AFL Commission considers proposal to backdate footy records to 1870

Aug 27, 2014
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eddie mcguire is right that if vfa 1870 to 1896 in included into the vfl/afl records, it would completely erase the vfa history from 1897 to 1995 off the history books
Why would we include them in VFL/AFL records? They won't. It is where the football seasons of the clubs that formed this league came from but this league is in it's 123rd season. The 27 seasons before it are just that, before it.
The VFA history of 1897 and afterwards essentially was the next best club comp in Victoria. That history is important too just like SAFA, WAFL and Tasmanian football was as other clubs played in are also historic for the game as competitions that run for over a century each.
 
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You do realise that your home ground is the MCG, ours is Kardinia Park yet our attendances are still higher than yours?

Well in the context of 2019 attendances surely you’ve got to look at games to date...

For home attendances Hawthorn has played 4 games at the MCG (Dogs 39.4k, North 36.7k, Cats 66.3k and GWS 14.7k) and 2 in Launceston (Blues 15.8k, Port 11.6k)

Of course the devil is in the detail. 3 of those MCG games were played in the 3.20pm Sunday slot (the graveyard shift) including the GWS game on Mother’s Day.

In terms of away attendance, Hawthorn’s attendances have been more respectable (50.2k in Adelaide, 35.8k v Saints at Docklands, 40.8k and 65k v the Dees and Tigers at the MCG and 25.05k at the GABBA which is the largest non Collingwood lions crowd in 9 years)

Our crowds have been so so but the AFL fixturing has been stacked against us.

Geelong has played 5 of 6 home games at Kardina Park (and the 6th at the MCG against Essendon) Kardina Park now has a reasonable capacity (34,000) which is more then double the Launceston capacity.

Apart from games against Hawthorn, Essendon, Collingwood and Richmond (which are all played at the MCG) Geelong losses little in playing games at KP (as corresponding attendances at the MCG and Docklands attest)

In fact there is probably an argument that almost all Geelong Melbourne fixtures could be scheduled at Kardina Park. I’m sure that would be music to the ears of most Geelong fans.

The AFL has a clear decade long vendetta to remove Hawthorn from Tasmania which has been noted in the press and on the boards for years. Why else would an 80,000 member club, who finished top 4 last year, with a difficult schedule this year be scheduled in no less then 6 of their first 8 games in the 3.20 Sunday slot?

With a larger stadium Geelong are drawing great crowds (which is great for Geelong good for the competition). But I just get defensive when people call out Hawthorn attendances when the AFL fixture has been absolutely horrible.

Don't blame us for the crowd against Richmond on Friday night, it was their home game and it's a pain for our supporters to get to Friday night games in Melbourne, that one is on Richmond. Where were Richmond's supposed 100,000 members?

You were the one to bring up crowds (although you are correct)

Also, we are forced to play two home games at the MCG every year, we want to play all 11 home games at Kardinia Park, it just happens to be a combination of Collingwood, Hawthorn and Essendon who we'd love to play at Kardinia Park but we play two of them at the MCG as our 'home' games to fill the AFL's requirement of our two MCG home games.

Last year you requested a home game against Hawthorn at the MCG. The game drew 73,000 plus which was your largest draw for the season (the second and third were games against Richmond 67,000 and Hawthorn 60,000).

Anyway with all the bickering it’s clear that Geelong and Hawthorn are good business for each other. They are the only two Victorian clubs (not part of the big 4) that can draw a crowd 👍

Once stage 5 of the Kardinia Park redevelopment is complete, no club will be able to compete with us financially. 40,000 Cats fans filling the stadium every week and the club makes more money per member than any other club, not to mention our stadium deal is clean, meaning that we keep all the money which will likely be close to $2m a game at a fully redeveloped Kardinia Park.

Agreed. I would love to go back to Kardina Park to watch a Hawthorn game again. But with so many compromises in the draw I don’t think it will happen for years.

