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

[Tackle Bag]

Terrible decision for Fitzroy fans but the right one for the game.

We would be in a better spot if they’d relocated 2 more out of Melbourne while they were at it. It’s still a problem

 

[Coach_Required]

Terrible decision for Fitzroy fans but the right one for the game.

We would be in a better spot if they’d relocated 2 more out of Melbourne while they were at it. It’s still a problem

Agree

Carlton & Essendon

 

[Johnny Bananas]

The AFL had no power to do that.

Offer enough money and everything is possible.

 

[element]

yep. Sucked for the fans but better for the game. In a different time, they'd have been given handouts by the AFL instead.

There are still currently 9 out of 18 teams that are based in the city of Melbourne, with a couple of them seemingly forever mired in debt and perennial charity cases propped up by the rest of the competition. If they're going to be propped up then they may as well be Tassie or Canberrra teams?

 

[Roylion]

Offer enough money and everything is possible.

Yes. But still the final decision is not the AFL's. The AFL could not send Fitzroy anywhere - to the VFL or anywhere else. All they could do is withdraw the licence to compete in the AFL.

 

[Delecate Des]

Worse

 

[yodellinhank]

It should have been a North Melbourne/Fitzroy merger, which a lot of Fitzroy people had got their heads around. The whole notion that the other clubs didn't want this, because North were already strong, came back to bite them as the Brisbane Lions ran rampant in the early 2000s, as a direct result of the merger.

Not really, justifies their stance if anything. North refused to budge, despite desperate pleas from Fitzroy, on list demands that clubs believed were more generous than the Brisbane proposal.

 

[Power Raid]

The lions made way for port and port gained some wonderful players from the lions.

but it is a tragedy to lose a club with great history. perhaps if merger was the only option, merging with a Vic club would have been a better option.

 

[Altum Volantes]

Better…didn’t cut deep enough.

 

[kane249]

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.

Thats a flawed notion though. Port Power have been hobbled getting people to support them in SA due to their association with the Port Magpies.

People who support the other SANFL teams hate the Magpies with a passion, so a lot of people didn't want to support the Power as a result and gravitate towards the Crows and other teams.

The history is a double edged sword.

 

[BigVic]

Better for the game. Fitzroy moving north was the right solution.

They could’ve merged with North but would be financially struggling and at the bottom of the ladder now.

 

[Aristotle Pickett the3rd]

To dump Fitzroy and to have fake franchise teams like GWS and Gold Coast is a disgrace.
They should have merged Melbourne teams instead of attatching them to Brisbane and Sydney. Theit identity is totally lost now.

 

[Aristotle Pickett the3rd]

Afl now is one big corporate franchise designed to make money through saturation advertising.

 

[Irish BlueBagger]

I think of Port about same size as North. But unlike North they have potential to keep growing because they only one of two franchise clubs in Adelaide so they only competing with attracting South Aussie kids to their club there with one other club. North were one of 12 clubs in Melbourne originally and struggle to grow their supporter base over the generations, sadly, so they probably were less than 1/12th support here and similar issues with Fitzroy and Footscray in the transitional period of league through the 80's and 90's to expand to be national base than state based league.

North really are a victim of their location imo. They have ourselves and Essendon as neighbours, then over the Maribyrnong river is Western Bulldogs territory.

In terms of supporter catchment area, The Bulldogs pretty much have the entire western suburbs to themselves. Fitzroy of course had a similar problem, they were sandwiched in between both ourselves and Collingwood.

 

[footyfan1978]

Thats a flawed notion though. Port Power have been hobbled getting people to support them in SA due to their association with the Port Magpies.

People who support the other SANFL teams hate the Magpies with a passion, so a lot of people didn't want to support the Power as a result and gravitate towards the Crows and other teams.

The history is a double edged sword.

Nah it is your history reading that is flawed notion. If Port Magpies had been admitted in 1991 and another club like Norwood a few years on we have two established clubs in league there for SA kids to choose from. Crows were an overnight bastard child in the squabble and jealousy within SANFL circles that Port Magpies were trying to upgrade into the expanded league of AFL at the time. As a result we have franchises from SA rather than established clubs.

 

[terrybull]

Terrible decision for Fitzroy fans but the right one for the game.

We would be in a better spot if they’d relocated 2 more out of Melbourne while they were at it. It’s still a problem

I live in Sweden and can only see games on TV anyway.
So I’m all for the move to Tasmania and we become the Tassie Tigers (Thylacines).

‘cause we’re from Tiger (Beige and Black) land….

 

[Lavender Bushranger]

We would be in a better spot if they’d relocated 2 more out of Melbourne while they were at it. It’s still a problem

What is the problem?

 

[Kwality]

Undoubtedly worse off. The killing of a club is the darkest chapter in the league's history, an unforgivable act by the AFL, Oakley and Collins.

They could have been retained in the league.

If we were so totally in need of a merger, then it should have been Fitzroy and North - I understand both clubs wanted it, and it feels like it would've been much more a merger with a true combination of two clubs' history and a continual presence where they should be - in Melbourne. "Merging" them with Brisbane is like some kind of sick joke... Fitzroy had no place in Brisbane.

I think it was pathetic short-term thinking by the clubs that killed the North-Fitzroy merger, being scared of a super team. Pretty funny when you look at what Brisbane became anyway.

