Competition "What If" Wednesdays - Time Traveller Sneezes Edition: Week 44 - Darwin join the AFL - 1991

[cannavo]

Welcome to ...

Marty McFly has done himself a mischief and has altered the course of Aussie footy in ways you can't imagine!
Get ready to dive into alternate futures!​

What is “What If” Wednesdays?
"What if" Wednesdays was a competition comprised of real-life football team proposals, merger propositions, former teams and a few hypotheticals brought to life by the FJGD community (eg. If the Melbourne-Hawthorn merger went ahead, if University/Fitzroy/Bris Bears stuck around, if Gold Coasts nickname were the Lifesavers etc.) it became this boards longest running competition (8/9/14 – 29/5/19). It has been revived under a meme cultured spin-off! Time traveller sneezes memes are all about butterfly effects on various things caused by a time traveller altering the past by means of a simple sneeze.

What’s new this time around?
This time or these times around, we will be flung into various timelines where our universes former teams, mergers, relocation proposals never existed or had its outcome altered slightly or severely! The list below is comprised of alternate timelines and the butterfly effect caused by our cheeky time traveller. Your job is to envision this outcome! Each comp will run for 1 week and the poll will run for 3 days. The winner picks the next team from the list below!

There are some routes you can go by if you're stuck:

• The chosen team has entered their designated competition in the current year (unless specified) along with the current teams OR
• You may design kits at any point in time unless strictly specified OR
• Accompany your kits with a backstory on how the team came to be to help better envision the outcome
• Use Google to search the history and stories behind what is being altered
• There's no shame in using AI here, sometimes ideas just can't put into pixels right away so AI is there to help you with brainstorming ideas for your jumper(s)/logo and the backstory

The bare minimum for an entry is:

• A home kit with just the front of the jumper showing
  (Back, shorts, socks are optional)
• OPTIONAL Away kit (Home with white shorts is acceptable)
• OPTIONAL 3rd kit and beyond!
  • Clash kit
  • Heritage kit
  • Other kit
• OPTIONAL Club Logo (Highly Encouraged!)

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Let’s see what has happened this time


Our Timeline: Darwin do not compete in the AFL
Altered Timeline: Darwin are given a team to compete in the 1991 AFL season​

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Basic Rules (Please read carefully):

1. Kits and Logo must be in 1 picture (Makes polls easier to fit everything in)
2. The kits can consist of just a Jumper's front (Back, Shorts and socks are optional but encouraged to give a full identity effect)
3. Minimum 1 kit and there's no limit to how many kits you can include after that
   eg. Home and Away and/or Clash and/or Heritage and/or Others
   1. Designing a Home and away/clash kit is highly encouraged for that authentic feel and to develop that alternate universe experience
4. Attempt to stay close to the altered timeline mentioned above
5. Directly copying current football team kits/logos are not allowed
6. For the logo, you may take inspiration from and/or alter any existing sports logo to drive home your design. Also logos made from scratch are more than welcome!
7. Maximum 2 entries per person
8. Any questions at all, please ask!

Specific Category Rules for this week:

New Teams Rule:

1. There are no restrictions. Well, the only thing I ask is there be no recolours of currently existing kits involving the team (where applicable)
   1. Variants are allowed

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Alternate timelines with categories
Bold - Completed with poll results

Mergers

• Melbourne - St Kilda merger (1995)
• Tasmania - Fitzroy Merger
• Sydney - Fitzroy Merger
• Gold Coast Suns seek merger with Sharks to stay alive
• Fitzroy - Brisbane (Fitzroy Bears)
• Tasmania agree to merger with North Melbourne
• Port Melbourne granted VFL licensed but only if they merge with Fitzroy
  • Tiebreaker Poll
• Williamstown merge with Footscray – 1989
• Norwood / Port Adelaide AFL merger (1991)
• South Melbourne - Footscray merger
• South Melbourne and North Melbourne merger

Relocations

• Saints relocate to NZ
• Essendon relocate to NT to become Alice Springs
• Hawthorn relocate to Canberra
• Fitzroy relocate to Canberra
• Fitzroy relocate to Brisbane in the 80s (Prior to the Bears existing)
• South Melbourne relocate to Tasmania
• South Melbourne relocate to Canberra
• Fitzroy complete move to North Sydney - 1980
• Footscray relocate to Queensland - 1981
• Fitzroy relocate to Perth - 1981
• GWS relocate to Canberra
• Melbourne relocate to Mars
  • Tiebreaker Poll
• Fitzroy relocate to South Africa - 1997

