFL’s national night competition, from 1979 to 1986, are added, then the overall record is 54-1-28 in favour of the Victorian clubs – a winning rate of 65.7%.

MATCHES BETWEEN VFL AND SANFL CLUBS 1901-1986

The performances of clubs in these matches is expressed below in the form P-V-D-SA-%, where:

P = games played

V = games won by VFL clubs  

D = drawn games

SA = games won by SANFL clubs

% = percentage of games won by VFL clubs

Note: The above  figures include matches played on mid-season tours (by Collingwood to South Australia in 1905, and by Norwood to Victoria in 1906). Collingwood defeated Norwood in 1905, whilst Norwood defeated Essendon and Fitzroy in 1906.

However, the table above does not include any pre-season trial matches, which were relatively common in the 1960s and 1970s.

* The above summary for the period 1901-76 is considered relevant, as 1976 was:

a)      the last year that the VFL participated in the NFL competition with SANFL and WAFL clubs before leaving to resurrect it’s own night competition, at the beginning of a period of transition which ultimately saw the VFL become the national league. As such it was the last year that SANFL and VFL clubs would compete against each other until 1980, by which time the ‘trickle’ of South Australian players to the VFL was on the way to becoming a torrent; and

b)      it was the year before the first State of Origin match was played. This concept was introduced because the gap in standard between the VFL and the other state leagues was by then considered to be too great – and the State of Origin concept was seen as a way to even up the contests.

1976 could be seen then to be at the end of a period at which the SANFL and WAFL clubs could be considered to be competing at a similar level to VFL clubs. In the years thereafter, the transition toward a VFL run national competition was underway.

Of course, these figures confirm beyond doubt that Victoria was the number one football state during the twentieth century, and of course the strength of the VFL enabled it to expand to a national competition. Yet, in the eras when the majority of elite players chose to play their sport in their native states, and especially in the first half of the twentieth century, one cannot consider that the WAFL and SANFL were a full tier below VFL competition – at least not until that competition became a de-facto national competition in the late 1980s. If they were second tier competitions, they would not have competed with the VFL in interstate matches until the late 1970’s. Nor would the VFL clubs have agreed to compete in the Championship of Australia games until 1975, and in the National Football League’s Wills Cup competition in 1976.

When considering the strengths of the SANFL and WAFL in comparison to the VFL by their win-loss ratios, a comparison with other sports is useful. For instance, the South Australian cricket team won 55 and lost 117 of 208 first class matches against New South Wales between 1889-90 and 2004-05, for a winning percentage of 31.97% in those games that ended in a result. South Australia also won only 55 and lost 110 of 220 games against Victoria in the same era, for a winning percentage of 33.33% (see footnote 2). Yet there is no suggestion that South Australian cricket records should not be considered as being of first-class status, so why shouldn’t SANFL and WAFL football records for the years prior to 1987 be regarded as being of elite status? Looking closer to the subject of this paper, Australian Rules Football, and it can be seen that Footscray (later the Western Bulldogs) enjoyed only a 26.9% winning rate in matches against Collingwood in the years to 2001, whilst St Kilda’s winning rate between 1897 and 2001 was only 18.1% against Carlton, 25.4% against Collingwood and 29.8% against Essendon. No-one would suggest that St Kilda’s records should be wiped from VFL-AFL history (see footnote 3).  

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        By Spectator Numbers and Cultural Significance

An indication of a state competition’s importance to its population can be measured by the number of people in the community who attend its matches. Australian Rules football has always boasted remarkably high numbers of spectators when compared to other sports around the world, and the southern states of Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania can all lay claims to high per capita attendances at elite football matches.

Victoria can boast the largest crowds at state league football matches during the twentieth century. Of course, Victoria’s population has been always in the order of three to four times the population of South Australia, or Western Australia, during that time, so it is not surprising that the greatest crowds assembled for VFL football matches. An indication of a competition’s cultural significance to its community can be illustrated by the relative numbers of people from within that community who attended football matches there. If you were walking through central Melbourne, or central Adelaide or central Perth, and you stopped to talk to 100 different people, how many of them would have attended state league football matches on the previous Saturday? The answer appears to be that similar numbers of spectators, on a per capita basis, attended league football matches in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart for much of the twentieth century.  

