Club History Before the Crows, there was the Redlegs

[SgtSchulz]

Isn't Carlton v Essendon a form of derby with a rivalry going back to 1872 in a lose form and since 1878 from VFA days just like Port first played Norwood in the SAFA in 1878?

I'm using the derby in the sense of a two team town.

 

[tribey]

Cook book lol. Savage af

No option but to change username after that level of burn

manureid treading lightly

 

[Zakk Wylde]

Haha I just remembered

While we were preparing our entry into the AFL, Norwood were entering the groundbreaking realm of lycra guernseys

With zips. Zips!

 

[Grave Danger]

In the Western Australian Football League East Fremantle and South Fremantle had a great rivalry and derby. Those games at times were known as blood baths. Fremantle is the port of Perth and 20km from Perth very similar to Port Adelaide and Adelaide being 15km apart. You have Perth, East Perth and West Perth and their rivalry wasn't as big and the neither was any involving the other 3 clubs Claremont, Subiaco and Swan Districts. Peel came into the competition in 1997.

When the AFL gave Fremantle the sub licence in 1993 for the 1995 season, they and the Western Australian Football Commission (WAFC) asked both Fremantles if they wanted to make a bid for for the licence and the other clubs as well but they both said no as they knew they couldn't compete with the already established West Coast Eagles (WCE). Plus the biggest supporter base of a WAFL club was about 16% of the footy supporters when they did surveys. I think South Freo had the biggest following. The WAFC were given the licence and so they set up a generic Fremantle team to compete with the WCE and whilst they based the club at Fremantle and tried to get a few people from the 2 Fremantle local clubs, the rivalry was so great that they didnt put a lot of people from the 2 clubs together.

They tried to say they were the Fremantle people's team but Fremantle supporters were somewhat ostracized. In 2001 a supporter group called the Freo mob agitated and demonstrated for change for the WAFC to stop treating them as second class citizens, give power to the members and set up more Freo type people on the board and not just a generic WAFC representative types and a WCE-lite type club. Also an attempt was made to involve more South and East Freo people and ex players more into the structure of the club.

The Freo supporter base has evolved partly due to those changes and partly due to WCE selling out a relatively small stadium each game to its members, so if you wanted to watch AFL and weren't a WCE member, you had to go watch an initially poorly attended Fremantle game. Here is a bit of footage about the rivalry.

Freo were known derisively as the Claremont Dockers in their initial years because they sourced so many players/coaches/staff from that club (a bit like the Crows and Glenelg ) With the South Freo vs East Freo rivalry being so intense it's highly unlikely that a combined bid for an AFL license would ever have materialised - imagine the likelihood of Port and Norwood making a combined bid!

 

[tribey]

Haha I just remembered

While we were preparing our entry into the AFL, Norwood were entering the groundbreaking realm of lycra guernseys

With zips. Zips!

Polyester Legs... so shiny

 

[StuMan]

God, it's worse than I remember.

Hahahaha

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Freo were known derisively as the Claremont Dockers in their initial years because they sourced so many players/coaches/staff from that club (a bit like the Crows and Glenelg ) With the South Freo vs East Freo rivalry being so intense it's highly unlikely that a combined bid for an AFL license would ever have materialised - imagine the likelihood of Port and Norwood making a combined bid!

I didnt want to confuse the lad with all the Neesham Claremont influence. Although Gerard Neesham did play 70 or 80 games for East Fremantle and played in a premiership before heading off to Claremont to win a couple as captain coach and then 3 or 4 as non playing coach.

 

[Coobk001]

Cook book lol. Savage af

No option but to change username after that level of burn

It's just an old university login ID I used when i signed up here and at TPFP, and it's always been referred to as Cookie, Coob kool and cook book. Those that know me just call me Coops

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

With the South Freo vs East Freo rivalry being so intense it's highly unlikely that a combined bid for an AFL license would ever have materialised - imagine the likelihood of Port and Norwood making a combined bid!

A joint Port and Norwood team was discussed in 1982 as a potential composite team. I think that lasted for a few days before they both said no and then Max and Don Roach then went off to the VFL an made their presentation about a crows type composite team.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

GremioPower a couple of things to tie in with stuff posted above.

