Bob Pratt, Dick Reynolds & Ron Barassi - 3 legends from the 30s, 40s & 50s: the classic age of Aussie Rules.

Aussie Rules - The Greatest Game Of All!

For pretty much the entirety of the 20th century Australian Rules Football, (aka "Aussie Rules" or simply "footy"), was the greatest game in the world! In terms of the percentage of people interested, the spectacle of the game itself, the size of the teams, the number of goals, the size of the grounds, the media frenzy etc. Melbourne was the zenith of football obsession... and it still is.

In Melbourne, where the game was invented, in the middle of the 20th century, 8% OF THE ENTIRE POPULATION would go to support their team every Saturday, rain, hail or shine! 8% of every man woman and child in the city! No other major city or game can match that level of devotion! Soccer fans in Europe and South America might be famously devoted to their club but London, Turin, Paris, Buenos Aires and Sao Paolo have never had the depth of penetration of the game into the psyche that you get in Melbourne. Other famous cities have their fans that love to talk about the club and the game but Melbourne is on another level entirely. In Melbourne a MAJORITY of the entire population CAN and WILL happily crap on about the footy any day of the week during the season. You are branded from the day you are born with a team allegiance into one of the 9 Melbourne teams and you are NEVER allowed to forget it! EVERYONE in Melbourne has a team allegiance! I mean it: EVERYONE! It is often the first thing you are asked when people meet you: "Who do you barrack for mate?". EVERY workplace runs a footy tipping competition and the Friday before the Grand Final is a Public Holiday! I grew up with it, I've played it and I've seen it ALL! It's real!

In 1957 an average of 23,628 people attended each VFL game in Melbourne & Geelong. Since there were 12 teams, there were 6 matches each Saturday, giving an average total attendance of 141,768 footy fans per week. The population of Melbourne in 1958 was 1,680,000, so 8.4% of Melbournians went to the footy every week!

Trouble In Paradise

Crowd at a Melbourne v Collingwood GF in the 1950s

Modern AFL crowd and a VFL GF crowd from the 1950s. The crowd spilled over onto the boundary! If you think it is more popular now, think again!

Even today the level of devotion, especially in Melbourne, is incredible! In 2024 an average of 58,418 people attended 47 matches at the MCG and an average of 32,766 attended 43 matches at Docklands Stadium. So 4,154,580 Melbournians went to see AFL matches over a season of 23 matches giving 180,634 people per week or 3.4% of the population of Melbourne. This is much reduced from the golden years due to numerous factors including: live TV broadcasts, interstate matches, the loss of the charm and character of suburban grounds, vast numbers of disinterested immigrants and general disillusionment with the game itself.

Still, 3.4% is very healthy, especially compared with contemporary famous examples, like the Premier League in the UK, Serie A in Italy and the NFL & FBS in the USA. Yes, the major football leagues in the USA have higher attendances per game BUT they don't have 5 games a week in one city like Melbourne does! Most weeks the large stadiums of the USA stand empty. For example: In 2023, Michigan Stadium, also known as "The Big House" hosted just 7 games of FBS football! The AFL gloat over their numbers and the enormous fees they gain from pay TV and point to the gross aggregate to assure everyone that the game has never been healthier BUT THEY ARE WRONG!

Attendances are up only because Melbourne's population has tripled since 1957 and because the two stadiums currently used can hold far more than the old suburban stadiums that were full at 25,000. On a percentage of the population basis however, the attendance interest is less than half what it was in the 1950s. This sad decline ought to be a wake up call to the AFL and anyone that is interested but no one mentions it... It indicates a REAL decline in passion for the game in the average Melbournian. If you can't be bothered going to the game you're not a REAL fan...

Stadium income is only up because the AFL has hiked admission prices and inflation has distorted the figures. In 1982 adult admission to VFL games was $4.50. In 2024 it was $27. Allowing for inflation over the period at a factor of 3.26 the equivalent admission cost would be $14.67 but it's nearly double that. It's still affordable, (provided you don't buy food and drink there), but not as cheap as it used to be. Furthermore, the modern price is for the worst seating in the stadium, better seating will cost you a lot more. It's not like the old days when general admission at the MCG allowed you to sit ANYWHERE YOU LIKED! (other than the members' pavilion).

