The history of the VFL was perhaps one of the great sports stories of the sporting world. An indigenous game created by a small young outpost of the world, that developed over a century into the greatest game in the world.
In hindsight, the period between 1965 and 1981 was the apogee of the game. Thereafter, up until 1993, the aesthetic appeal of the game was unchallenged, but events off the field cast a dark shadow over the game.
This was partly a result of clubs not being able to manage their finances as the game became more professional. But also it was a result of the evangelistic zeal of the likes of Allen Aylett who wanted to export the game to the rest of Australia, and ultimately to the world.
Things like ‘consolidation’ were not part of the plan. Hence we lost South Melbourne in 1981, and ultimately Fitzroy in 1996.
The game was perfectly conceived with the big bad ogre – due to their strictly working class status? – in Collingwood, who after 1958 were the clear premiership leader with 13, ahead of Essendon on 10.
Thereafter, for the next 23 years, they proceeded to provide the rest of the competition with endless joy through losing grand finals in all sorts of a manner, yet never losing their position as the most successful team (unintentional socialism in practice). Even the teams not in those grand finals could take some small comfort from Collingwood’s losses.
The game itself, while successful in the post-war era, reflected the Menzian era – conservative. Scoring was low, lower than the Depression era when teams were more desperate than ever to win and provide their supporters and players with something. (It is interesting that that desperation translated into attacking football, whereas nowadays desperation stemming from extreme professionalism has translated into negative football.)
But in 1965 the appointment of Ron Barrasi by Carlton – and perhaps the adoption by Richmond’s Tom Hafey of his predecessor Len Smith’s football philosophy – heralded the new era. Menzies departed the scene, succeeded by the more ‘modern’ Harold Holt. These two clubs started their uphill climb with attacking football that was soon to be adopted by the whole competition, especially in 1969 when the out of bounds rule was changed to penalise out-on-the-full kicks.
The game was seemingly perfect. Big scores, century goal kickers, great marks and goals – what other sport has two forms of spectacular highlights? – increasing crowds, the last ‘first ever premiership’ by the standard bearer of the era in North Melbourne, and a series of grand finals that remained unmatched, highlighted by the 1970 grand final. Yes, Collingwood lost eight of them!
Then, slowly things started to unravel. As stated before, South were gone. Then crowds started to retreat for the first time in decades as a result of the 1982 recession, the decline of Collingwood, and the continued disparity between the dominant clubs and the rest. But the evangelical zeal of the competition showed no boundaries as we pushed into Brisbane, and even adopted a Western Australia team. (In hindsight I can’t believe Western Australia and later, South Australia supporters accepted this state of affairs.)
Allen Aylett was removed and a commission was set up to properly control the competition in order to stop the haemorrhaging, which was for the most parts successful (except for the forced destruction of Fitzroy). But as I said, evangelism proceeded.
Throughout all this, the football was still fantastic, but a series of poor grand finals had people thinking that the game was not as good as it used to be.
Then the late 1980s and early ’90s saw two diametrically opposite styles of football enter the fray. Unfortunately, and this perhaps had major ramifications over the ensuing 20 years, the defence of West Coast prevailed over the offence of Geelong. (Strangely Malcolm Blights’ unique insights into the game were rewarded with a double premiership later in the decade with an average Adelaide team.)
The 1993 season proved to be the last season of modern football, it was immediately evident in 1994 that packs were forming more regularly. I do have a theory and it’s based on the fact that the negative tactics were formulated in the preceding two or three years in the lower competitions by younger coaches more able to instil into younger more impressionable players new methods in play.
The senior players of the AFL took longer to indoctrinate. By 1997, the scoring rate had dropped dramatically. But 1997 was so even, with the likes of Footscray and St Kilda vying for premiership glory, that no one really focussed on this. Further to this, the grand finals themselves were relatively closer than the 1980s.
The game continued to become more professional. But it had started to turn its players into automatons or zombies (Matthew Lloyd of Essendon was a prime example). Perversely, he is now a very human commentator of the game.
And in 2005, the nadir was reached with a grand final that featured a low score that had not been seen since 1964 (quite appropriately, the last premiership by Melbourne in the last year before the modern era began). But because of the closeness of the game, the first win by Sydney, and the pressure involved, not to mention the last-gasp saving mark, the low aesthetic standard was completely ignored. It was a game reflective of the era – the Howard era, not coincidently – where the people were seemingly unconcerned by dire football.
Then Geelong and Hawthorn emerged to finally provide some light to the football world. But unfortunately the darkness that Sydney bestowed upon the competition would not yield. Other clubs didn’t look to emulate Geelong and Hawthorn, which were long-term projects. They went for the instant impact that Paul Roos had and, even more so, with Ross Lyon. And as a result, 2014 has proven to be the lowest scoring season since 1968, with 2015 on target for even lower scoring.
Solutions? Hmmm.
I believe we have to remove two players from the arena – like the VFA had, which assisted their high scoring. This does have the added bonus of reduced wages.
We also need to restrict access to the centre square at ball ups after goals or at the start of quarters. The best way to do this is to have all players positioned behind the 50-metre arc. This also ensures players start in their positions at that stage. No flooding of the defence.
Some of the other solutions offered by commentators are silly (penalising backwards kicks?) and would require more officiating.
Footnote: The South Australia and Western Australia completions, and the lesser VFA, provided even higher scoring than the VFL, but didn’t have the aforementioned perfectness of the VFL.
Port Adelaide were too dominant and were a dour team as opposed to the offensive but relatively unsuccessful Glenelg. Western Australia was a very democratic league where all eight clubs won premierships within a 10-year period. But their grand finals were still not up to the VFL standard of thrills, and with only eight teams the competition lacked a bit of gravitas.
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