I’d love to see Hawthorn play 11 home games at the venues of its choosing and I would love to see Geelong also play 11 him games at a venue of their choosing too

The proposal for the AFL to recognise VFA premierships will get the tick, thanks to Steve Hocking ;)

True. But my question was more about the renewed interest in the VFA history (although the proposal precedes the VFA by 7 years) after the 150 year celebrations in 2009.

I think there is a hypocrisy in a Geelong representative calling to revise the leagues history when just 10 years ago they failed to recognise or respect their own club history
 
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hcd199

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Interestingly when I look back at the original Football Records people purchased at the footy, it had both the League and Association fixtures in it.
There was a small article in 1912 round one of probability of one being called Section A and the other Section B.
There is a page in it that has two tables of premierships. It lists LEAGUE PREMIERS from 1870 to 1911 in one table and another table has ASSOCIATION PREMIERS from 1897 to 1911.
So in that day they just considered it almost like one competition branched off into two directions and they were not even listing the 1870 to 1896 premiers under the ASSOCIATION table in the Football Record then. It is certainly fascinating history to look up. I guess a political football war of some kind happened in mid 1920's, I suspect when the league allowed Footscray, North and Hawks clubs to join them, the relative peace between Association and League erupted in some sense and Association claimed the pre-1897 stuff as their own history and League not list it as a continuation of organised club competition that had existed from the 1870's. Really got me interested to read up on this 1920's period and the infighting of Victorian club football that still had some feeling to it even when I first started following football. The league encroached on the Sunday domain of football that Association still virtually had for their own until early 1980's. A decade later Association football virtually killed off.

Certainly interesting to look into. It does seem odd that they would list 1870 premierships onwards in the 'League' table, only to then explicitly note below it that "in 1896 the Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, South Melbourne and St. Kilda clubs seceded from the Association, and formed the League". Possibly, it ties into the prospect of the 'probable coalescence' of the two leagues referred to on the same page (with the intent, perhaps, of treating Association flags post-1896 as 'B' premierships...?), or maybe it's just a rival claim to the VFA's history in a similar way to George III supposedly being the King of France in 1800. Either way, it's hard to justify taking the same perspective in a modern context - counting VFL/AFL flags in one table makes sense because it's the same competition, but to include history from a predecessor Victorian competition is undeniable Vic-centrism, let alone clearly contrary to fact.

I still feel the best solution would be for the AFL to set up a separate authority for the management of the game in general as opposed to the league in particular - we could re-establish the old ANFC, for example, and have AFL/VFL/VFA/SANFL/WAFL premierships recognised as "Tier 1 ANFC premierships" for the relevant date ranges where they were top-tier, and "Tier 2 premierships" when they weren't, et cetera. This would mean that premierships won by Port Magpies after 1996 would be Tier 2, not Tier 1, but it lets Port count their pre-96 SANFL and post-96 AFL premierships as ANFC premierships, and allows for the continuity of the VFL/AFL as the same competition.

Of course they won't do that because PowerForGood is absolutely right - they're acting selfishly in trying to take over the branding of the entire sport for themselves.

EDIT: For the record, Collingwood under this system would have 16 Tier 1 premierships: our 1 VFA premiership (1896), and our 15 VFL/AFL premierships.

I'd have significant concerns over any system that purports to assign relative 'value' to premierships, such as by classifying them into 'tiers'. How do we determine what level each competition was on at any given time, other than by subjective judgement? For example, how should the various Tasmanian leagues be counted - are any of them 'Tier 1' (why/why not?), and are the TANFL/NTFA/NWFU all considered to be on the same 'tier' until 1986? When exactly does the VFA cease to be 'Tier 1', and why?

I'm all for the idea of a separate body like the ANFC to manage the sport as a whole, and for that body to give due recognition to flags won outside of the VFL/AFL competition; there's plenty of history to the sport that gets forgotten or passed over because of the tendency to focus on VFL/AFL history. But I don't think there's any way to objectively measure the relative value of premierships won in the different competitions, and subjective evaluation shouldn't be the business of a presiding body.
 