Thanks to the ENORMOUS windfall from advertising, food concessions, pay TV and video on demand, revenue is THROUGH THE FUCKING ROOF! and so are CEO's salaries, club expenditures, club facilities and paid staff numbers and player's payments are FAR FAR beyond the wildest dreams of their counterparts in the 1960s. This may seem like a boon but it really isn't as we will discover...

The decline in the interest in the game of the average Melbournian is only the symptom, it isn't the problem itself. There are, in fact, multiple problems which I will deal with in turn but the main two are the overweaning avarice of the AFL and the change in the way the game is played. The two are serious but unrelated to each other, so let's start with the ugly way the game is played nowadays.

The Super Flood

Terry Wallace's "Super Flood" in 2000. 29 players in this pic around the fall of the ball!

The game was still healthy, still true to roots and a great spectacle until 2000. At that time Essendon were an all-conquering juggernaut determined to make up for their inexplicable exit from the finals at the hands of Carlton the previous year when they were clearly the best team all year. So deep were the wounds from that inexplicable loss that the team eschewed the normal practice of singing the club song after a victory, vowing that they would not sing it again until the premiership cup was in their hands.

Not only were Essendon undefeated coming into their Round 21 match against Footscray that year but they had been scoring at a phenomenal rate throughout the season. They were widely perceived as unbeatable as they had no weaknesses and excelled at every aspect of the game... but Bulldogs coach Terry Wallace had a plan...

On Friday night, 28th of July, 2000 at the Docklands Stadium, the game of Australian Rules was changed forever as Terry Wallace unleashed his novel "Super Flood" on the unsuspecting giant.

Up to this point in the history of Australian Rules beyond 1898, most of the 36 players on the field at any time kept roughly to their designated positions, evenly distributed across the ground. Only the 6 "followers" chased the ball all over the field. There was no rule to prevent players from going wherever they pleased and if they were involved in the play, they would run all the way from full back to full forward if that were required but, for the most part, once the ball was out of their area they returned to their normal positions and stayed there until the ball came back their way.

This convention was great as it meant that:

Most players had a chance to get their breath back after a passage of play, so there was no need for an interchange bench and players did not need to be the incredible endurance athletes that they are today.
Since the forward 50m arc normally only contained the 6 players closest to goal and possibly a few of the half-forwards, there was SPACE for the forwards to lead into. The great full forwards of the time gathered most of their goals in this manner. They kicked big bags and scoring overall was HIGH!
It was not only inside the 50m arc that there was space though. There was space EVERYWHERE on the field! This meant that a skilful and determined team like Essendon in 2000 could move the ball from one end to the other rapidly by foot passing. So long as the passer was perceptive and accurate and the receiver was quick and played in front there was little risk of interception. The wonderful skills of the game were on show every week and it was ENTERTAINING!
Because the backmen stayed in the backline there was NEVER the risk of the ball going over the top and finding no one at home. There was ALWAYS someone at home and to score, a forward had to beat his opponent to the ball, mark well and kick accurately. These skills were the hallmark of the game and they were on show every week!
Because there was NO ZONING, each player was directly responsible for his opponent. Everyone knew whose fault it was when a player was causing havoc and his opponent would be castigated and replaced with someone else. This tradition meant a real CONTEST between two players, often for the whole game and spectators would talk about such contests for days, weeks and even years, if they were truly special! Believe me, such contests were REALLY worth seeing!

Terry Wallace decided to try something new and what he did was to move most of his players into defence when Essendon was attacking. This made scoring difficult for the Bulldogs but it also meant that the Essendon forwards had no space to lead into and thus could not score easily either. At various points in the game the ENTIRE Footscray team was in the defensive half. This had not been standard practice since "beehive football" pre 1898 and had not been seen for decades and most observers were gobsmacked! I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched the famous Bombers having to kick the ball backwards into an EMPTY back field and reset and try find a target in their forward 50.

As soon as the Bulldogs got the ball they streamed down the field in numbers and were able to score normally, as Essendon only employed a conventional backline. So long as the Bombers didn't intercept their attack, Footscray held a strategic advantage. Although backlines had been stacked before for special occasions and "beehive football" was well known from junior competitions, this carefully planned, fully committed, maximum defensive flood had NEVER been employed as a team's primary strategy in home-and-away match in the entire history of the game!!! NEVER! Like most observers, I thought it was just WRONG and prayed that it would fail!

