When to count AFL premierships, and NOT AFL/VFL ones?

[Johnson#26]

how about we be selective and count from 1985

or 1960

or 1997?

 

[Bomberman86]

Any excuse will do to try and knock Essendon n Carlton off our mantle. This is a silly conversation because its not going to be brought up in the public domain largely because its a completely futile and pointless argument. Get over it.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

lol, I bet no self respecting Collingwood supporter would be using this line if they weren't 'behind' Carlton and Essendon.

My argument isn't about the competition getting more professional/better, my argument is that it's a fundamentally different competition now. It's gone from a local, tribal, suburban league (excepting Geelong) based across a small area of a city to a national powerhouse.

True but thats just banter between fans of clubs who have been in the competition as long as each other. I'm sure Adelaide and Port will continue to have their dick measuring contests, too.

Just because the competition has evolved over the years doesnt mean the flags won in the past dont count as valid.

 

[PortBrillance]

I think its interesting that when statistics are quoted in the English Premier League (which was born from the old Division One, and has the same clubs, same relegation and promotion, etc), they only quote 1992 onwards. ie When Tottenham beat Wigan 9-1 a couple of weeks ago, they didn't quote it against anything from 1936 or 1902, but only 1992 onwards - it was the second biggest win in Premier League history, and Jermain Defoe's 5 goals equalled Andy Cole and Alan Shearer's Premier League record.

The only time that historical stats are quoted is when they quote chamionships (ie they don't call them EPL championships, but championships in general) and they only accede to that because the old Division One was still regarded as a national chamionship.

The VFL was a state league, it is now a national league. In 1989, no-one said that the premier was the NATIONAL premier, they were only the STATE premier as it was still regarded as a STATE competition.
In 1990, the premier could lay claim to the title NATIONAL premier, as it was a NATIONAL competition.

The name change in 1990 is as good a point as any to start thinking of them as NATIONAL flags, but VFL flags are not AFL flags no matter how similar the teams were before and after. There is no 1989 AFL flag.

Brilliant Post Was just about to make a reference to how the EPL people see it. They count EPL titles different to old championships. Only liverpool people hang onto the old ones because they havnt won an EPL title.

Victorians credit their premiership successes in the VFL yet pay no respect to what we achieved in the SANFL. Not one Port person has said that SANFL = VFL or that we should have 35 in our premiership tally in the VFL/AFL. We add it to OUR premiership tally won by OUR club, and thats 35 SANFL/AFL premierships (34+1) You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

My argument isn't about the competition getting more professional/better, my argument is that it's a fundamentally different competition now. It's gone from a local, tribal, suburban league (excepting Geelong) based across a small area of a city to a national powerhouse.

So we dont count Geelongs AFL flags because they still play at a suburban gorund?

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Exactly so the VFL teams won't care if the other non VFL teams add their flags to their list either. Can't have it both ways, either you can add your local flags and they can, or you both can't.

They can add any flags they like that they won in the VFL/AFL.

You cant unwrite history. The VFL and the AFL is the same competition. The SANFL isnt. Port changed leagues to join the AFL.

The AFL did not begin as a breakaway competition. There is no line in the sand or big bang.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

how about we be selective and count from 1985

or 1960

or 1997?

ok, and Collingwood's would still be one

 

[Constructionist]

They can add any flags they like that they won in the VFL/AFL.

You cant unwrite history. The VFL and the AFL is the same competition.

The AFL did not begin as a breakaway competition. There is no line in the sand or big bang.

Nah the AFL != VFL, even if that's how it looks to you. Adelaide, Fremantle, West Coast, Port, etc can add their local flags to their list and you can have your VFL flags.

The only reason victards want to count VFL is because they BELIEVE it matters and makes them better than other teams.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

The only reason victards want to count VFL is because they BELIEVE it matters and makes them better than other teams.

It matters because there is 100 years of history that should not and cannot be washed over just because a few new teams have entered the competition.

It doesnt make us better. It just acknowledges the facts. You joined our competition. Its undisputable fact.

You need to get over your inferiority complexes and just go with the flow.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

If people are happy to combine VFL/AFL premierships then the VFA ones should be included.

Silly argument. VFA is a completely different competition starting before and still running concurrent with the VFL/AFL. Geelong are able to win flags in both the AFL and the VFL (VFA) at the same time.