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Certainly interesting to look into. It does seem odd that they would list 1870 premierships onwards in the 'League' table, only to then explicitly note below it that "in 1896 the Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, South Melbourne and St. Kilda clubs seceded from the Association, and formed the League". Possibly, it ties into the prospect of the 'probable coalescence' of the two leagues referred to on the same page (with the intent, perhaps, of treating Association flags post-1896 as 'B' premierships...?.
Yeah, those words gave a good context of what the football community of these clubs viewed it at the time. One, for lack of a better word was a continuation of season competition the strong clubs had been involved is for decades and they left the Association to be a group of weaker clubs in their eyes. It is just branching off to two leagues and the stronger historical clubs as a group decided to make a break away league for the 1897 season. English Soccer strongest clubs did something similar nearly a century later and called their break away league premier league. Certainly taught me something about what was going on back then that never realised until looked up those Football Records. To see 1870 to their time listed as premiers and 1897 to their time listed in another table for Association clubs of the time was crystal clear how they were counting their season records then. They just saw it as the history of the football competition for Victoria from when they counted premierships until their time and to continue the new century seasons in another new league was not important to them. The history of those strongest clubs competing against each other was. Until this last week I had assumed they were counting flags in VFL breakaway league from scratch again but we now know different. The next thing I want to learn of the history of the time is why they changed that convention during the mid 1920's. The politics of that would be interesting to look into of the Association and League at the time. It will probably tell us why the Association and League did not re-unite as one league again for Victorian football with Association effectively become a B grade division of Victorian football.

As a result when I was a kid I had VFL football to watch for senior team, the 2nds in the reserve grade of VFL and then the VFA on Sunday. Channel 7 at one point had the reserve grade telecast on Sunday directly against VFA football on Channel 10. It was a few years later when South relocated to Sydney and played games every second Sunday that was the start of the death of VFA football. Then later 80's when Eagles and Bears joined VFL, we started to have the league have football every Sunday live. Within a decade of that, VFA was no more....
 
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JohnZ

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Well in the context of 2019 attendances surely you’ve got to look at games to date...
Last year you requested a home game against Hawthorn at the MCG. The game drew 73,000 plus which was your largest draw for the season (the second and third were games against Richmond 67,000 and Hawthorn 60,000).

The AFL comes to Geelong and says "we know you want 11 home games, but we've allowed Hawthorn and North to sell games to tassie and we need you to play a couple of games at the MCG so that we can fill our obligations for at least 45 games".
Brian Cook: "FFS, like you know we ask for 11 home games each year, why do you keep pulling this shizen on us?"
AFL: "Look we're working on it. Hawks will be out of tassie by 2022 and North will be moved their permanently eventually. We know you make $1m per home game at KP no matter what, so we'll give you the biggest crowds possible at the G to try to get you as close to that as possible"

To say that we specifically request you if a fallacy. We make less money at the G than at Geelong. We need to play the bigger teams to minimise profit shortfall. Isn't that why you sell games to Tassie?
 

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The AFL comes to Geelong and says "we know you want 11 home games, but we've allowed Hawthorn and North to sell games to tassie and we need you to play a couple of games at the MCG so that we can fill our obligations for at least 45 games".
Brian Cook: "FFS, like you know we ask for 11 home games each year, why do you keep pulling this shizen on us?"
AFL: "Look we're working on it. Hawks will be out of tassie by 2022 and North will be moved their permanently eventually. We know you make $1m per home game at KP no matter what, so we'll give you the biggest crowds possible at the G to try to get you as close to that as possible"

To say that we specifically request you if a fallacy. We make less money at the G than at Geelong. We need to play the bigger teams to minimise profit shortfall. Isn't that why you sell games to Tassie?

No problem travelling to Geelong to play.

