Sausages
HIGH PRIEST IN THE TEMPLE OF GG/SNSD
- Feb 27, 2007
- 6,397
- 9,189
- AFL Club
- Brisbane Lions
- Other Teams
- Luton Town
Being a Queenslander born and bred, here is an excerpt from a letter I have sent the AFL Chief Executive...
"What you seem to not understand is that a manufactured team won't have any impact on the psyche of the average sports followers in the South East Queensland market. We don't grow up with AFL. In the southern/western states for example,the top private schools produce an awesome amount of quality AFL footballers - In Queensland and NSW, the top private schools produce, not rugby league players, but rugby union players. "Waddya wanna be? A Walla-Walla-by". Representative football - something the AFL cannot give. Hell, you can't even give me a State of Origin team. I can accept that AFL is our game and thus beyond green and gold representation, aside from the stop/start International Rules series (which even then has struggled for relevance), but surely, SURELY, the fact that it's almost 30 years after the formation of the Brisbane Bears and we couldn't field a starting 11 of Queenslanders, never mind a 22, of AFL standard, demonstrates how little impact your efforts have had.
Private schools, certainly in my experience attending a GPS school in Brisbane, set the tone for the public schools. I know they are playing GPS AFL now, which is good - but they are private schools whose honour rolls (go look at them sometime - Brisbane Grammar, Nudgee College, Brisbane State High School etc) are awash with Australian cricketers and Wallabies. These are constructs which have meaning, relevance, identity and above all, RESPECT. Our state's greatest rugby league player, Wally Lewis, went to my school, was an outstanding rugby union player...but chose rugby league in the 70's because Union back then was amateur and he couldn't earn a living off it. Otherwise, he would have been a Wallaby. And these schools STILL have that same mentality -despite AFL being played there, the school's sporting identity is linked to how many Test cricketers/Wallabies they produce. Not at all unlike Scotch College or Geelong Grammar - just different sporting cultures, with the Melbourne schools removing Union and adding in AFL.
Furthermore, in the rugby league and union circles, it's acknowledged that if you have terrible skills but good athleticism, you play league - only the very gifted progress far down the road with Union. And that, interestingly, is a sentiment echoed by that other great bastion of Union and League - NZ...and don't you have some far seeing plans for a footy club there? Yep, that'll work, lock it in Eddie.
You would be better off limiting the number of non-local players on the Lions/Suns books and forcing them to play sub-standard, but LOCALLY PRODUCED, talent. At least then, the sports followers could read about how our local boys are getting creamed every week. BUT THEY'RE OUR BOYS would be the cry from the locals after 20 years of no wins, 200 losses. And maybe, just maybe, the parochial community in Queensland would rally to redress the balance. And that first win would be savoured as a flag. It's the EXACT scenario which led to what is arguably Australian sports greatest domestic annual event, the Rugby League State of Origin. A select few Brisbane rugby league players and identities/administrators were sick of hearing how superior NSW players were - so we put 2 teams on the park and the rest is history. Oh, and we smashed 'em. Perhaps a lesson in passion over skill, but that's not relevant.
What has become alarmingly evident to the local Brisbane-ite, certainly the mass of seething humanity I spoke to in 20 years in the airlines, is that when we win, it's because we are "propped up". Our 3 flags aren't accepted EVEN BY THE AVERAGE SPORTS PUNTER IN QUEEN STREET, never mind the rest of the AFL community. We aren't relevant here Mr McLachlan. And nothing you do, NOTHING, changes that.
So, even when you help us, all you do is widen the gap between acceptance and antipathy. You'd be far better off removing ALL assistance and letting the people of Brisbane decide if they want an AFL club or not. Stand or die. We'd die though...you know it and I know it. And you are chained to the broadcast rights deal. So, to ensure extra money in the coffers of all clubs, ours will be left, eternally, as just an irrelevance in the sporting market. We can't live on our own and you won't let us die on our own. And do you know what the definition is, of something that is neither alive nor dead? A zombie. And zombies don't have passion....
Mr McLachlan, I implore you to don a pair of shorts and go do a pub crawl in Brisbane - perhaps then you and your executive committee might be able to make better decisions regarding expansion footy clubs, rather than listen to the accountants ejaculate over your balance sheet when the next broadcast rights deal is negotiated. You show so little concern for your product, your game of blood, mud, sweat and history, that you take cuttings and plant them wherever suits you, not where there is fertile soil. The battle you fight here is not only against rugby league but rugby union as well. And everytime the Bledisloe Cup rolls around - well, your product fades into obscurity."