League transfers

• West Coast Eagles to the SANFL
• Brisbane Bears to the SANFL
• Fitzroy to the SANFL - 1981
• Footscray to the SANFL - 1981
• Adelaide Uni to the SANFL - 1991 (cannot use only black and white)
• Collingwood to the SANFL - 1997
• East Perth to the VFL - 1980
• Norwood to the AFL
• Launceston to the AFL
• Essendon to the WAFL
• Perth to the AFL (Merger of Perth, East Perth & West Perth)
• Glenelg to the AFL - 1997
• Geelong West to the VFL - 1976
• Swan Districts to the AFL - 1991

New Teams

• Port Adelaide crows join the AFL - 1991
• Papua New Guinea enter the AFL
• Limestone Coast join the SANFL
• Mount Gambier join the SANFL
• Sydney enter as a separate team (Bloods stay in Vic)
• Darwin join the AFL - 1991
• Public Service Football Club join the VFL
• Gold Coast fold, new North Queensland team take their place - 2030
• NZ enter 90's State of Origin
• Broome become the 2nd WA AFL team
  • Tiebreaker Poll
• Gold Coast hijack Brisbane Bears VFL entry - 1986
• Hobart to the AFL (Can't use Devils branding)
• Newcastle team to the AFL
• Southwest of WA to the AFL
• Tea Tree Gully & Modbury merge to make tenth SANFL team (2014)

Colour Corner

• West Coast Eagles VFL kits altered due to Williamstown sharing the same colours
• GWS keep their 'Team GWS' colours
• Port Adelaide retain their Magenta
• Adelaide's hurried concept
  (Adelaide board hastily attain clothes from local sport store and use the 5 colours to design their new AFL team)
• Fremantle keep Red & Green, remove Purple & White
• Williamstown join the VFL in 1925 - design a late '90s/early '00s clash/away guernsey for them (1995-2005)

Specials

• Hawthorn release Ochre jumper - 2000
• Skittle's sponsor Essendon and release special guernsey
• Heidelberg Warriors align with Collingwood for 1 season - 1996
• Melbourne remain as 'The Invincible Whites'
• Collingwood remain as 'Britannia'
• Carlton remain as 'The Cockatoos'
• Hawthorn remain as 'The Mayblooms'
• BigFooty X Gold Coast Suns (BigFooty becomes the majority stakeholder, and primary sponsor of Gold Coast, requesting a new jumper set with the deal)

Cross-Code Craze

• Newcastle Knights to the VFL - 1988
• Cronulla Sharks to the AFL - 1998
• South Sydney Rabbitohs to the AFL

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[Sam Hall]

"Here we go, here we go Jimny Crocs"?

In an alternate 1990, the Adelaide Crows’ bid to join the AFL fell apart at the final hurdle. Despite months of negotiation and political maneuvering, the SANFL’s plan to launch a South Australian super team collapsed when the AFL shocked everyone by awarding the new license to a bold, unexpected challenger — Darwin.

The newly formed Darwin Football Club, referred to for sponsorship reasons as the "Jimny Crocodiles" were met with a mixed reaction from football fans. Some praised the club for its common sense approach to a nickname, colours and their use of a historic guernsey. While others loathed the idea of a team in Darwin over Adelaide, thought their branding was generic and hated it's cringe worthy song that didn't even rhyme.

 

[cannavo]

 

[Rubber Arm]

Been a long time since I did one of these comps. Had to make the template from scratch just to meet the time period haha.

Alternate 90s: Darwin is the fastest growing city in Australia and is projected to be the size of Adelaide by the year 2010. The AFL saw an opportunity to jump into the Darwin market and unveil a new AFL club set to join in 1991. "The Crocs" was an obvious choice. Green and yellow were picked to represent the AFL-unused colours of Australia, along with the states orange as a third colour. Darwin wanted the city name proudly shown across the chest for a fresh take on footy guernsey design as no other club wears writing on their jumpers.

 

[KBLT]

 

[Mac Ropod]