Just all the Easter Monday MCG fixtures are ours. Win win
 

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Yeah, those words gave a good context of what the football community of these clubs viewed it at the time. One, for lack of a better word was a continuation of season competition the strong clubs had been involved is for decades and they left the Association to be a group of weaker clubs in their eyes. It is just branching off to two leagues and the stronger historical clubs as a group decided to make a break away league for the 1897 season. English Soccer strongest clubs did something similar nearly a century later and called their break away league premier league. Certainly taught me something about what was going on back then that never realised until looked up those Football Records. To see 1870 to their time listed as premiers and 1897 to their time listed in another table for Association clubs of the time was crystal clear how they were counting their season records then. They just saw it as the history of the football competition for Victoria from when they counted premierships until their time and to continue the new century seasons in another new league was not important to them. The history of those strongest clubs competing against each other was. Until this last week I had assumed they were counting flags in VFL breakaway league from scratch again but we now know different. The next thing I want to learn of the history of the time is why they changed that convention during the mid 1920's. The politics of that would be interesting to look into of the Association and League at the time. It will probably tell us why the Association and League did not re-unite as one league again for Victorian football with Association effectively become a B grade division of Victorian football.

As a result when I was a kid I had VFL football to watch for senior team, the 2nds in the reserve grade of VFL and then the VFA on Sunday. Channel 7 at one point had the reserve grade telecast on Sunday directly against VFA football on Channel 10. It was a few years later when South relocated to Sydney and played games every second Sunday that was the start of the death of VFA football. Then later 80's when Eagles and Bears joined VFL, we started to have the league have football every Sunday live. Within a decade of that, VFA was no more....

Didn’t the VFL take the opportunity to move swans specifically to screw over the VFA? You’d have to say that south would still be as viable as other Melbourne teams now if they’d stayed. They seemed to take pleasure in not only growing their empire, but screwing over other sports and sometimes their own teams if they didn’t tow the increasingly corporate line
 
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Didn’t the VFL take the opportunity to move swans specifically to screw over the VFA?
No. South Melbourne relocated to Sydney. Playing Sunday just made sense for them and the league but ultimately they specifically moved as they were in financial strife.
You’d have to say that south would still be as viable as other Melbourne teams now if they’d stayed. They seemed to take pleasure in not only growing their empire, but screwing over other sports and sometimes their own teams if they didn’t tow the increasingly corporate line
I would not have to say that. Really is hard to know what would have become of Swans if they did not relocate. They may not have lasted to later 80's to get out of financial trouble like the Saints, Pies, Tigers and Cats did. In fact maybe Cats would have been in more trouble as some of their own financial troubles were averted in 1986 when Sydney Swans paid them to give them 3 good players and the coach. More the owners of Swans then than South itself. Probably more likely Swans have similar fate to Fitzroy if they had not re-located then. I think Bill Collins at the time basically said it was a last chance thing to save the club. They nearly fell over anyway as early 90's the trendy Sydney Swans were an ugly ducking. They actually were the catalyst for priority pick era as they were such a mess around time Gary Buckenara was their coach.
 

Thatsmyname

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John Batman was noted to have weaved an egg shaped object out of the reeds by the Yarra river upon discovering Melbourne, he and the crew had a rousing game of what they called chunderball in September of 1835. So that's another Geelong premiership
 
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No. South Melbourne relocated to Sydney. Playing Sunday just made sense for them and the league but ultimately they specifically moved as they were in financial strife.

I would not have to say that. Really is hard to know what would have become of Swans if they did not relocate. They may not have lasted to later 80's to get out of financial trouble like the Saints, Pies, Tigers and Cats did. In fact maybe Cats would have been in more trouble as some of their own financial troubles were averted in 1986 when Sydney Swans paid them to give them 3 good players and the coach. More the owners of Swans then than South itself. Probably more likely Swans have similar fate to Fitzroy if they had not re-located then. I think Bill Collins at the time basically said it was a last chance thing to save the club. They nearly fell over anyway as early 90's the trendy Sydney Swans were an ugly ducking. They actually were the catalyst for priority pick era as they were such a mess around time Gary Buckenara was their coach.


