re: VFL saved us all vs we all saved the VFL argument.
Oh boy, where to start. Ok, number one, try to be objective as possible, two, realise people can read the same source material and come up with different conclusions.
Something that needs to be recognised, as it was back at the very dawn of people thinking of a national comp, Aussie Rules needed more money to operate and therefore needed to go professional, that was the case for all the big leagues back then.
I'm unsure about the state of the SANFL at the time, but the VFL and the WAFL would not have survived in the same form as they were. Something else would have sprung up in their places, no idea what tbh.
I know that the SANFL were coming up with things like player retention packages/schemes etc and were resistant to joining the VFL....until Port came along and threw the cat among the pigeons....rightly or wrongly, lets not get into that here.
As far as I know, the WAFL was in dire straights, crowd numbers were going down, players were being drained from the system to the VFL, who had clubs doing this that couldn't afford it, worse was the fact that clubs in the WAFL were relying on this as a source of income. Hence the VFL having some kind of collapse would have a knock on effect to the WAFL.
So it's a case of a large chunk of the VFL bankrupting itself to keep up and threatening to stuff up both competitions financially.
Throw into this John 'Pigs arse!' Elliot sniffing around certain clubs (Claremont being one) about starting a new national comp, possibly a proto super league situation.
Also, the VFL refusing to come to the party in setting up any kind of NFL, or keeping it running/relevant. Can't argue with population and market share unfortunately.
This is a very rough look at the situation as it was at the dawn of the AFL becoming a thing.
Claiming it was all one way or the other is basically a nonesense.
Oh boy, where to start. Ok, number one, try to be objective as possible, two, realise people can read the same source material and come up with different conclusions.
Something that needs to be recognised, as it was back at the very dawn of people thinking of a national comp, Aussie Rules needed more money to operate and therefore needed to go professional, that was the case for all the big leagues back then.
I'm unsure about the state of the SANFL at the time, but the VFL and the WAFL would not have survived in the same form as they were. Something else would have sprung up in their places, no idea what tbh.
I know that the SANFL were coming up with things like player retention packages/schemes etc and were resistant to joining the VFL....until Port came along and threw the cat among the pigeons....rightly or wrongly, lets not get into that here.
As far as I know, the WAFL was in dire straights, crowd numbers were going down, players were being drained from the system to the VFL, who had clubs doing this that couldn't afford it, worse was the fact that clubs in the WAFL were relying on this as a source of income. Hence the VFL having some kind of collapse would have a knock on effect to the WAFL.
So it's a case of a large chunk of the VFL bankrupting itself to keep up and threatening to stuff up both competitions financially.
Throw into this John 'Pigs arse!' Elliot sniffing around certain clubs (Claremont being one) about starting a new national comp, possibly a proto super league situation.
Also, the VFL refusing to come to the party in setting up any kind of NFL, or keeping it running/relevant. Can't argue with population and market share unfortunately.
This is a very rough look at the situation as it was at the dawn of the AFL becoming a thing.
Claiming it was all one way or the other is basically a nonesense.