The Football Times Yearbook of 1983, in an article by Michelangelo Rucci, gives a detailed statistical analysis of the attendances at VFL, SANFL, WAFL and TANFL minor round matches in the years from 1964 to 1982. Over that period, an average of 5.1% of Melbourne and Geelong residents attended a VFL match in any given minor round week. 5.1% of Perth residents attended WAFL matches in any given minor round week, and 4.8% of Adelaide residents attended SANFL matches. An average of 5.5% of Hobart residents attended TANFL matches in any given minor round week over the period. The figures are a good indication that Australian Rules football was of similar cultural significance in each of the four southern states.  

Of course, attendance at grand finals in either state was limited by the capacity of the stadiums in which the playoffs were held. Nevertheless, the fact that a greater proportion of Adelaide residents attended grand finals there than Melbourne and Geelong residents attended VFL playoffs is another indication of the cultural significance of the SANFL to South Australians (see footnote 4).

The significance of the state leagues in Australian culture can be further illustrated when attendances are measured against the other major winter spectator sport in Australia – the rugby league competitions of New South Wales and Queensland. Despite the fact that Sydney has always had a population three to four times that of Adelaide, attendances at SANFL grand finals during the twentieth century were usually superior to New South Wales rugby league grand finals. Just as the VFL has expanded into a national league in Australian Rules football, the New South Wales competition has expanded to become the national rugby league competition. Yet, as measured by spectator numbers at grand finals, the cultural significance of the SANFL competition is arguably far higher for the population of Adelaide than the New South Wales rugby league competition was to Sydney . In the twentieth century, there were 80 years in which both the SANFL and the New South Wales rugby league or National Rugby League premierships were decided by title deciding matches – either by a challenge final or a grand final. In a significant 52 of those years (65%), it was the SANFL match that boasted the superior attendance – in spite of the fact that Adelaide was a much smaller city than Sydney (see footnote 5).

It is a relevant fact then that in the majority of years in the twentieth century, the only annual sporting events in the nation that consistently drew crowds bigger than the SANFL grand final were VFL football, the Melbourne Cup, and some opening days of the annual Melbourne test match cricket. When measured on a per-capita basis, the SANFL grand final was in a league of its own when compared to those events. It is a measure of the significance of the SANFL to South Australians. It is unusual then that the governing body of football in this country chooses to largely ignore SANFL history in its promotion of Australian football. It is little wonder then that many South Australians and Western Australians who are old enough to remember the glory days of the SANFL and WAFL are more than a little disgruntled at the way the AFL ignores the contribution of those competitions to the game of Australian Rules football.  

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        Elite Competitions?  Where Did The Star Players Choose To Play The Game?

In 1997, when Port Adelaide first fielded a team in the AFL competition, there were a total of 137 South Australians on the playing lists of the 16 AFL clubs, as well as 117 Western Australians. This, of course, was in the era of the national league, when young footballers aimed to play in the one truly elite competition in the country, the AFL. But what of earlier years, in the halcyon days of the SANFL and WAFL?

Australian Rules football had been the predominant winter sport in each of Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania since the latter part of the nineteenth century, with relatively similar per capita participation rates in each of those states. It doesn’t seem logical at all to suggest that South Australians and Western Australians of elite ability only existed after the expansion of the VFL into the AFL occurred. It seems reasonable to assume that there would have been similar proportions of players of South Australian and Western Australian origin amongst the country’s elite in, say, 1967, as there was in 1997. Where would the equivalent of the 137 elite South Australian footballers of 1997 have been playing their football two and three decades earlier? Where did elite players choose to play the game in the first three quarters of the twentieth century? The answer would seem to be that the overwhelming majority of them were playing in the SANFL, just as the majority of elite Western Australians were playing in the WAFL.  