So you are a qualified widget maker. You get a job with a new company and spend 15 years making widgets for Jonestown Widgets. Then you jump shift to a brand new company, Smithtown Widgets who make you a better offer. After 15 years at Smithtown Widgets, they expand, take over Widget makers in other towns and countries and become Global Widgets Int Pty Ltd. Using the resources and knowledge they pick up overseas, they discover a new technology for making Widgets more efficiently but of a higher quality. You have been working with Global Widgets for a further 15 years since the expansion. My question is thus: Does your work history consist of:

a) 15 years with Jonestown Widgets, 15 years with Smithtown Widgets and 15 years with Global Widgets Int Pty Ltd OR;

b) 15 years with Jonestown Widgets and 30 years with Global Widgets (formerly known as Smithtown Widgets) with 45 years as a Widget maker in total OR;

c) 45 years with Global Widgets (consisting of 15 years with each of the 3 company names.

Now Global Widgets consider themselves to be 30 years old, Jonestown Widgets consider themselves 45 years old. Were you around for the start of Global Widgets history? Which one do you think is applicable?

When the then VFL was formed, yes it was a new competition but it was 8 teams that are still in this current competition.

Suggesting what? That the VFL = AFL. They never left the VFL to join the AFL.

The only problem I have is that it wasn't officially recognised as the AFL until 1990 even though West Coast and Brisbane had both started in 1987. But since West Coast and Brisbane joined anyone who says that a VFL premiership is equal to an AFL one is just plain wrong. AFL ones with drafting, salary caps, travelling and ground rationalisation, dodgy finals fixturing for non-Victorian teams is infinitely more difficult.

So it all changed once travel was introduced? So 1982 and the move to Sydney is when the quality lifted?

Salary caps? So 1985 when the VFL first implemented a cap is the appropriate starting point?

If you can't see that the VFL were setting themselves up for expansion prior to becoming the AFL, then I'm not sure what to say. Hey VFL, thanks for going National, thanks for being strong enough to pull it off and be the forerunners for this great competition we have for you today. Your reward? Well we will now consider you to have disappeared into extinction while weaker competitions around you continue to survive, instead of recognising your transformation and history. Kind of defies logic doesn't it?

If we shift overseas becoming international in the coming decades, do we have a new start date? What about going intergalactic and playing on a Martian colony in 2510? New start date. Shit, now players get fake knee ligaments inserted through a tube and are ready to play again in 2 weeks.

Saying that Collingwood winning 4 in a row when they did is better than Brisbane winning 3 in a row when they did is silly. It's better in a number on paper only.

Who is saying it is better in terms of footballing quality though? That is the salient point. It is better than what other clubs who were around to challenge Collingwood at that time have been able to achieve as Collingwood beat the opposition in front of them and those opponents had the chance to challenge them but couldn't. In terms of transforming Collingwoods 4 peat team to the modern day and having them play the same way, under the same development of the day, then they wouldn't score and would get beaten by 500 points as though they were some social park football side. That's hardly the point though is it? Compare how fast swimming records tumble, with new swimsuits, more nations competing, the greater participation of sports medicine and science in general.

You can talk all you like about the hardships of the modern competition in terms of more training, greater fitness needed, and the administrative challenges, but is that any harder in relative terms to bumpy roads, lengthy train trips, trying to keep amateurs happy without payment, scrounging money together to maintain a ground and build fences around a ground, sometimes in the midst of world wide financial depression.

Every era has its hardships which are reasonably equal in terms of stress levels and difficulties across those different eras IMO.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

So we dont count Geelongs AFL flags because they still play at a suburban gorund?

What an absurd statement.

I'm pretty sure all grounds are suburban, unless they're all located within a void of some type. Geelong just plays 7 games a year at a truly home ground.

 

[Haydos]

People who regularly quote premiership win statistics any more the 10-15yrs back are living in the past anyway as these are clearly irrelevant stats when discussing todays clubs in any way, yet people regularly do it.

