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It began at the end of 1981 when the South Melbourne Football Club decided the best option for the debt ridden club was to play all 11 of their homes match in Sydney. Instant success followed in 1982 as the newly named ‘Sydney Swans’ won the night premiership.
Fast forward five years and the VFL decided to enter two new football clubs into the competition based in Perth and Brisbane respectively. The Brisbane based clubs coined the mascot of a bear while the Perth based club were named the West Coast Eagles.
Mixed results followed for both teams, competing in a traditional Rugby League area saw the Brisbane Bears struggle to attract members as well as attendance numbers and would eventually see the demise of the club at the end of 1996.
On the side of the country the West Eagles struggled to perform in the VFL in their initial years. At the conclusion of the 1989 VFL season several important decisions were made by both the Eagles and the VFL.
The VFL decided to change the name of the competition from Victorian Football League to Australian Football League in an attempt to show they were serious about creating a genuine national competition.
The other key event that occurred at the end of 1989 was the Eagles appointed of one Michael Malthouse.
Malthouse’s impact on the Eagles was sudden with the side finishing third in 1990 and West Coast finishing just one win shy of becoming the first ever non-Victorian based team to compete in an VFL/AFL Grand Final.
This was just the beginning of the Eagles success as 1991 saw the team finish first and reach the Grand Final, 1992 a premiership and 1994 a second premiership.
1991 also saw introduction of the first ever South Australian based AFL club. Although originally against the idea of entering a team in a Victorian football competition the Port Adelaide Football Club took it upon themselves go against the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) and enter a bid for a team in the 1991 AFL season.
Furious at the actions taken by Port Adelaide the remaining SANFL sides all put together their own bid known as the Adelaide Crows and saw the creation of the club.
Following the West Coast success in 1992 and 1994 the AFL felt Western Australia needed a second team which resulted in the Fremantle Dockers entering the competition in 1995.
After years of attempting to enter the league the Port Adelaide Football Club were given an AFL license to enter the league in 1997 following the demise of the Fitzroy Football club and the amalgamation of both Fitzroy and the Brisbane Bears to create the Brisbane Lions.
1997 and 1998 would see the AFL premiership travel to South Australia for the first time when the Crows won back to back premierships.
In perhaps the greatest sign of expansion ever the Brisbane Lions created a dynasty between the years of 2001-2004 claiming three premierships and one runner up.
The only remaining state that had not tasted premiership glory would be New South Wales and time would prove that the people of Sydney would not have to wait long until the Swans claimed premiership glory.
The 2005 Grand Final was won by the Swans and a runner up appearance in 2006 continued the Swans success.
Fast forward to 2011 and the Gold Coast Football Club are the most recent expansion team to enter the AFL.
2012 will also see the introduction of a second New South Wales based club in Western Sydney. Will history repeat itself and the AFL premiership return to Queensland and New South Wales? Only time will tell.
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