Fos Williams had wanted to play for Port as one of his brothers Frank was playing for Port in 1946, another Glynn for Sturt and had also played for West Adelaide, and another Alex had played 80 odd games ffor Sturt before going of to play for South Fremantle in WA in 1946. The Williams' were from the country and there were no country zones like there were city zones and players had to play for the club in that zone. He had served in World war II and was 24 when he got out of the navy. When he started living in a hotel in Adelaide after his discharge from the navy that caused some issue with his zoning so he had to play for West Adelaide and played 50 odd games between 1946-49. He then became captain coach of the club in 1950 and changed Port Adelaide forever. At the end of the 1950 season, his first as captain coach, Port Adelaide finished 3rd, Norwood won the premiership and the premiership count in the 3 big leagues around Australia was

SANFL Norwood 22 Port Adelaide 13 South Adelaide 10, North Adelaide 7 competition started 1877 suspended for wars 1916-18 + 1942-44
WAFL East Fremantle 21, West Perth 10 Fremantle (1886-1899 also called Unions FC 1892-1899) 10 East Perth 9 competition started 1885
VFL Collingwood 11, Essendon 10, Carlton 8, Fitzroy 8 competition started 1896
Essendon had won 4 VFA premierships before they moved to the VFL

At the end of 1990 after Port made their bid, and the WAFL had 4 seasons of a weakened competition due to WCE entering the VFL it was

SANFL Port Adelaide 30 Norwood 26 Sturt 12, North Adelaide 12 South Adelaide 11
WAFL East Fremantle 26 West Perth 14 East Perth 14 South Fremantle 10
VFL Carlton 15 Collingwood 14, Essendon 14 Melbourne 12 Richmond 10

 

[GremioPower]

Hindsight is a b*tch, but it seems that SANFL should have proposed a "merger" with VFL in late 70's/early 80's. By merger, I mean sending four to five clubs (Port, Norwood, Sturt, North, South?) to join a new AFL along all VFL teams; something like ABA and NBA or AFL and NFL in the US – a smaller, but successful league joining a bigger and stronger one.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Hindsight is a b*tch, but it seems that SANFL should have proposed a "merger" with VFL in late 70's/early 80's. By merger, I mean sending four to five clubs (Port, Norwood, Sturt, North, South?) to join a new AFL along all VFL teams; something like ABA and NBA or AFL and NFL in the US – a smaller, but successful league joining a bigger and stronger one.

Ego and jealousies stopped that.

Godfather III was a terrible movie, but it had the 2nd best line of the 3 movies - Power cant be given, it must be taken! The VFL were never going to kill off any of their clubs and in 1986 the economics didnt make sense for 4 or 5 teams from Adelaide and the same from Perth to join the 11 teams in Melbourne and a relocated South Melbourne in Sydney. If we had 200m people like Brazil, or the population that Brazil had in 1986, then it would make sense. Plus half the country being dominated by rugby league and half by Australian Football meant the smaller states couldnt challenge the Melbourne power base. If Sydney was an Australian Football town and not Rugby League and to lesser extent Rugby Union town, then a more even distribution of clubs may have happened.

In Australia soccer got into so much trouble they had to kill off the old National Soccer League which started in 1977 and was the first national league of the 4 football codes played in Australia. The last season was 2003-04, there was no national league in 2004-05, the national body was restructured with the help of the federal government and financial criterias were set and tenders were called for so that new teams would be established for the start of the new A-League 2005-06 season. Now you have 2 teams in Sydney and Melbourne and 1 in all the other cities.

Australian Football didnt have to go thru this extreme restructuring. It went thru growing pains.

 

[ibd77]

Hindsight is a b*tch, but it seems that SANFL should have proposed a "merger" with VFL in late 70's/early 80's. By merger, I mean sending four to five clubs (Port, Norwood, Sturt, North, South?) to join a new AFL along all VFL teams; something like ABA and NBA or AFL and NFL in the US – a smaller, but successful league joining a bigger and stronger one.

Any league cronie with that much foresight and ambition would have got John Snowed.

 

[Steve Dore]

A not too football interested mate thought that West Coast, Freo, and Western Bulldogs were all WA teams.

Sent from mTalk

Footscray changed their name to Western Bulldogs in 1996 at which time both West Coast and Freemantle were already playing in the AFL. Shows how Melbourne centric the AFL is in their thinking.

Not sent from mTalk

 

[raptalia]

Sez who. Sez you? Mr Negative No All Everything.
Trot off to your corner and work on your long threatened non existent questions re the China Strategy.
As you seem to hoard hanging-judge delusions re what should or shouldn't go into somebody elses's thread - a new friend no less from Brazil who is keen to learn the history of our Club and the competion it has broadly dominated - I would prefer for you to henceforth clam up and clock out.
You are out of luck. You got me on a very bad afternoon.

and he learned what he needed to know in the first few replies. As for my questions on China they were never officially answered. The only information I, and I assume the rest of the Membership, ever received was via this forum and I thanked those people for their input.

What are you a closet Norwood supporter?

Descending to the realm of personal insults does you no credit and bad afternoon or not I honestly thought you were better than that.

 

[Steve Dore]

Torrens were pretty strong in the 50s weren't they? I cannot ever recall meeting a Torrens supporter!

Well they won a premiership in the 50s, and one in the 40s*, and one in the 30s, and one in the 20s. Four in total in their entire history.

I knew a number of West Torrens supporters, some of whom are now Woodville-West Torrens supporters. On in particular is a staunch "No ALF in the SNAFL" man and has a son-in-law that works at Ports. His wife tells me they are banned from discussing football. I asked him how he felt about having ex-AFL players like Paul Stewart and Jared Petrenko playing for his club in the SANFL.