In his Full Points Footy website, historian John Devaney gives an account of the 1971 interstate match between the VFL and the SANFL at the MCG. Devaney describes that “Of the South Australian team which lost by 30 points to Victoria at the MCG in 1971 only 6 went on to participate in the VFL, and of these only rover Ray Huppatz (67 games with Footscray and 19 games with North Melbourne) could be described as having more than a fleeting acquaintance.  Huppatz's co-rover Mick Nunan and full forward Malcolm Greenslade played just 1 and 2 VFL games respectively for Richmond while stationed in Victoria on National Service, ruck-rover Graham Cornes played just 5 games for North Melbourne, gargantuan ruckman Dean Farnham managed a mere 17 games with Footscray, and centreman Russell Ebert spent a single season with North Melbourne late in his illustrious career.” The fact that so many players of interstate ability chose to play their league football predominantly within their home state was not unusual for South Australian state representatives of the pre-1970’s era. The fact that Victorian teams were, more often than not, successful when pitted against South Australian opposition can be explained partly by the fact that the larger Victorian population meant that there was a greater depth of good players in that state. The depth no doubt contributed to the greater pressure and intensity exhibited during VFL matches.

Another guide to where South Australian’s elite players chose to play can be observed in the list of Magarey Medallists. The medal was first awarded in 1898 to the fairest and best player in the South Australian league. A few winners of the medal, such as Harry Cumberland (1911 winner), Marcus Boyall (1941) and Len Fitzgerald (winner in 1952, 1954 and 1959), were of Victorian origin and had played in the VFL before coming to Adelaide and winning the medal. The vast majority of the medallists, however, were champion South Australian players who played out their entire league careers in the SANFL. It was the exception rather than the norm when a medallist of South Australian origin left the state to play in the VFL, as Magarey Medallist Malcolm Blight did in 1974 when he transferred to North Melbourne , and became the first Magarey Medallist of South Australian origin to carve out a lengthy career in the VFL (see footnote 6). It is a fact that until the late 1970’s, with very few exceptions, the great South Australian names chose to remain and play the game in their home state. 

The floodgates opened a few years after Blight, however. The 1978 Medallist, Kym Hodgeman, left to play in the VFL in 1981. The 1979 Medallist John Duckworth had played in the VFL and in the WAFL, and Russell Ebert, who won 4 medals, elected to play for North Melbourne during the 1979 season. Of the Magarey Medallists in the twenty-two seasons from 1980 to 2001, only the loyal sons of Norwood, Gary McIntosh and Michael Aish, as well as South Adelaide’s Andrew Osborn, did not play a game in the VFL or AFL during their careers. The tide had well and truly turned, to the extent that, as mentioned above,137 South Australians were playing in the AFL in 1997. The status of the SANFL had changed from a league for elite players to a second tier competition.

Admittedly, the drain of players from Western Australia to the VFL appears to have been greater than was the trickle from South Australia for much of the twentieth century. Whilst the1976 grand final Football Record confirms that there whilst there were only 7 South Australians playing in the VFL that year, it also indicates that there were 23 Western Australians and 21 Tasmanians playing in the Victorian competition. The trickle from South Australia turned into a torrent in the years from the end of the 1970s and through the 1980s, as the trend concerning Magarey Medallists described above suggests. The fact remains, though, that both the SANFL and WAFL were the conduit of choice for the exploits of the majority of elite players from their respective states until at least the late 1970s. It is imperative that Australian Rules football history is written in such a way that reflects this. Sadly, the trend of publications aimed at a national market over the last twenty years or so fails completely to recognise that fact. And AFL publications only perpetuate the myth that the VFL-AFL has been the only elite league since Australian Rules football was invented. 

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        How Can The National Nature Of Elite Football History In Australia Be Promoted By The AFL?

The AFL and the contemporary media do a very good job of publicising the game’s VFL-AFL history. The AFL’s annual statistical yearbooks publish just about every conceivable item of significance that has occurred in the leagues 110 year history, and other publications such as the AFL Record are of a consistently high standard. The radio, television and print media also generate a lot of stories about days gone by, and former players and football personalities are often the subject of these stories. It is, however, the easy option for the media, authors, or AFL employees themselves, to limit their research to VFL-AFL history – it is much more of a challenge to broaden their research to beyond state borders so that a per-capita type proportion of stories from the other major states can also be published.