A different subject altogether, but the VFL waged continual harassment on Fitzroy. A very dark part of the history

Where’s the apology there?
 

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John Batman was noted to have weaved an egg shaped object out of the reeds by the Yarra riven upon discovering Melbourne, he and the crew had a rousing game of what they called chunderball in September of 1835. So that's another Geelong premiership

Fair argument for an elusive saints second flag
 
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John Batman was noted to have weaved an egg shaped object out of the reeds by the Yarra riven upon discovering Melbourne, he and the crew had a rousing game of what they called chunderball in September of 1835. So that's another Geelong premiership

Wait til you hear about the Geelong marngrook squad.
 
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Just a thought, though many will get their nose out of joint on this because it won't favour their club but................................ I've put together how long clubs have been in the VFL/AFL comp and averaged out their years between flags and GF appearances and then combined the rank to come up with an overall.

I've added GF's to boost the new teams post the 12 vic team era, can't just use flags because that wouldn't be a true reflection given their short history.

And I'll get in before the salties, no my team doesn't end on top.

I can't add VFA flags and GF's because it was running as a separate league at the same time as the VFL/AFL

View attachment 687979

Good effort but you need to add a weighting to account for competition size. It’s a lot easier to win a flag when you only have 7 rivals compared with 17.
 
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Just a thought, though many will get their nose out of joint on this because it won't favour their club but................................ I've put together how long clubs have been in the VFL/AFL comp and averaged out their years between flags and GF appearances and then combined the rank to come up with an overall.

I've added GF's to boost the new teams post the 12 vic team era, can't just use flags because that wouldn't be a true reflection given their short history.

And I'll get in before the salties, no my team doesn't end on top.

I can't add VFA flags and GF's because it was running as a separate league at the same time as the VFL/AFL

View attachment 687979

The same time from 1897 to 1925 when other clubs progressively moved up the league but before 1897 there is no running two leagues at same time. They both came from the one league and just branched off into two with one being the premier league of the game here.

I only looking at your table above closely today but you got some figures wrong. Interesting exercise and good on you having a go at it. We've had 123 grand finals in this league of which 3 seasons had two grand finals (1948, 1977 and 2010) and two seasons had none (1897 & 1924). Given each grand final had two teams playing your "GF" column should add to 246, BUT I see it adds to 249.... so some mistakes in there. Probably starting point to look is may have counted and assumed Essendon had grand finals to win flags in 1897 and 1924 but they were awarded the flag as premier team with no grand finals for both seasons. Hawthorn are 94 years in competition but many more before that their club and team existed in the weaker league so strictly correct in your column of being in league 94 years but I personally would evaluate their existence as a club whilst league already running and no flags as counting against them overall. Same with other clubs in VFA at same time league was running that joined when league deemed them good enough to compete in it. But clubs like Gold Coast and GWS is very fair to only count the seasons they existed as only been a senior club from time this decade. The Brisbane Lions is a grey area as I personally do not see them as Brisbane Bears that played from 1987 to 1996 seasons. Maybe Bears like Uni should be counted as finished with and Brisbane Lions season anew from 1997 onwards or combine Fitzroy and Lions records as one. Grey area for mine. I'd probably do it Fitzroy 99 seasons in league, Bears 10 seasons and Brisbane Lions 22 seasons.

The fairest way to determine "success" although you have to adjust the years for some clubs who didn't participate due to the Wars
Yeah, clubs that did not run a season during war time should not be penalised as if they played a season then.

Woops, are you able to give the teams and the years missed and I can update................ not sure it'll make a lot of diff though.

Geelong did not play in four seasons of war time. 1915 and 1916 of First World War and for Second World War the seasons missed were 1942 and 43.
Melbourne missed 1916, 1917 and 1918 seasons.
St.Kilda missed 1916 and 1917.
Essendon missed 1916 and 1917.
Swans missed 1916.