The Bombers that year were superbly accurate by foot and they managed to find a few small opportunities inside the 50 and with some good long kicking from outside the 50 they were 22 points up early in the final quarter. Most people thought that that would be it and the super-flood would be deemed a failure BUT because Essendon had done most of the attacking they were more tired than Footscray and with 3 of the Bombers injured, the Bulldogs found they had the upper hand and came home with a wet sail. They won by 11 points: 92 to 81. The juggernaut had been brought down and the game was changed forever.

There was much discussion after the match about the merits of the flood but since it had worked it refused to go away. It was used in minor form by Rodney Eade and Denis Pagan with success as an offensive tactic but the full catastrophe was not perfected until Paul Roos made it the cornerstone of Sydney's breakthrough Premiership in 2005. At that point it became the new standard and all clubs have used it since then.

For some years there was much hue and cry on the subject and demands that the AFL change the rules to prevent it but a succession of amoral, avaricious, unimaginative drongos at the helm refused to acknowledge the problem. Most prominent among those gutless and contemptible custodians of the greatest game on Earth were: Gillon McLachlan, Andrew Demetriou, Richard Goyder, Mike Fitzpatrick and Ron Evans. They betrayed the trust that they were invested with and oversaw the destruction of much of what was good about our unique game. Their names should be graven into a memorial for Aussie Rules outside the MCG, so that all fans may remember who it was that stood by and allowed the heart of the game to be destroyed.

It is now 2024 and the "nuanced flood" is still the standard game plan of every club in the AFL and its corruption has spread to most grassroots clubs in all the minor leagues across Australia and the game is the poorer for it. The AFL continue to deny that there is a problem, citing record high attendances and record high TV revenue. As I have already shown: attendance figures are misleading and TV revenue is only up because of large increases in population and the selling out of fans' viewing rights to Pay TV. The AFL are DELUDED! The game is in crisis and people are leaving in droves, especially the older fans who remember what "footy" used to be and can't bear to watch the mess that is the modern game.

Saddest of all is that Australians who only began watching footy after 2004 have no memory of the way that the game ought to be played. They have never seen a great full forward leading into space 10 times or more in a single game. They have never seen a bunch of thrilling one-on-one contests for an entire game. They have never seen chain after chain of foot-passing as a skilful team moves the ball down the field through space from contest to contest. They have never watched the crucial battle between centre-half-forward and centre-half-back as the ball moved into their area time and time again. They have seen only snatches of the goal sneak who was always there to pick up the crumb. They don't know what they are missing and THAT is the greatest tragedy of all!

What's So Bad About The Flood?

How the game is played today

A typical example of the nuanced flood in 2024. 27 players within a kick of the ball. Nowhere to lead into...

ALL the players now follow the ball all over the park. Not all hovering around the ball, that would be "beehive football" as played by young children, but usually within 60m of the ball. The backs tend to be on the defensive side and the forwards on the offensive but that can vary depending on the circumstances. Beehive football used to be played by adults in the 1800s but that stopped when Essendon proved that assigning players evenly across the park was more effective, as all you needed to do was kick the ball outside the swarm and since the ball can be kicked faster than players can run, it could be moved rapidly unopposed to the waiting full forward, resulting in a goal.

The difference now is that the "swarm" extends to just more than kicking distance, so that you can't kick out of it unless you kick backwards, which is counter-productive. Also, the players are carefully selected for aerobic capacity and endurance and trained full-time so that they are ABSURDLY fit and they can do what normal men previously could not. The interchange bench now exists as well, which gives players a chance to catch their breath, so that the entire team really CAN run hard all game! This is something that was not possible before 1990.

Although the ball can still be moved faster by foot than a player can run, the difference is no longer as great as it once was. Additionally the modern "swarm" is far more nuanced than the random selfish mess that kids adopt. It can be a zone, it can be a flood and it can even be the traditional positional game, depending on the situation. Players at the back of the swarm will race back into defence if the ball is turned over so that unless the attack is very quick the defence will all be back in place by the time the ball gets close to scoring range.

Elimination final 2024. The "beehive" around the ball. 18 players!

Modern nuanced swarm football is effective. Around stoppages the ball is surrounded by a cluster of 12 to 20 strong players who fight to obtain possession, at which point they are immediately set upon as they frantically attempt to pass the ball before they are tackled and have a free kick awarded against them.