It has to be the AFL themselves who have to lead the way in this regard. At present they seem content in the assumption that the only football history relevant to the national audience is its own VFL past. In 2002, the Sport Australia Hall of Fame inducted both individuals and teams into the national Hall of Fame. National sporting organisations were asked to submit nominations to the selection committee. The AFL were asked to nominate a team that stood above all others in the game’s history to become the first football team nominated to the Hall of Fame. The AFL nominated the 1929 Collingwood team, who had gone through the 1929 minor round undefeated, and after losing one of the finals matches, recovered to win their third of what was to be four consecutive premierships. Whilst not wishing to detract from the achievements of Collingwood, it is reasonably certain that the AFL would not have seriously looked beyond the VFL for other teams who may have exceeded their achievements.  What, for instance, of Essendon, who won four consecutive VFA premierships in the 1890’s, and were undefeated in 1893, and also gained national honours of a sort by beating beat South Adelaide to claim the Championship of Australia. Similarly, what of the great 1914 Port Adelaide team, who went undefeated throughout the season, culminating in a victory of Carlton in the Championship of Australia, and then followed it up with a victory against a combined team made up of the rest of the South Australian clubs. It was the third time in five years that Port had won the Championship of Australia, and in their three championship matches against the VFL premiership clubs they had enjoyed an average winning margin of 52 points. It will be sad if such achievements go unrecognised by the greater population because of the AFL’s unwillingness to look to the history of the nations other elite competitions.

The next time the AFL runs a Memorable Moments segment, wouldn’t it be good if some of the SANFL, WAFL and Tasmanian highlights referred to earlier in this paper also got a mention?  It wouldn’t be expected that each state would have the same number of Memorable Moments, but they could surely be chosen almost on a per capita basis. In this way, if there were 60 memorable moments, there might be 30 VFL highlights, 8 or 9 from each of Western Australia and South Australia, 3 or 4 from Tasmania, and about 10 from the national league of the last two decades. 

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The Australian Football Hall Of Fame

The same per capita representation could apply to the Football Hall of Fame. The existing Hall of Fame fails to recognise enough players who played only in the SANFL, WAFL, or in Tasmania. It would seem logical, that if there were similar per-capita participation rates in Australian Rules Football in each of the four southern states in the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth century, that there would have been similar proportions of those participants who contributed significantly to the game in each of those states. The existing Hall of Fame tells a different story, however.

When considering the Australian Football Hall of Fame as a whole, there are 201 men recognised in the Hall of Fame, only 24 of whom are South Australians, 24 are Western Australians and 5 are Tasmanian (see footnote 7).  If per capita representation was used for determining the proportion of each southern state’s membership of the Hall of Fame, Victorians would still have by far the greatest representation. However, the South Australian and Western Australian contingents would need to be doubled, and the Tasmanian representation increased by a factor of three, as the table below indicates. 

STATE BY STATE REPRESENTATION IN THE AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL  HALL OF FAME  (FOR THE SOUTHERN FOOTBALL STATES) (see footnote 8)

Note: The figures expressed above which indicate a state's population as a percentage of the total population of the four southern states is based upon a mean of the comparative populations across the twentieth century – and is based upon census figures from 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933, 1947, 1954, 1961, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991 and 1996.

The current proportions of representation are not in accordance with the football heritage of Western Australia, South Australia or Tasmania.  Little wonder that the the WAFL, SANFL and AFL Tasmania have felt the need to create their own state Halls of Fame.

Of course, there are those who would say, that as the strongest competition, the VFL-AFL should have a higher proportion of per-capita membership than the other states. So what if we look at an era when the playing standards of the VFL and the SA(N)FL were similar?

Take for instance the era from Federation in 1901 to World War One in 1914. This was the era in which South Australian clubs won 6 of 7 Championship of Australia matches against Victoria, and the South Australian state side won 5 of 13 matches against the VFL. One would expect that in this era, more than any other, that South Australians would be prominently represented in the Hall of Fame. Yet existing representation is vastly in favour of those who played in the VFL.  Looking at this situation in totally objective fashion, one must ask – why it is so?  