The darkest shadow (your description) is the number of Melbourne clubs that so skew any attempt at a fair fixture for the national comp in the 21st century.

The VFL recognised that there are too many clubs in Melbourne in 1980s - did you not get the telegram?

 

[Kwality]

What is the problem?

The FIXture, rooted in a home & away concept that hasnt been universal for at least 50 years in Victoria.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

The darkest shadow (your description) is the number of Melbourne clubs that so skew any attempt at a fair fixture for the national comp in the 21st century.

The VFL recognised that there are too many clubs in Melbourne in 1980s - did you not get the telegram?

An uneven fixture is hardly the darkest chapter in the league's history.

The league's governing body went out of their way and made concerted efforts for years and years to kill a foundation footy club. It's ugly stuff and a stain on the league's history. Just because you happen to get off on it in some bizarre way, doesn't make it any better.

 

[AstonSouffle]

Culturally the sport is worse off but the product and business operated as the AFL has dealt with it and moved on as a sporting/entertainment industry first and sport second.
Culturally we have lost a lot to expand the league from 12 teams to 18 and soon 19. The leagues that were the next best around the nation have been basically absorbed into it to simply be feeder leagues only now to the product that is the AFL but they used to have good followings too.
SANFL, WAFL and VFA were culturally strong footy leagues that had good followings next to the premier league of the VFL that has become the AFL. That price to pay culturally has been too high imo. We've added corporate franchise clubs like Eagles, Crows and the rest but lost having the strong tie to football clubs that had a rich history built up through communities such as Fitzroy, Norwood, Sturt, Glenelg, East Fremantle, Port Melbourne, Preston, West Perth, Coburg, Subiaco, Prahran, West Adelaide etc. which if you in your 30's or 20's or teenage years means nothing to you as you probably only known footy through the AFL but those of us that grew up with the sport have a strong following in the traditional footy states have seen everything that made the sport exciting from grassroots to the elite level has been cannablised and taken away too much we wonder if the long term cost will come back to bite hard later in the future. The overall level of joy and fun of following from the strong state leagues, reserves teams and VFA to premier league that grew up with is actually not there to enjoy anymore in the same way I fell in love with the sport. If your club you followed in the league was Fitzroy it obviously would be felt even stronger loss.

I think the AFL will go on but I fear the best times of the sport itself have probably been experienced already and we have a lesser version of the sport now as a result. But it run more like a sporting/entertainment business so that will continue on and still be enjoyed by generations to come.
They can't miss what they never known so it won't matter in the end.
The world is in a constant state of flux.
Change is constant. Not always for the better but change is a reality each and everyday.

Agree heavily, I support Fremantle because well... I have never really appreciated how openly corporate West Coast is (example, when they announced their new song, they said they were proud to introduce something that would 'further their brand' ).

But it's a damn shame 29-year-old me never got the chance to support a local team with history at the highest level of the game, I sincerely would have loved to - I want to care about WA history but the way the AFL is constructed to hand wave non-victorian history is a shame.

I found out a guy I've been playing with for a while is Barry Cable's grandson and that is apparently a big deal, so I did some research and he's an outright legend of the game, but when he eventually is celebrated - they'll talk about his two VFL premierships with North Melbourne and not much else.

 

[Roylion]

Better for the game. Fitzroy moving north was the right solution.

Fitzroy didn't move north. They were ejected from the AFL competition.

 

[masai tu]

Agree heavily, I support Fremantle because well... I have never really appreciated how openly corporate West Coast is (example, when they announced their new song, they said they were proud to introduce something that would 'further their brand' ).

But it's a damn shame 29-year-old me never got the chance to support a local team with history at the highest level of the game, I sincerely would have loved to - I want to care about WA history but the way the AFL is constructed to hand wave non-victorian history is a shame.

I found out a guy I've been playing with for a while is Barry Cable's grandson and that is apparently a big deal, so I did some research and he's an outright legend of the game, but when he eventually is celebrated - they'll talk about his two VFL premierships with North Melbourne and not much else.

Cable is a legend in WA footy circles, probably talked up as in the top 5 WA players.

He is not forgotten in WA.

 

[Dangerousfield]

yep. Sucked for the fans but better for the game. In a different time, they'd have been given handouts by the AFL instead.

There are still currently 9 out of 18 teams that are based in the city of Melbourne, with a couple of them seemingly forever mired in debt and perennial charity cases propped up by the rest of the competition. If they're going to be propped up then they may as well be Tassie or Canberrra teams?

We know which two should go from Melbourne, it would be better for the game.

South Melbourne showed what can be done, kept most of their Melbourne fan base and gathered a whole new city as well. South didn't want to go but agreed in order to survive and eventually prosper.

North said no to the largesse the AFL was offering for them to relocate to Gold Coast and North promptly become a basket case, will never rise above mid table again.

 

[Roylion]

We know which two should go from Melbourne, it would be better for the game.

South Melbourne showed what can be done, kept most of their Melbourne fan base and gathered a whole new city as well. South didn't want to go but agreed in order to survive and eventually prosper.

North said no to the largesse the AFL was offering for them to relocate to Gold Coast

And if you are a North supporter definitely the right decision.

and North promptly become a basket case, will never rise above mid table again.

Yes they will.

North isn’t a basket case despite being currently close to the bottom of the ladder. Debt free and have their own home base which has just been redeveloped.