In the zone around the possession cluster lurk most of the rest of the players. If the ball is in the hands of one of their team mates they will be sprinting forwards, trying to find a place where they can receive the ball. If the opposition has the ball they will be similarly sprinting into defence, filling holes into which the enemy might go to receive the ball.

There is no time to think, no chance to prepare. A player that obtains the ball inside the cluster must immediately handball as he will have only a split second before he is tackled. Due to this insanely high pressure and lack of time, this handball will often not be ideal. Perhaps the execution will be a little off or perhaps the choice of target will be unwise. Either way the ball will often be intercepted or the target will be tackled before he can dispose of the ball and the cluster fuck continues.

So it is that the game has become too much a procession of frantic, almost mindless, split-second handballing until someone is tackled with the ball, which results in either a free kick or a ball up. If it's a ball up, the cluster just continues where it left off. If it's a free kick, the defenders rush back and zone up to prevent the attackers from moving the ball any further than one kick. Wherever the kick lands multiple defenders will attempt to spoil any attacker trying to mark, the ball falls to ground and the cluster continues.

Yes, sometimes the attacker will hold his mark against determined opposition but usually not. The conditions are not like they were in the golden age of footy which was 1960 to 2000. In those days, although kicking to a pack did happen, there were always other opportunities where the target was not so beset by defensive numbers. Furthermore, there was always SPACE for a target to lead into. Thanks to the practice of zoning and the increased numbers of players in all important areas, those avenues are usually not available today.

Eventually the attacking side manage to get the ball close to scoring range. Unless this happens quickly the ENTIRE defending team will be distributed evenly within 60m of goal allowing very little room for any player to lead into and tackling anyone who attempts to run with the ball. STALEMATE!

There are essentially only 2 ways through this stalemate:

The buzzing of bees around the ball in the forward line continues until either by sheer luck, magical skill of the attacker, incompetence of the defenders or interference of the umpire an attacker gets a shot at goal and scores.
The ball is turned over, a defender manages to receive the ball over the back where there is NO ONE, he races down the field with some support and a goal is scored by default.

How it used to be

The 1975 GF. The way the game used to be: 10 players at the fall of the ball and lots of space!

In the golden age, (1960-2000), the game was different. Yes, there was pressure around the ball, especially at stoppages but there were less players in the cluster and there was a little more time for a player taking possession to dispose of it accurately and wisely. More importantly: There simply weren't the number of players within a kick outside the cluster, so once the ball was passed out, the receiver had a good chance to evade his opponent and run off with the ball.

The player with the ball would find a team mate running into space down the field and pass it to him. He would do likewise and play would progress in this fashion until the ball was turned over or delivered onto the chest of the burly full-forward leading into space 30m from goal. The full forward was always a great shot for goal and he would kick it most of the time.

There were always things that could go wrong of course: The ball carrier could be tackled, the pass could go astray, the pass could be intercepted, the target could spill the mark etc, all much the same as in the modern game BUT because there was more space and less people in the way, these events were less common and scoring was higher.

The most noticeable difference however, was the reduction in the number of handballs. In particular, the current beehive mess around stoppages with handballs pinging here, there and everywhere simply DIDN'T HAPPEN! This mess is a blight on the modern game that has greatly reduced its value as a spectacle. It's not fun to watch and it's not fun to play. Everyone who remembers the golden age knows this but the AFL sit on their hands.

Here is a table of the overall average number of handballs per game, listed by year, from highest to lowest. Note that ALL the years from 2005 on, (the year that Sydney won the flag with the flood), occupy the ALL the top places! The kick to handball ratio, although comfortably greater than 1:1, is nonetheless also comfortably less than 2:1. The game is called "football" NOT "handball" and for much of the Golden Era ratios were consistently MORE than 2:1. Back in the Classic Era ratios were 4:1 or greater! It's a matter of personal preference as to whether kicks are more entertaining than handballs but those of us that lived through the Golden Era prefer to see a decent kick than a desperate handball any day of the week...

Scores are lower and less satisfying

Highest average scores by any team in one year. ALL from the second half of the Golden Era. (source afltables.com)

Highest game scores by any team. All but two of these are between 1969 and 2000. (source afltables.com)

As you can see from the above tables: scoring was highest in the period from 1980 to 2000, ie the second half of the Golden Era. These tables only show the best teams so the results are a little skewed. Here is a table of yearly game scores averaged over ALL teams and you can see that the games since 2005 average 12-13 goals per team whereas those before were 14-15. A team in the modern era scores around 2 goals less than it did in the Golden Era, a reduction of around 16%.

The AFL and other proponents of the modern game may say: "It's only 16% goals less per game. That's not anything to cry about and if you go back to the Classic Era we are actually scoring MORE goals per game!" They can say that and they would be correct BUT it's not just the actual scores, it is also the MANNER in which the goals are scored.

In the Golden Era and the Classic Era, full-forwards and full-backs would be jostling for position in the goal square before the ball was even bounced. The crowd knew how the goals would likely be scored and they would be cheering on the play every step of the way towards goal. Goals were more predictable than they are today. You could see the path laid out as soon as a mid-fielder got the ball in space near the centre of the ground: A slick foot pass to a half-forward 60m out, followed by another pass, lace-out, to the chest of the leading full-forward at 30m. Dead-eye-dick goes back for his shot and it's a GOAL! The fans go wild!

The point here is that the crowd has time to see what is going to happen and the progression of play builds the tension until it is released in a SATISFYING climax. In the modern game the progression is unpredictable and most goals come out of the blue, with no time for the fan to build expectation.

You can argue that a goal is nevertheless still a goal and a climax is still a climax BUT IMO the random climax is overdone and the lack of a predictable climax is somewhat frustrating.

To put it simply: Today's game has 16% less climaxes and they are, on average, less satisfying.

Full forwards are dead

Gordon Coventry, Tony Lockett & Jason Dunstall: Three legendary full-forwards from the past! (All right footers...)

Ever since 1926 when Gordon Coventry kicked 83 goals for Collingwood, the full-forward was the glamour player of the team. The glamour really went to the next level however in 1929, when "Nuts" Coventry became the first man to kick more than 100 goals in a season on his way to 124. His glorious career was soon followed by that of Geelong spearhead: George Moloney and then South Melbourne legend: Bob Pratt who broke the ton 3 times and established the mark of 150 in 1934. A record that still stands to this day!

Bob Pratt was followed in turn by a glittering array of champions including Bill Mohr, Ron Todd, Jack Titus and finally John Coleman, who broke the ton 3 times in the years around 1950.

There was then a lull in full-forward dominance for 15 years until Geelong's Doug Wade kicked 96 in 1967 before Hawthorn legend: Peter Hudson, broke through with 125 goals in 1968. This marked the beginning of the golden age of the full forward and numerous famous players smashed the ton almost every year for the rest of the Golden Age.

In this period Jason Dunstall and Tony Lockett each broke the ton 6 times! Peter Hudson did it 5 times and Gary Ablett and Peter McKenna 3 times. Matthew Lloyd, Doug Wade and Bernie Quinlan did it twice. Wow! These players were ALL legends and people talked about them all week and cheered for them on the weekend. They brought punters into the ground and provided entertainment for the highlight reels. Great!

Most of these full-forwards were strong men who were hungry, full of craft, accelerated fast on the lead, were very strong marks and superbly accurate kicks for goal. Blokes like Tony Lockett and Doug Wade actively dominated their opponents and it was a brave or stupid man that tried to work them over behind the play. Others like Peter Hudson, Peter McKenna, Matthew Lloyd and Jason Dunstall simply waited their opportunity and beat their opponent to the ball. Still others like John Coleman, Bob Pratt and Gary Ablett were superb high marks who were able to make the most of the high ball.

It must be said that a full-forward is only as good as his service however and all of these legends had superb mid-fielders serving up quality opportunities many times a game. I don't know how many times I witnessed the great Jason Dunstall being hit on the chest lace-out by John Platten, Dermott Brereton or Gary Buckenara.

The famous full-forward has been a CRITICAL part of the game since before 1926 and perhaps the greatest problem with the modern era is that THE FULL-FORWARD IS DEAD. Not only are burly men like Lockett, Dunstall or Wade incapable of chasing the ball around all day but there simply isn't the space to lead into. If Tony Lockett were playing today he would NOT get a game!

Only one man has broken the ton since 2005: Lance Franklin, who kicked 113 in 2008. Lance was an all-time freak who didn't even play at the full forward position and who kicked many of his goals from the boundary up to 60m out! You can't really compare him to the others as he was completely different.