"What you seem to not understand is that a manufactured team won't have any impact on the psyche of the average sports followers in the South East Queensland market. We don't grow up with AFL. In the southern/western states for example,the top private schools produce an awesome amount of quality AFL footballers - In Queensland and NSW, the top private schools produce, not rugby league players, but rugby union players. "Waddya wanna be? A Walla-Walla-by". Representative football - something the AFL cannot give. Hell, you can't even give me a State of Origin team. I can accept that AFL is our game and thus beyond green and gold representation, aside from the stop/start International Rules series (which even then has struggled for relevance), but surely, SURELY, the fact that it's almost 30 years after the formation of the Brisbane Bears and we couldn't field a starting 11 of Queenslanders, never mind a 22, of AFL standard, demonstrates how little impact your efforts have had.
Private schools, certainly in my experience attending a GPS school in Brisbane, set the tone for the public schools. I know they are playing GPS AFL now, which is good - but they are private schools whose honour rolls (go look at them sometime - Brisbane Grammar, Nudgee College, Brisbane State High School etc) are awash with Australian cricketers and Wallabies. These are constructs which have meaning, relevance, identity and above all, RESPECT. Our state's greatest rugby league player, Wally Lewis, went to my school, was an outstanding rugby union player...but chose rugby league in the 70's because Union back then was amateur and he couldn't earn a living off it. Otherwise, he would have been a Wallaby. And these schools STILL have that same mentality -despite AFL being played there, the school's sporting identity is linked to how many Test cricketers/Wallabies they produce. Not at all unlike Scotch College or Geelong Grammar - just different sporting cultures, with the Melbourne schools removing Union and adding in AFL.
Furthermore, in the rugby league and union circles, it's acknowledged that if you have terrible skills but good athleticism, you play league - only the very gifted progress far down the road with Union. And that, interestingly, is a sentiment echoed by that other great bastion of Union and League - NZ...and don't you have some far seeing plans for a footy club there? Yep, that'll work, lock it in Eddie.
You would be better off limiting the number of non-local players on the Lions/Suns books and forcing them to play sub-standard, but LOCALLY PRODUCED, talent. At least then, the sports followers could read about how our local boys are getting creamed every week. BUT THEY'RE OUR BOYS would be the cry from the locals after 20 years of no wins, 200 losses. And maybe, just maybe, the parochial community in Queensland would rally to redress the balance. And that first win would be savoured as a flag. It's the EXACT scenario which led to what is arguably Australian sports greatest domestic annual event, the Rugby League State of Origin. A select few Brisbane rugby league players and identities/administrators were sick of hearing how superior NSW players were - so we put 2 teams on the park and the rest is history. Oh, and we smashed 'em. Perhaps a lesson in passion over skill, but that's not relevant.
What has become alarmingly evident to the local Brisbane-ite, certainly the mass of seething humanity I spoke to in 20 years in the airlines, is that when we win, it's because we are "propped up". Our 3 flags aren't accepted EVEN BY THE AVERAGE SPORTS PUNTER IN QUEEN STREET, never mind the rest of the AFL community. We aren't relevant here Mr McLachlan. And nothing you do, NOTHING, changes that.
So, even when you help us, all you do is widen the gap between acceptance and antipathy. You'd be far better off removing ALL assistance and letting the people of Brisbane decide if they want an AFL club or not. Stand or die. We'd die though...you know it and I know it. And you are chained to the broadcast rights deal. So, to ensure extra money in the coffers of all clubs, ours will be left, eternally, as just an irrelevance in the sporting market. We can't live on our own and you won't let us die on our own. And do you know what the definition is, of something that is neither alive nor dead? A zombie. And zombies don't have passion....
Mr McLachlan, I implore you to don a pair of shorts and go do a pub crawl in Brisbane - perhaps then you and your executive committee might be able to make better decisions regarding expansion footy clubs, rather than listen to the accountants ejaculate over your balance sheet when the next broadcast rights deal is negotiated. You show so little concern for your product, your game of blood, mud, sweat and history, that you take cuttings and plant them wherever suits you, not where there is fertile soil. The battle you fight here is not only against rugby league but rugby union as well. And everytime the Bledisloe Cup rolls around - well, your product fades into obscurity."
Last edited by a moderator:
