Quarter of a century without Fitzroy: Is the AFL better or worse off?

[Matchu]

Simple question that should render some interesting responses. Fitzroy were in the VFL/AFL competition for exactly 100 seasons and we've now gone just over 25 years without them in the league.

Is the league better or worse off for losing Fitzroy? Why/Why not?

 

[BLUEALLTHRU]

Fitzroy were my 2nd team and I have always had a big soft spot for them.

To answer you question though, it is a national game now and besides the AFL charity baskets most have to walk for themselves. Fitzroy unfortunately were struggling and were not seen as a risk worth carrying.

 

[Leon]

The scenes at their second last home game against Richmond and last game against Freo (players laps of honour, supporters in the stands, their former greats etc) are still the most gut wrenchingly sad scenes I’ve ever seen since I’ve been following football.

 

[kane249]

Better

Strengthened Brisbane and reduced the number of teams in the over saturated Melbourne market

 

[Captivating]

Better

Strengthened Brisbane and reduced the number of teams in the over saturated Melbourne market

Roys had 10 years to pull themselves out of a nose dive. The softer option was the merge but it resulted in strengthening a team that just played off in a PF and was coming off back-to-back finals.

 

[Irish BlueBagger]

Worse off i say. The centenary of the AFL, will always be remembered for the killing off of one of it's founding members.

This was a club with eight premierships to it's name as well. What happened to Fitzroy was a disgrace really. I don't want to see any club in the competition suffer such a fate ever again.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

The comp is better off being a national game.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

The comp is better off being a national game.

Probably true, but it has come at a high price. The game is also only ‘sorta‘ NationaL, being distorted by too many Melbourne based Clubs and insufficient in other States.

Fitzroy paid a terrible price as did my mob, South Melbourne. Both the SA and WA comps are pale shadows of what they once were. The VFA here has also gone, swallowed somehow by the gaping maw of the AFL. Less about the National comp and more about AFL, country footy has also paid a high price.

Sticking to 18 teams but a National redistribution is the way to go. As well as Tassie, both WA and SA would easily accommodate a third team. It would also maximise use of existing infrastructure at Optus and AO.

This means reducing the Melbourne based teams by three. The candidates are obvious.

 

[Biggy_Boy]

Fitzroy were my 2nd team and I have always had a big soft spot for them.

To answer you question though, it is a national game now and besides the AFL charity baskets most have to walk for themselves. Fitzroy unfortunately were struggling and were not seen as a risk worth carrying.

But plenty of clubs since Fitzroy, including a number of Melbourne-based clubs, have struggled to carry themselves and relied heavily upon the AFL and other clubs to hold themselves up. The Fitzroy situation seems sad in retrospect because they weren't afforded the same leeway that so many have been after. It is now vital to the AFL to have its 18 teams for the TV rights, so they're happier to cop handouts to mismanaged clubs than roll them up or merge them, because creating a brand new team to fill the gap would cost substantially more.

If they had continued to be so ruthless, the AFL could have dissolved or merged a number of clubs throughout the 90s/2000s and filled their spots with teams in other states, thereby ultimately establishing the AFL as a true national competition rather than the weird VFL+ model we have now.

 

[St Plugger]

This means reducing the Melbourne based teams by three. The candidates are obvious.

Yep, Essendon, Carlton and Collingwood. The teams everyone loves to hate!

 

[Cubs2Lions]

Yep, Essendon, Carlton and Collingwood. The teams everyone loves to hate!

Can we add Richmond in that list as well, something tells me that would be another popular choice.

 

[CarnTheScray]

Should never happen again. Oakley can GAGF.

 

[Robertio]

Yep, Essendon, Carlton and Collingwood. The teams everyone loves to hate!

All with great membership though hate them or not.

 

[Irish BlueBagger]

Melbourne were kind of facing a Fitzroy like scenario in 2013, but then the AFL launched a rescue package. A new president and CEO was appointed, and the AFL even parachuted Paul Roos in as coach as well.

Contrast the treatment afforded to the Demons to that of the Lions. They were pretty much told by the AFL to merge or die. Fitzroy could have been saved if the will and appetite was there imo.

 

[rye]

Melbourne were kind of facing a Fitzroy like scenario in 2013, but then the AFL launched a rescue package. A new president and CEO was appointed, and the AFL even parachuted Paul Roos in as coach as well.

Contrast the treatment afforded to the Demons to that of the Lions. They were pretty much told by the AFL to merge or die. Fitzroy could have been saved if the will and appetite was there imo.

think the only melbourne based clubs to not face an existential crisis in roughly the same period as fitzroy did were essendon, collingwood and carlton.

fitzroy just ended up being the unlucky one to be in the doldrums as the afl said port was coming in and a license was being revoked to make room for them

the appetite might be there again for the situation to happen again if this tasmanian team gets approved.

 

[Irish BlueBagger]

The first team Carlton played in the VFL was the Lions. Our first grand final appearance was against them, and we beat them to win our first VFL premiership as well.