Good effort but you need to add a weighting to account for competition size. It’s a lot easier to win a flag when you only have 7 rivals compared with 17.
Not entirely true. If 7 teams are really strong it maybe harder in reality. Numerically the probability is better chance but that is all you can say for sure. I not sure you can count the number of clubs in league at time as making it easier or harder. All relative to how many clubs are actually good enough to play in it.

As an example of showing how you can spin these things, I think it is easier to poll Brownlow votes in a league of 18 clubs than when I grew up with 12 in the league. As an example, the best 30 players in league in 1982 probably spread over 6 matches for weekend so 5 guns in each match on average. 2018 season the best 30 players in league spread over 9 matches each round so maybe only about 3 guns in each match on average with talent spread more wide across clubs. If you are gun player now it is easier to attract the 3 votes with less gun players competing to be best on ground. It is part of reason votes over 30 are so much easier to come by. But the population is bigger now so more players to go around but does that mean the best 30 players really changes that much ? Hard to say really and same with the part about weighting to do with how many clubs in league each respective season. Population may mean 9 in league in one season a century ago is about how it should have been. Was it harder to win glam slam tennis titles when in an era of less greats? I would argue winning one when Borg, McEnroe and Conners were around and when Nadal, Federer and Djok around is harder than an era in between as an example of how it is not so clear cut about what is easier...
 
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The same time from 1897 to 1925 when other clubs progressively moved up the league but before 1897 there is no running two leagues at same time. They both came from the one league and just branched off into two with one being the premier league of the game here.

I only looking at your table above closely today but you got some figures wrong. Interesting exercise and good on you having a go at it. We've had 123 grand finals in this league of which 3 seasons had two grand finals (1948, 1977 and 2010) and two seasons had none (1897 & 1924). Given each grand final had two teams playing your "GF" column should add to 246, BUT I see it adds to 249.... so some mistakes in there. Probably starting point to look is may have counted and assumed Essendon had grand finals to win flags in 1897 and 1924 but they were awarded the flag as premier team with no grand finals for both seasons. Hawthorn are 94 years in competition but many more before that their club and team existed in the weaker league so strictly correct in your column of being in league 94 years but I personally would evaluate their existence as a club whilst league already running and no flags as counting against them overall. Same with other clubs in VFA at same time league was running that joined when league deemed them good enough to compete in it. But clubs like Gold Coast and GWS is very fair to only count the seasons they existed as only been a senior club from time this decade. The Brisbane Lions is a grey area as I personally do not see them as Brisbane Bears that played from 1987 to 1996 seasons. Maybe Bears like Uni should be counted as finished with and Brisbane Lions season anew from 1997 onwards or combine Fitzroy and Lions records as one. Grey area for mine. I'd probably do it Fitzroy 99 seasons in league, Bears 10 seasons and Brisbane Lions 22 seasons.

Yeah, clubs that did not run a season during war time should not be penalised as if they played a season then.



Geelong did not play in four seasons of war time. 1915 and 1916 of First World War and for Second World War the seasons missed were 1942 and 43.
Melbourne missed 1916, 1917 and 1918 seasons.
St.Kilda missed 1916 and 1917.
Essendon missed 1916 and 1917.
Swans missed 1916.


Not entirely true. If 7 teams are really strong it maybe harder in reality. Numerically the probability is better chance but that is all you can say for sure. I not sure you can count the number of clubs in league at time as making it easier or harder. All relative to how many clubs are actually good enough to play in it.

