Tasmania ready but told to wait

Welcome to World Footy News Saturday, April 20 2024 @ 10:45 am ACST

Tasmania ready but told to wait | 10 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

This site requires you to be logged in to post a comment. If you have an account already (or need to create one), please login here.

Tasmania ready but told to wait

Authored by: Troy Thompson
on Friday, December 19 2008 @ 07:33 am ACDT

Brett, my view may be skewed but I would have thought the way it came about was probably more unpopular in Victoria than elsewhere - with the attitude that our great Victorian league has been ruined still prevailing with some today.

Tasmania ready but told to wait

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Friday, December 19 2008 @ 10:25 am ACDT

It is skewed. 8)

Yes, plenty of Victorians didn't like it. But I reckon pretty much everyone was against it in the other states. Let's face it, the great rivalry with Victoria was in part because of the quality of football, but it really ramped up due to the stripping away of football in the other states as the VFL sought to consume them. And the other states put forward options for the evolution of a national competition and the National Football Council tried various things but was stymied by the VFL until eventually the NFC lost relevance and was killed off.

Hardcore football people in states like SA and WA resented all of that and they still do. The fact is that the VFL clubs survived (mostly) and the other proud century old clubs of Australian football state leagues are shadows of themselves. The heroes and champions are forgotten, while VFL awards of the Brownlow and Coleman etc continue on. The license fees paid off VFL debt, and the MCG has been completely made over, and Telstra Dome built, meanwhile AAMI Stadium in Adelaide has merely had minor face lifts in comparison and even forthcoming plans are just more facelifts. For many years non-Vic clubs had to go to Melbourne to play big finals despite finishing higher on the ladder than their opponents. Rule differences, the brand of footy used, even the colour of the behind posts, the way % is calculated, the way the team lineups are listed. The list goes on. Every aspect of footy is a concession to the VFL way of doing things.

You don't need me to go through all the gripes about the AFL. But a large chunk of them stem from the perception of how the national league came about. Have no doubt that most fans outside of Melbourne still regard the AFL as biased towards Melbourne because it came out of the VFL.

Like I said, what is done is done. We move on. If we still love the game we still follow it and support it. It's still the greatest game on Earth, and I do believe that the AFL has slowly grown to be more representative, and they do employ people from across Australia and they have turned a struggling competition into a vibrant and successful national competition and they are turning their attention outwards far more. Always worth remembering that a lot of sacrifices were made along the way. But when it comes to how people feel about the present I reckon it's important to focus on where you are going than where you've been - sounds like a nice idea anyway.

And as for Tasmanian footy, they went through all that too, except they didn't even get the consolation prize of their own AFL side.

---
Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

RSS news	RSS events
Twitter	Facebook

World Footy News

Search

Translate

User Functions

Events

Featured Sites

Older Stories

Thursday 08-Feb

Sunday 07-Jan

Friday 14-Jul

Thursday 15-Jun

Friday 09-Jun

Thursday 08-Jun

Saturday 03-Jun

Thursday 25-May

Saturday 13-May

Sunday 07-May

Socials

Who's Online

Random Image

What's New

Articles last 2 weeks

Comments last 2 weeks

Links last 2 weeks

Advertisements