Australian Football Hall of Fame representation 1901-1914

State matches between 1901 and 1914: 13

State matches won by Victoria: 8  State matches won by SA: 5

Club Championship of Australia matches between 1901 and 1914: 7

Games won by Victorian clubs: 1   Games won by SA clubs: 6

AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME MEMBERS RECOGNISED FOR THEIR PLAYING OR COACHING DEEDS - WHO PLAYED FOOTBALL DURING THE YEARS 1901-14

Note: Vic Cumberland played 39 games for Sturt, but is included as a Victorian in the above list as he played a total of 176 games for Melbourne and St Kilda in the VFL between 1898 and 1920.

Given the relative success of South Australian sides in the 1901-1914 era, it would seem appropriate for the state to have Hall of Fame representation on either a per capita proportional basis, at the very least, compared with Victoria, or perhaps an even higher representation, due to the relatively even playing standards between the two states in this era.

Given that the population of the two states in 1901 was 1,209,900 for Victoria and 359,330 for South Australia, a per capita rate would dictate that the Hall of Fame recognise one South Australian for approximately every three Victorians in this era. This would translate to about 5 South Australians for the 1901-1914 era. Presently, there are three South Australians recognised, but two of them, John ‘Bunny’ Daly and John ‘Dinny’ Reedman, are recognised for their playing careers which took place predominantly before 1901. Illustrious players such as Magarey Medallists ‘Shine’ Hosking and Tom Leahy, and high flying Harold Oliver, would seem worthy of consideration for Hall of Fame membership. These three players played in a total of 7 Championship of Australia teams between them, and all three of them played in South Australia’s 1911 carnival winning team.

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The National Perspective And The AFL Statistical Yearbooks

In the 2004 AFL grand final Record, an article recalled a game that had been played in Sydney in 1979 between VFL clubs North Melbourne and Hawthorn. VFL President of that time, Dr Allen Aylett, had been asked his thoughts about the game, and responded that it had been the first of a thousand steps toward a national competition. This of course, was only a passing comment, and in many ways the game did represent the beginning of the transition of the VFL into a national competition, yet it also hinted that the VFL had held no regard for the efforts of previous national football pioneers. Experimentation with national competitions between league clubs from different states had been developing for some time with the Championship of Australia and National Football League competitions, but, these of course meant nothing to the VFL who had not been directly involved in the organisation of such competitions.

The SANFL had long supported the concept of a national competition, and had actively engaged in the promotion of the game being played beyond state borders through their staging of Championship of Australia games before World War One and in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The NFL experiment in the 1970’s was another significant step toward a national competition between clubs from different states, but the VFL abandoned it in 1977, and instead went on to instigate its own rival national competition. It may well be that the success of today’s national league has been possible only because it evolved from the highly successful VFL, but such success may not have been possible without the inclusion of teams from Western Australia and South Australia, where vibrant and successful competitions with great tradition had existed for a century. 

All VFL premiers should of course be continued to be recognised by the AFL, as the AFL is a continuation of the VFL competition. Yet, why not class the pre-1987 flags as state premierships, and the post 1987 flags as national ones. Similarly, players who played in the VFL before 1987 would have matches recorded as state league games, with the similar status as those who played in the WAFL and SANFL. Matches played in the AFL since 1987 would have national league status. The Brownlow Medal can continue to be awarded (though I personally lean toward it being renamed as the Bunton or Barassi), but only those of the post 1987 period should be regarded as a national award.

I understand that my suggestion to divide the VFL-AFL history into state league and national league categories is unlikely to be supported, but, if we are truly to preserve national football history, the AFL must do more to preserve some non-VFL, but nationally relevant, football feats. AFL endorsed publications should recognise these feats.

AFL annual history books can be divided into 3 distinct sections, that would continue to allow the league to honour and record it’s VFL past, it’s national present and future, but also record items of national significance from the rest of Australia. The three historical sections would be:

 

  The national era – the VFL-AFL from 1987 onwards

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