Some of the guys I went to high school with played colts for West Torrens in the 70s.

* Their 1942 premiership was when they were merged with Ports during WWII.

 

[GremioPower]

Footscray changed their name to Western Bulldogs in 1996 at which time both West Coast and Freemantle (and Adelaide and Geelong) were already playing in the AFL. Shows how Melbourne centric the AFL is in their thinking.

Not sent from mTalk

FYP ;-)

 

[Prison bar Pete]

Then, basically, Adelaide represents SANFL and Port represents itself in the AFL. A third SA team would need to come from scratch, and/or representing a part of Adelaide with strong local identity — if such a place actually exists. Otherwise, AFL cannot expand in SA.

I don't think any of the existing SANFL clubs could realistically vie for a 3rd licence in their own right now. It's really hard to see a third team from Adelaide in the foreseeable future. However, if there's a significant enough increase in population over time you might get a situation where 2 could become 3 (perhaps if the Crows were disbanded and replaced by generic Northern and Southern Adelaide teams).

 

[GremioPower]

Any league cronie with that much foresight and ambition would have got John Snowed.

View attachment 389591

The results were there to everyone to see, and when VFL left the Night Series, it should have been obvious that the future of the game would necessarily pass through Melbourne. VFL already knew it!

 

[PA88]

A joint Port and Norwood team was discussed in 1982 as a potential composite team. I think that lasted for a few days before they both said no and then Max and Don Roach then went off to the VFL an made their presentation about a crows type composite team.

Both clubs never discussed a merger, only the outsiders did, likely the media getting hold of 10% information and guessing the rest. Port proposed to Norwood for both clubs to support each others bid.

 

[Established1870]

I don't think any of the existing SANFL clubs could realistically vie for a 3rd licence in their own right now. It's really hard to see a third team from Adelaide in the foreseeable future. However, if there's a significant enough increase in population over time you might get a situation where 2 could become 3 (perhaps if the Crows were disbanded and replaced by generic Northern and Southern Adelaide teams).

If Norwood pushed hard they could potentially do it. Push aggressively to get people to games and sell out Norwood Oval every week. Again, they got just under 40k to a SANFL grand final. They've got supporters. I'd wager a fair number of them would switch to support the club closer to home. I don't see a 3rd SA club because of population statistics and lack of local finances, even though it is Norwood and their coterie would be far richer than most clubs. The Crows won't disband, that's financial suicide for everyone in the state who's related to football (us included). No other existing club outside Norwood in the country has a snow's chance in hell though of getting in aside from Southport who should've been the 17th GC side from the start.

 

[GremioPower]

If Norwood pushed hard they could potentially do it. Push aggressively to get people to games and sell out Norwood Oval every week. Again, they got just under 40k to a SANFL grand final. They've got supporters. I'd wager a fair number of them would switch to support the club closer to home. I don't see a 3rd SA club because of population statistics and lack of local finances, even though it is Norwood and their coterie would be far richer than most clubs. The Crows won't disband, that's financial suicide for everyone in the state who's related to football (us included). No other existing club outside Norwood in the country has a snow's chance in hell though of getting in aside from Southport who should've been the 17th GC side from the start.

Who's Southport?

 

[Established1870]

Who's Southport?

A club in the Gold Coast in QLD who are pretty much their version of us in state league terms. They have fairly big support for a club from that part of Australia, are well established and tried pushing to be the GC's AFL club before. They had 20,000 members at one stage and IIRC are the richest club outside the AFL. If they were admitted as Gold Coast then that shit factory wouldn't have most of the problems it does now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southport_Australian_Football_Club

Their list of players drafted into the VFL/AFL is pretty farken impressive. Ashcroft, Beams, Riewoldt, Tippet (Joel the superstar and his shitty brother Kurt), Rory Thompson, Sammy Gilbert and Lachie Weller are some of their products.

Edit*: Nathan Bock is their coach holy shit

 

[GremioPower]

A club in the Gold Coast in QLD who are pretty much their version of us in state league terms. They have fairly big support for a club from that part of Australia, are well established and tried pushing to be the GC's AFL club before. They had 20,000 members at one stage and IIRC are the richest club outside the AFL. If they were admitted as Gold Coast then that shit factory wouldn't have most of the problems it does now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southport_Australian_Football_Club

Their list of players drafted into the VFL/AFL is pretty farken impressive. Ashcroft, Beams, Riewoldt, Tippet (Joel the superstar and his shitty brother Kurt), Rory Thompson, Sammy Gilbert and Lachie Weller are some of their products.

Edit*: Nathan Bock is their coach holy shit

Why did AFL choose Gold Coast? Because of Port?

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Why did AFL choose Gold Coast? Because of Port?

Money and eyeballs. It is the 6th biggest city in Australia.