As an example of showing how you can spin these things, I think it is easier to poll Brownlow votes in a league of 18 clubs than when I grew up with 12 in the league. As an example, the best 30 players in league in 1982 probably spread over 6 matches for weekend so 5 guns in each match on average. 2018 season the best 30 players in league spread over 9 matches each round so maybe only about 3 guns in each match on average with talent spread more wide across clubs. If you are gun player now it is easier to attract the 3 votes with less gun players competing to be best on ground. It is part of reason votes over 30 are so much easier to come by. But the population is bigger now so more players to go around but does that mean the best 30 players really changes that much ? Hard to say really and same with the part about weighting to do with how many clubs in league each respective season. Population may mean 9 in league in one season a century ago is about how it should have been. Was it harder to win glam slam tennis titles when in an era of less greats? I would argue winning one when Borg, McEnroe and Conners were around and when Nadal, Federer and Djok around is harder than an era in between as an example of how it is not so clear cut about what is easier...

The numbers (or rather lack thereof) clearly made it easier.

In the first 20 years of the VFL the flags were split between only 6 clubs. That would almost definitely not happen in the modern era. In the last 20 years there have been 11 different clubs win the premiership. Unsurprisingly when you roughly double the amount of clubs you roughly halve their rates of success.

Fitzroy won 6 flags in one generation, does that mean they were twice as good as the Brisbane or Geelong teams of the 21st century? Of course not, they just had less competition.
 
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The numbers (or rather lack thereof) clearly made it easier.

Wrong. It just makes them different eras. We do not know how hard it was to be best of those clubs at time. They were the best of the best for their time. It does not make it clearly easier. Those teams could be way more above standard that for the best team to be best of only six clubs may have been incredibly hard to do in reality. Just because we got more teams now does not make it harder. If the standard of clubs diluted due to players spread so far and wide you may not need to be raising yourself to such a high standard to be premier team of season. The number of clubs only tells you of the probability of winning, not exactly how hard or easy they are.

I return you to the tennis analogy. It been way harder to win glam sam title when Djoker, Nadal and Federer all playing at same time. If only one of them existed in this generation it may have been easier to win titles..... Equally I believe winning a title when Borg and McEnroe played was a lot tougher than generations in between these eras.

The numbers competing does not automatically tell you which is harder or easier. The quality of the top level determines that in every era no matter what generation we talk about.
 
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AFL Club
Port Adelaide
Wrong. It just makes them different eras. We do not know how hard it was to be best of those clubs at time. They were the best of the best for their time. It does not make it clearly easier. Those teams could be way more above standard that for the best team to be best of only six clubs may have been incredibly hard to do in reality. Just because we got more teams now does not make it harder. If the standard of clubs diluted due to players spread so far and wide you may not need to be raising yourself to such a high standard to be premier team of season. The number of clubs only tells you of the probability of winning, not exactly how hard or easy they are.

I return you to the tennis analogy. It been way harder to win glam sam title when Djoker, Nadal and Federer all playing at same time. If only one of them existed in this generation it may have been easier to win titles..... Equally I believe winning a title when Borg and McEnroe played was a lot tougher than generations in between these eras.

The numbers competing does not automatically tell you which is harder or easier. The quality of the top level determines that in every era no matter what generation we talk about.

Wrong hey? Well that settles it. Let’s just completely ignore the distribution of flags i.e. what happened and move on then.
 
Jun 6, 2016
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Perth
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
Pines Football Club
The numbers (or rather lack thereof) clearly made it easier.

In the first 20 years of the VFL the flags were split between only 6 clubs. That would almost definitely not happen in the modern era. In the last 20 years there have been 11 different clubs win the premiership. Unsurprisingly when you roughly double the amount of clubs you roughly halve their rates of success.

Fitzroy won 6 flags in one generation, does that mean they were twice as good as the Brisbane or Geelong teams of the 21st century? Of course not, they just had less competition.

Actually that's incorrect, there were 8 clubs until 1908 when there were 10 then back to 9 in 1916 then 4 in 1917 then 6 in 1918 then back to 8 in 1919. Only because of the war. Only two season with 6 or less teams.

I get your sentiment but you're drawing a long bow trying to downplay the merit because of the lesser amount of teams, that would mean all leagues around that time would be moot also. In fact any comp would be without merit until 1987 when the vfl had 14 teams which I think is what you're trying to get at.
 
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