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Supermercado
The straw that stirs the drink
An oft repeated stat that comes up in everything to do with Melbourne is how Alan Johnson was the "first player picked in a national draft".
Obviously this has no connection to the actual national draft that started in 1986, but newspaper articles of the day do clearly show that there was a draft after the 1981 season where any player who wanted to travel east (it definately covered the WAFL but I'm not sure about the SANFL) and hadn't signed a form four with a VFL club could enter and be picked up in reverse order. Each club had two picks and it replaced the system of each club being given two form fours every year to buy players with.
BUT I never see any reference to any other player who got picked in this particular draft or any further drafts from then on. If Melbourne picked a second player I'm pretty sure he never played seniors and I've never seen any draft orders. Unfortunately Google News Archive is missing copies of The Age from around the time of the first draft so I can't use that as a guide.
Can anybody shed light on the selections that were made in drafts before the National Draft as we know it kicked off at the end of 1986?
Obviously this has no connection to the actual national draft that started in 1986, but newspaper articles of the day do clearly show that there was a draft after the 1981 season where any player who wanted to travel east (it definately covered the WAFL but I'm not sure about the SANFL) and hadn't signed a form four with a VFL club could enter and be picked up in reverse order. Each club had two picks and it replaced the system of each club being given two form fours every year to buy players with.
BUT I never see any reference to any other player who got picked in this particular draft or any further drafts from then on. If Melbourne picked a second player I'm pretty sure he never played seniors and I've never seen any draft orders. Unfortunately Google News Archive is missing copies of The Age from around the time of the first draft so I can't use that as a guide.
Can anybody shed light on the selections that were made in drafts before the National Draft as we know it kicked off at the end of 1986?