Here is a list of the top goal kickers since 2005.

Charlie Curnow was the top scorer in 2022 with 81 and Tom Hawkins won it in 2020 with a miserable 49! All of these figures are for the complete season including the finals so they mostly don't agree with the official "Coleman Medal" figures.

You can attempt to argue that 81 goals is nearly as entertaining as 110 but it really isn't! A great full forward kicks 100 goals in a season at least once and the last proper full forward to do it was Fraser Gehrig with 103 in 2004, the year before the flood took over. It's been 20 years since then and apart from Lance Franklin, who was not a proper full forward, there is no sign of it being done again.

Footy is the worse for this.

No place for the short

The Geelong football team in 2022. Only two players here are shorter than 180cm: Tyson Stengle at 175cm and Gryan Miers at 178cm.

Before 1990, "Big League" football players were broadly representative of the body sizes and shapes of the population at large. Yes, they tended to be taller than average but only by a couple of inches. There were plenty of players less than 180cm in height and the full range of body types from light to heavy builds. The tallest players played in the ruck, the next tallest were key position players and the rest were a mixture of medium and small players. There was a clear preference for those taller than 180cm but there were still plenty of spots for those who weren't.

There were heavy, less athletic players like Lockett and Dunstall and agile players with a light build like Bartlett and Flower. There were sprinters and endurance specialists, strong men and high jumpers. In theory at least, there was a place in a team for any body type. Sadly, that has now gone...

With the insane demands on players today to be able to run hard and contest hard for 2 hours, EVERY player must be an endurance specialist! The chunky, short-distance heavyweights of the past have been cast aside.

Due to the requirement that all players must be able to contest and tackle there is little room now for the short and thin. The fact is that big strong bodies win the ball!

The word "rover" is no longer used these days, as it used to refer to the small, quick, agile and courageous on-baller whose job was to provide a target for the ruckman to tap the ball to. Famous examples from the past include Kevin Bartlett: 175cm & 71kg, Brent Harvey: 175cm & 75kg and John Platten: 170cm & 70kg. Today, anyone receiving the ball at stoppages must be big and strong. There are no rovers anymore and instead we have stars like Marcus Bontempelli: 194cm & 96kg, Patrick Dangerfield: 189cm & 97kg and Patrick Cripps: 195cm & 93kg (this weight must be understated...). 195 cm! That's 20cm more than Bartlett & Harvey! The game is certainly NOT the same!

If you are short and want to play the game at AFL level: FORGET IT! If you are 175-180cm and want to play AFL, your chances are VERY limited! You'd want to be incredible...

In order to mark the ball in a contested forward line with no room to lead into you must be TALL. Furthermore, in order to defend against such a tall forward his opponent must also be TALL. Really TALL! Today's full-forwards and full-backs can comfortably play ruck if needed.

Before the flood took over, full-forwards garnered most of their goals by leading into space, so they needed to be strong, accelerate fast and mark well. Famous examples include Peter Hudson: 188cm & 92kg, John Coleman: 185cm & 80kg and Jason Dunstall: 188cm & 98kg. Now we have the likes of Harry McKay: 204cm & 106kg, Tom Hawkins: 197cm & 105kg and Joe Daniher: 201cm & 97kg.

Because winning the tap is more important than ever in the current beehive cluster at stoppages ruckmen must now be GIANTS!

During Carlton's glory years in the late '60s and early '70s, John "Big Nick" Nicholls was their famous and feared ruckman. Although a hefty 105 kg he was only 189 cm in height. Hawthorn's great ruckman during the 1970s was Don Scott: an unremarkable 190cm & 89kg. The eighties saw ruckmen's height increase substantially and Essendon's champion: Simon Madden was 198cm & 99kg. Now however, things have stepped up considerably. Max Gawn is 209cm & 111kg. Sam Draper is 205cm & 105kg and Brodie Grundy is relatively short at 203cm & 108kg. You wouldn't have been amazed seeing John Nicholls or Don Scott down the street in the day but the sight of Max Gawn in civilian life is going to be a shock!

Sadly, like basketball, the Big League is no longer a dream that every boy can aspire to. You might be able to get away with being short or average height in the minor leagues but in the AFL 180cm is now considered "short". It's a game for the elite: Only the tall and strong with incredible aerobic capacity need apply...

