An emotional night beckons on Friday in the regional town of Bendigo as the town’s VFL side runs out onto Queen Elizabeth Oval for the last time.
It is a sad end for the team, who will play Collingwood. It is also a sad end for the town, as it will no longer be represented by a football club.
For 17 seasons the club had a presence in the heart of the region and the decision not to renew the club’s license is a stark look at the future of the VFL competition. Formed in 1998 as the Bendigo Diggers, the club struggled both on and off the field, until it formed an alliance with Essendon at the end of the 2002 season.
Essendon’s alliance provided much needed relief for the club. This also meant changing the name to the Bendigo Bombers and wearing the Red and Black colours.
At times, the relationship was not always friendly, as Bendigo folded its reserve side in the AFL development league and started playing home games at Windy Hill.
However, with the likes of Collingwood and Geelong already fielding their own reserves teams, and the great success they’ve had at AFL level as a result of being able to develop their young players, Essendon ended its 10-year alliance to field its own reserves team.
Sadly, this would be the downfall for the Bendigo team, as a lack of AFL support and the not having a social club, so there was no pokies revenue highlighted the struggles Bendigo faced. To top it all off, the club shared Queen Elizabeth Oval with two teams from the Bendigo football league – so more often than not it the team was forced to train at different ovals.
The lack of funding also hurt the team in terms of local talent as many TAC Cup players who were overlooked in the draft would either play at other VFL teams or chase the big bucks in the local leagues.
Coach Austin Jones knew it was going to be a tough task to make the team competitive, but not to the extent that the club would no longer exist beyond the 2014 season.
As an avid VFL fan it’s a glum feeling to know that a town which has produced the likes of Nick Dal Santo, Dustin Martin and of course the Selwood brothers won’t be represented at the highest possible level of football.
Win, lose or draw, let’s hope that the 18,000 seat capacity of Queen Elizabeth is full of locals cheering the team on for the very last time.
Lee
Guest
It's all a great shame. The VFL/VFA should have been a high quality semi-pro truly state-wide competition, that still offered footy fans some sort of atmosphere and community, which is glaringly lacking at AFL level. Imagine Weribee and Frankston fans road-tripping to Bendigo or Traralgon, and maybe even ultimately Warrnambool or Shepp as part of a competitive, high-quality state competition. If any good was to come out of the demise of the metropolitan VFA and successful clubs like Oakleigh and Prahran, it was the possibility of a competition encompassing all major Victorian regions and towns. It ain't gonna happen now. The VFL/VFA just sits awkwardly in between the local leagues and the AFL, not really meaning anything, a mish mash of old VFA clubs hanging in there, awkward alliances and AFL reserves teams.
Axle an the guru
Guest
Im glad your club had the brains Peter to revert back to thier original identity. Bendigo went from Bombers to Gold instead of going back to thier original format, me i like football has a valid point about the club being formed as a franchise, my opinion back then was that South Bendigo should have got the VFL spot instead of a new club,South were a strong club on and off the field,they were founded in 1893 and had 24 premierships at that point in time,from memory i think Peter Bradbury was senior coach back then. South aint doing to well ATM on the field but they would have got a lot more support from Bendigo,and they would not be folding ATM like the Gold are.
Peter Baudinette
Roar Guru
I'll give you a New South Welshman sympathy vote Daniel. I would assume most of these guys above no what they are talking about because they are from Vic (correct me if I am wrong). For all the people, probably mostly volunteers that put time and effort into the club, it is a shame. That's 16 years of hard work that goes down the toilet and I for one can understand what that would be like. I've seen two different sides of it in NSW, and let me tell you, you feel extremely disconnected from the AFL up there. My parents started the Bangor Tigers Junior footy club back in 1984. The club is still going today. We had to scrap with local councils for a home ground. When we finally got one, we had some turf delivered to repair tyre marks from local hoons.....someone pinched it. Within 10 years the council took that off us and built a supermarket instead. We were shifted to another ground and had to share that with the Miranda Bombers, our most hated rival club. Fortunately around the same time that the Swans made the 96 final, the local councils coughed up and built us a ground and the club still plays there to this day. The other story is of the senior club I played for, the St George Dragons. Founded in 1928. In 1997, a bright spark at the AFL decided to set up the NSW AFL Taskforce and handed over $1.2m to a bunch of people who all of a sudden were running the show. Every club had to affiliate with an AFL teama nd sadly, we got the Adelaide Crows. We became the St George Crows. A few good things happened, we were able to recruit Craig O'Brien (former Swans and Saint) and he brought with him some good players out of Vic. But for all the who-haa of this affiliation and what it was supposed to mean for the club....all we really got was a visit from an overweight Darren Jarmen; Neil Craig and Matthew Bode came one year; I think we got some stickers and key rings; and we were able to send one rookie down to Adelaides pre season for a week. Thankfully that affiliation is now over and the club is back in it's famous vertical red and white stripe, once more the St George Dragons. How a club like ours survives in Sydney, one a club in Bendigo in an AFL rich state cannot survive, is beyond me. Commiserations to everyone, volunteers, families and players, involved with the club.
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
It's not just a VFL problem - the WAFL have had similar issues with it's sole regional club Peel Thunder, who have been around for nearly 20 years and been somewhere between barely competitive and completely uncompetitive for the whole period, not even getting close to finals once. Mandurah is about the same size as Bendigo as well. Unfortunately regional areas are going to struggle to get and retain quality players in a semi professional, high quality league because there aren't the same job opportunities outside of football. Many players are going to prefer to live in the capital for that reason.
Axle an the guru
Guest
Rob is right, there will be no crowd there. Why didnt this club have a social club??? Every club needs a social club. I'm amazed Bendigo lasted this long really. The VFL need a hell of a lot more promotion to get out to people. I think it was a stupid idea naming that comp VFL, to most people the VFL became the AFL and died back then. The comp should have remained the VFA,a comp with 120 years behind it and its own identity. Most VFA supporters hated the Name VFL, so i wonder how many people walked away when they renamed there comp the name of the enemy?? Bendigo should never have changed from Diggers to bombers and should never have changed thier colors,AFL clubs have cost these clubs there identities with this type of power,its just typical AFL do as your told tactics. People want there own clubs not AFL replicas. Imagine if the club had of stayed in it original format through the bomber period, that club could have been in a totally different predicament now.
me, I like football
Guest
North Ballarat is a proud traditional club, The Diggers/Gold is a dreamt up franchise. The only way it could work is one of the clubs like Sandhurst, South Bendigo or Golden Square get promoted to the VFL. but that would leave a big hole in the local league.
Rob
Guest
Trust me there won't be 18,000 there - lucky o be 800. The VFL expansion to the regions has been a flop. First Taralgon, then the Murray Bushrangers and now Bendigo. North Ballarat has been the only welcome and competitive regional expansion club - god knows how they did it.