Discussion The VFA premierships debate - should they be recognised as elite level premierships?

How many tier 1 premierships have Geelong won?


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Feb 24, 2013
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The GoldenBrown Heart of Victoria
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Anyone who is a student of footy history would be happy to see that clubs are allowed to celbrate their history however they see fit.

Sure....I've got no issue with that.

Rather, it's when people argue they should be both recognized & included on the same level as VFL/AFL flags....Using the fuzzy logic that because VFL morphed into AFL we should then tag VFA on along for the ride.

Which, of course, is complete bollocks.
 
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Sure....I've got no issue with that.

Rather, it's when people argue they should be both recognized & included on the same level as VFL/AFL flags....Using the fuzzy logic that because VFL morphed into AFL we should then tag VFA on along for the ride.

Which, of course, is complete bollocks.

It's about having a continuous and competitive history of the clubs in question.

Now the only reason why Carlton and Melbourne's pre-1877 premierships are not included on the list is that there wasn't an organised competition they were won in. Whereas the VFA was an organised competition. That's the only difference here.
 

SgtSchulz

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So basically its that from 1870-1986 Australian football comprised of State Leagues.

Post 1986 we had a national competition with teams added to the VFL for the first time and a real national draft. The WAFL was no longer a State League "equal" with the VFL. The SANFL despite not entering a team was also thus relegated to second tier status by virtue of the WAFL's actions.

Hawthorn have the largest number of National Premierships (7)

Carlton have the largest number of Premier State Level Premierships in Victoria (20)
Port Adelaide have the largest number of Premier State Level Premierships in South Australia (27)
East Fremantle have the largest number of Premier State Level Premierships in Western Australia (26)


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All you are missing the VFA Premierships 1897-1924 (which would boost the numbers for Richmond, North Melbourne and Footscray)
Why stop at 1924?

We love to draw lines, don't we. But history is often much more complicated.
 
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So basically its that from 1870-1986 Australian football comprised of State Leagues.

Post 1986 we had a national competition with teams added to the VFL for the first time and a real national draft. The WAFL was no longer a State League "equal" with the VFL. The SANFL despite not entering a team was also thus relegated to second tier status by virtue of the WAFL's actions.

Hawthorn have the largest number of National Premierships (7)

Carlton have the largest number of Premier State Level Premierships in Victoria (20)
Port Adelaide have the largest number of Premier State Level Premierships in South Australia (27)
East Fremantle have the largest number of Premier State Level Premierships in Western Australia (26)


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Sorry, but I don't agree with this list at all. Please remove the 1870 to 1876 details.

No team won "premierships" prior to 1877 because there was no competition to be premier of.
And even after the VFA was formed in 1877, there was no "official" award of a premiership until the mid-1880s.

The Challenge Cup matches are individual games where the holder of the cup was being challenged,
not a series of matches over a season as we have now. Besides which, the Challenge Cup for senior clubs was only played for in 1870 and 1871.
And I note that Albert Park were holders of the Challenege Cup in 1870, not Melbourne.

Geelong may have been involved in more localised Cup challenge matches in some of the 1870-76 years.
 

SgtSchulz

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Sorry, but I don't agree with this list at all. Please remove the 1870 to 1876 details.

No team won "premierships" prior to 1877 because there was no competition to be premier of.
And even after the VFA was formed in 1877, there was no "official" award of a premiership until the mid-1880s.

The Challenge Cup matches are individual games where the holder of the cup was being challenged,
not a series of matches over a season as we have now. Besides which, the Challenge Cup for senior clubs was only played for in 1870 and 1871.
And I note that Albert Park were holders of the Challenege Cup in 1870, not Melbourne.

Geelong may have been involved in more localised Cup challenge matches in some of the 1870-76 years.
I shouldn't of used challenge cup in the title. The teams listed are simply those with the best records.
 

blueycarlton

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1934 part. Kelly life membership Capture.JPG




It seems Carlton has no problems in recognizing VFA and Pre VFA Premierships. See Joe Kelly's Life Membership Certificate from 1934 (Note: Founded 1860)
The only thing missing on this certificate is the disputed (with Melbourne) 1869 Premiership, which in recent years was included on a letter head I received from the club.
Seeing Geelong hardly won anything before 1878 of course they want it restricted only to the VFA.
If you read the newspapers of the time, the Premierships prior to 1877 were universally acknowledged.
Just because there was no formal controlling body (VFA), the club secretaries and club officials organized the running of the competition and made rule changes, etc.
The other clubs who won VFA flags after 1896 of course can recognize them but they were not playing in the senior competition.
 

ljamest36

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Well as dumb as it may sound, I think VFA shouldn't be counted but VFL should. What we have to remember is that the Melbourne based teams we see in the AFL today all left the VFA for the VFL. The VFL obviously only had Victorian teams, until 1986 when the swans moved to Sydney, West Coast and Brisbane followed the year after. Meaning that when the competitions name was changed to AFL, only 3 of the 14 teams were actually interstate, and the rest of the competition was the VFL. Unlike the VFA, clubs didn't literally leave the competion, the VFL just expanded-the Roman empire still had Rome when it expanded, the old VFL teams still have their premierships when the VFL expanded, it's basically just a name change. Port Adelaide doesn't have their SANFL premierships because they left for the AFL and and the teams who left the VFA didn't keep their premierships because they left for the VFL, as they never really left the VFL their premierships still count.
 
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It seems Carlton has no problems in recognizing VFA and Pre VFA Premierships. See Joe Kelly's Life Membership Certificate from 1934 (Note: Founded 1860)
The only thing missing on this certificate is the disputed (with Melbourne) 1869 Premiership, which in recent years was included on a letter head I received from the club.
Seeing Geelong hardly won anything before 1878 of course they want it restricted only to the VFA.
If you read the newspapers of the time, the Premierships prior to 1877 were universally acknowledged.
Just because there was no formal controlling body (VFA), the club secretaries and club officials organized the running of the competition and made rule changes, etc.
The other clubs who won VFA flags after 1896 of course can recognize them but they were not playing in the senior competition.

Great post.
We celebrated out 150th year only a couple of years back.
This myth that clubs do not recognise all their past is just that, a myth.
 

blueycarlton

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Surely the ANFC flagship competition, The Championship of Australia has some relevance in this discussion given it matched the premier VFL, SANFL and WANFL clubs together?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Championship_of_Australia
The Championship of Australia really has no relevance. The teams that travelled hardly won, and the players would have looked at the trip as as a holiday. No SA premier teams won when the match was played in Victoria. Of course the Adelaide teams would have been eager to knock off the Vic premier to prove themselves, but the Victorian team had played it's most important match of the year a week or two before.
 

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Last year I purchased a boxed collection of all grand final records , up until about 1925 the pre 1897 pre ships were counted . I think they should as the VFA was the fore runner to the then VFL.

so 30 years after the VFL formed, they started counting the pre 1897 with less emphasis

AFL has been around since 1990. 2020 is 30 years on so maybe the answer might be to ONLY count AFL Flags, with previous trophies in other competitions counted in club records only.
 
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