 

[Fluro Boots]

same competition, the flags count. port have 34 sanfl flags and 1 afl flag we all know that. it's pretty basic really the same competiton continued adding new sides along the way. It changed it's name. it's still the same competition and each year all teams compete under the same rules (at least we try to make carlton follow the same rules).

carlton/essendon have 16 flags. adelaide have 2. nobody is suggesting that makes carlton 8 times better than adelaide as we all know the different time they have spent in the league.

same with port. would they have won more flags if they had joined earlier? i have no doubt they would have won at least one probably quite a few more but the fact is they didn't join so they didn't win them in this competition. they won flags in the sanfl and are rightly proud of them but for supporters of more recently established clubs to try and lessen the value of flags won before they joined is just wrong.

 

[Wallaby]

My team plays football games. I hope they win some of them. If they win enough, and the right games, they win the Premiership! (So the rumour has it - obligatory Richmond joke).

If they win a lot of premierships, that means............ I can win a w@nking contest on BigFooty!

Of course I wish my team was more successful now - as does every supporter. Of course I am interested in my team's history - as if every supporter to some degree. But I wasn't barracking for the Tigers when we got done in the '33 GF or when we chucked a hissy fit and didn't turn up to the VFA GF in 1904 because we didn't like the umpire. So the fact that we did or didn't win back then is of only minor interest, and not worth getting into a muddle over.

The actual league name on the premiership cup doesn't mean a damn. We won 'em then - we still celebrate them a little - but we live in the present..

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

What an absurd statement.

I'm pretty sure all grounds are suburban, unless they're all located within a void of some type. Geelong just plays 7 games a year at a truly home ground.

Of course it was an absurd statement, but it was you who said that Geelong were the exception to the rule that the game was now truly national.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

People who regularly quote premiership win statistics any more the 10-15yrs back are living in the past anyway as these are clearly irrelevant stats when discussing todays clubs in any way, yet people regularly do it.

Essendon people dont regularly tell Eagles fans their team is eight times better because they've won eight times more flags.

It just doesnt happen.

 

[Jimthegreat]

I think eventually we are going to stop counting the VFL premierships won by clubs, and simply say that they have won x amount of AFL premierships.

Already people say stuff like, "yeah we have won 10 premierships, but most of them were back in the VFL".

I reckon give it 15 years, and a lot of people will only be quoting AFL premierships, and saying the Bulldogs have never won an AFL premiership.

It's the same competition with a name change. All are counted, even Collingwood's where 11 of their 14 were won before 1936 (that's funny when you think of it). Competitions been in effect since 1897, only the name has changed.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Seems that it is the revisionalist that are doing the measuring in this thread. Port should be able to count SANFL flags, the AFL flag tally is such and such.

To tell the truth, I would just as interested in protecting the history of the VFL within AFL history if Carlton had won zero flags in that time. Why? Because it is accurate and it pays appropriate respect to the ONLY state competition with the profile and the ability to go national.

I'm sorry, but when I was in WA as a kid, I watched the VFL GF on TV. When I was back in NZ (where I was born), I again watced the VFL GF on TV. When I moved to Qld in 1980, I watched weekly VFL games on TV as well as the ABC Winners program. I watched national sports programs that talked about VFL as much as other sports. I followed the SANFL in the finals as they televised those and in Inside Football the rest of the time. The VFL had the greater profile. I went to the Brisbane Commonwealth Games in 1982. Which two sides were chosen to showcase Aussie Rules to the rest of the Commonwealth? Carlton and Richmond, the two VFL GF sides of that year.

The VFL might have had an interstate battle over the years but eventually they won the war over the other states. They had the larger profile and were able to attract more quality interstate players to Victoria, than the other way around.

I'm not denigrating the other states when I say that either. Living in Brisbane, I followed the QRL and watched State of Origin and felt some Brisbane sides were stronger than NSWRL sides. The NSWRL had the power though and they won the race to expansion. Truth be told it wasn't a race as the QRL weren't in the same stratosphere (that hurts). To the victor go the spoils.

If you turned around and told me today that the NSWRL ceased to exist when the ARL commenced and the QRL have outlived them, I would say you are incorrect and a revisionist, despite my loyalty to the QRL.

 

[NAUGHT5]

I think its obvious that AFL Premierships mean more and are harder to win but i dont think that VFL flags should stop counting.
Clubs still won them in this competition, its just evolved.
if we add 2 extra teams in the next 2 years does that mean it restarts again? It shouldnt.


And yeah the VFL premiers might not have been the outright best side in Australia every year, but either where Hawthorn in 2008.