Then you had David Parkin, Robert Walls and Rod Austin coaching there in the 80's. I suppose Fitzroys problems started, when they had to leave the Brunswick Street Oval their original home ground.

 

[Kwality]

Simple question that should render some interesting responses. Fitzroy were in the VFL/AFL competition for exactly 100 seasons and we've now gone just over 25 years without them in the league.

Is the league better or worse off for losing Fitzroy? Why/Why not?

Sad but there are too many 1930s suburban footy clubs in the national comp.

 

[Gavin Excell]

Just in wrong place wrong time
Tragedy

 

[LordLucifer]

As a national competiton, the AFL is way better off without Fitzroy as there was too many Melbourne-based clubs then and still is today. It may not have been Fitzroy that went to the wall though, it may just have been bad timing for them.

The number of clubs in the competition still needs to grow a little to enable an even draw as well as branch out into new areas and therefore grow the game even more. However, there needs to be a rationalisation of clubs in Melbourne as there are some who are perennial non-achievers and constant welfare recipients.

 

[Simche]

Culturally worse, financially better off.

I sometimes like to think how wonderful the comp would have been if money was no issue and we'd somehow managed to add the top four or so WAFL and SANFL sides to the VFL instead of these corporate constructs that are the Crows/Eagles etc. while maintaining Fitzroy, the Bears and potentially admitting a club like Southport to form the national competition. The money was all wrong to pursue that option though, let alone everyone looking after their own interests and not the broader interests of the game.

A poster above has pretty much summed up the AFL era in that it has ensured the financial survival and prominence of the game at the top level, but that has definitely come at the cost of the second tier, local and country competitions.

Fitzroy also desperately unlucky. There were several clubs that could easily have ceased operating through that late 80s/early 90s period and they were the one left standing without a seat when the music ceased.

 

[Senor M]

I think Fitzroy left the league at a time when it was struggling with identity.

If it was able to get back to Brunswick Street Oval as a training ground, then hung on until the inner north of Melbourne gentrified then I believe that Fitzroy would currently have one of the most unique identities within the AFL.

Imagine a "Hipster" themed AFL club that would be coming into it's own now as the children of the Millennials who moved to the northern suburbs (Fitzroy/Northcote/Thornbury) were now becoming an age to go to the footy.

 

[Simche]

I think Fitzroy left the league at a time when it was struggling with identity.

If it was able to get back to Brunswick Street Oval as a training ground, then hung on until the inner north of Melbourne gentrified then I believe that Fitzroy would currently have one of the most unique identities within the AFL.

Imagine a "Hipster" themed AFL club that would be coming into it's own now as the children of the Millennials who moved to the northern suburbs (Fitzroy/Northcote/Thornbury) were now becoming an age to go to the footy.

Given that they played the majority of their post Brunswick St Oval history in St Kilda at the Junction Oval, I'm not sure that they'd have done much good out of the gentrification of Fitzroy North. They finished up in Footscray and even if they had stayed at Princess Park or Vic Park there would still be a significant detachment from the local community that's necessary to build a generation of supporters. Plus if gentrification teaches us anything it is that it would have made it significantly harder to try and redevelop Brunswick St Oval given the NIMBY nature of the inner north.

Further, I don't think that the children moving to the area would have adopted the club. In my view who your parents/family go for is probably the driving force in who you barrack for with a small element opting for successful teams. Fitzroy had neither.

 

[Kwality]

these corporate constructs that are the Crows/Eagles etc.

A footy fan with no idea.
Rooted in the 1930s version of a VFL club & expecting that 1930s thinking to be forced on footy fans Australia wide.

 

[Roylion]

I think Fitzroy left the league at a time when it was struggling with identity.

If it was able to get back to Brunswick Street Oval as a training ground,

They tried. In the early 90s Fitzroy were making plans to return to the Brunswick Street Oval (just up the road from their existing HQ and social club at the Fitzroy Club Hotel at the conjunction of St Georges Road and Brunswick Street) as a permanent training and administration base. The club had actually gained approval from the Fitzroy Council in 1992 to do just that, but needed at least an extra $250,000 (and possibly as much as $500,000) to renovate the old heritage grandstand and build a modern AFL quality gymnasium over the existing community rooms for the players.

They just couldn't find the extra money to do so.

 

[Simche]

A footy fan with no idea.
Rooted in the 1930s version of a VFL club & expecting that 1930s thinking to be forced on footy fans Australia wide.

If you could look past the characterisation of your club as a faceless corporate construct, which it absolutely was upon purchase of a VFL licence with no history, no players and no culture, perhaps you'd see what I'm actually talking about. Clearly you didn't grow up having any allegiance or affiliation to a WAFL club and have resorted to childish ad hominem attacks accordingly.

There's a reason importing existing WAFL and SANFL sides would have been my preference that extend past their established history at that point. The fact that they're rooted in their respective communities for starters.