Fair enough Adelaide, West Coast and Port (Brisbane to a lesser degree) fans only counting flags since their inception cause why would they care what happened before they were born?

 

[blueboy25]

What about if the AFL decide to change their name in 2028 to the Australian National Football League or we get a team from New Zealand or South Africa introuduced to the comp and the league is known as the Southern Hemisphere Football League will we wipe all premierships won in the AFL and VFL from the records?

 

[Daniel_Rich]

Essendon people dont regularly tell Eagles fans their team is eight times better because they've won eight times more flags.

It just doesnt happen.

Probably because Essendon havent won 8 times as many flags as West Coast.

 

[Jimthegreat]

I already veiw AFL premierships over VFL premierships
The VFL was never the outright best, and just using North Adelaide as an example
Beat Carlton in 1972
Beat Melbourne and Collingwood in 1987 (or was it 1986 )

but since the league became truely national is when I count them

but it's the date that is argueble
use 1986/1987 (whichever year West Coast joint), 1990 or 1991?

I just use 1990 because of the change of name, but 1991 is probably the fairest (all the mainland states had a team)

Of course the VFL's been the outright best. That's why top interstate players came to Victoria back then, to play in the best competition. Some simply couldn't make it went back to their states and starred because the "lower" standard . Remember, interstate teams wanted to and joined VFL competition because it was THE standard, the VFL didn't join there's. Port tried to get in as their own entity from the SANFL before Adelaide stole their thunder.

Don't count post-season, don't give a **** games in your argument when teams had spent a week on the p!ss and couldn't care less.

I'm guessing if the SANFL changed their name Port's 37 flags wouldn't count? Same competition, of course they'd count. History starts somewhere.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

carlton/essendon have 16 flags. adelaide have 2. nobody is suggesting that makes carlton 8 times better than adelaide as we all know the different time they have spent in the league.

Exactly.

I will have gladly continue the rivalry between Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon, teams with a bit of success who have been around almost as long as each other.

I recognise that Adelaide, West Coast, Port, and Brisbane Lions have greatly outperformed Carlton in terms of onfield success, and off field acumen since their respective inceptions. Any attempt to win an argument with 16>you is feeble and means I have nothing else to hang my hat on.

If you want to alter history to stop a bunch of Bay 13 style assertions, then you are overreacting. Actually strike that, even the Bay cares little for such immature responses. They are more in tune with your modern plight than ancient history (in most cases). They are the ones that exist to send up other teams, and they aren't impressed by historical numbers either.

This whole vibe that we don't want people comparing the recent sides with sides that were winning flags they weren't even around to compete for, smacks of an inferiority complex, of someone sick of getting talked down to, belittled, ridiculed. But it is the simplistic that you are reacting to, not the educated.

If you separate history, do you think those that like to stir you up, will not find similar inane arguments to repeat endlessly in order to ridicule you?

The whole thing is just an insecure nonsense in my book.

 

[Constructionist]

Of course the VFL's been the outright best. That's why top interstate players came to Victoria back then, to play in the best competition. Some simply couldn't make it went back to their states and starred because the "lower" standard . Remember, interstate teams wanted to and joined VFL competition because it was THE standard, the VFL didn't join there's. Port tried to get in as their own entity from the SANFL before Adelaide stole their thunder.

Don't count post-season, don't give a **** games in your argument when teams had spent a week on the p!ss and couldn't care less.

I'm guessing if the SANFL changed their name Port's 37 flags wouldn't count? Same competition, of course they'd count. History starts somewhere.

VFL hasn't been outright best at all times , so that is a joke. Even if it was better, how much better was it? 10%? 20%? If it was 1% better does that mean you can't count WAFL/SANFL flags the same as VFL? lol.

The only flags that matter are the ones won when the game went truly national. Otherwise VFL=WAFL=SANFL flags. If victards can't see this they are biased, ignorant and likely missing a few braincells.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

VFL hasn't been outright best at all times , so that is a joke. Even if it was better, how much better was it? 10%? 20%? If it was 1% better does that mean you can't count WAFL/SANFL flags the same as VFL? lol.

The only flags that matter are the ones won when the game went truly national. Otherwise VFL=WAFL=SANFL flags. If victards can't see this they are biased, ignorant and likely missing a few braincells.

I'm feeling a sense of irony in relation to the rationality of this argument and the last sentence.