What Can Be Done To Stop The Flood?

Andrew Demetriou and Gillon McLachlan, the two AFL CEOs that sat on their hands from 2005 to 2023, allowing the game to be severely damaged.

I have demonstrated that The Flood has altered our game for the worse in a number of ways and essentially destroyed the heart of it. Once we accept this the obvious question is: What can be done about it?

The AFL management is devoid of imagination, common sense and social courage. This is because those traits are frowned upon in a footballer. Footballers are expected to be of below average intelligence, to never stand out, to sacrifice themselves for the team and to blindly follow orders. They might well be physically courageous but mentally they are the complete opposite. Any player that says anything unusual or displays intelligence or understanding of anything outside the game will be ridiculed, so everyone tries to conform to the lowest common denominator. Thus the Australian footballer is taught to be stupid, conforming and lacking in imagination. I played and trained with a minor league club so I know this to be true.

Since the upper echelons of the AFL are staffed by ex-footballers, you get the same characteristics in those people and I have to say that those characteristics are not the ideal match for senior management positions. No one at the AFL will take a position of REAL leadership. The "leadership" shown by the past few CEOs has been to kowtow to the perceived wishes of EVERY leftist political or social body, whether it is legally required or not. These so-called "leaders" are so terrified of being criticised in the media that they can be found GROVELLING before every any "woke" interest group you can think of, whether it be: the Aboriginal mafia, the feminist mafia, the gay lobby, the transgender lobby, the Muslim lobby, the breast cancer fund-raisers, the MND fund-raisers, the mental health lobby, the handicapped lobby, WADA etc. "Take our money. Take our self-respect. Take our rights. But PLEASE don't call us names!" What a pathetic bunch of gutless little lickspittlers they are!

With regard to the matter of how to stop the flood, the lack of imagination here is key: Of course the AFL can't find a solution because they don't have the kind of brain that can do that. The only famous player with any imagination at all in the last 50 years was Kevin Sheedy and footy people and commentators always said he was a bit weird but they forgave him because he was "Sheeds". In reality he just happened to have a bit of imagination and the guts to put his ideas into action. There isn't anything amazing in that! That is what people are supposed to be like, just that in the footballing world it is beaten out of everyone.

I of course, thought about the flood and I sent my suggestions in to the AFL several times during the course of general discussion about the problem and only received an answer once, which dismissed my ideas. But I'm not a high profile ex-player, nor am I a highly paid sports consultant, so what would I know? In fact I had some good solutions but the AFL staff didn't have the wit to see quality when it was put in front of them so they threw my ideas away.

Nevertheless my ideas are still valid and here they are:

Reduce the number of players

The first and simplest solution is to get rid of 2 players from each side. This will reduce the congestion by 4 players which will make at least some difference. Sure, it is only tinkering at the edges but it WILL make a difference.

The AFL are brain-dead as I have mentioned before and this is a good example. What could possibly be wrong with reducing each team to 16 players? The VFA did it for years and it worked fine. The game looked like Aussie Rules. This was before the flood came in but it certainly didn't harm the game.

Get rid of the interchange bench

The interchange bench is simply a device for allowing players to run hard all day. If it were removed players would find it harder to keep haring up and down field and there would be a little more space around the ball. It might not be much but it WOULD make a difference.

If a player needs to be replaced due to injury he must be subbed out and a reserve brought on. Once subbed out a player may not come back on. This is the way it used to be until 1978. It worked fine!

Limit where a player can go - simple

Each team must keep a certain number of people on each side of the centre-line at all times. The number of players could be experimented with but it should be at least 3. An infringement of this rule should result in a free kick and possibly with a 50m penalty.

Limit where a player can go - complex

This is the netball solution. You divide the field into 4 zones demarcated by the two 50m arcs and a line through the centre from one wing to the other. Each player must wear a fluorescent armband that specifies which zone he belongs in:

Full forwards and pockets of the home side and their opponents wear Red. They may not leave the 50m arc.
Half forwards of the home side and their opponents wear Magenta. They may not cross the centreline.
Full forwards and pockets of the away side and their opponents wear Cyan. They may not leave the 50m arc.
Half forwards of the away side and their opponents wear Yellow. They may not cross the centreline.
Followers, centre and wings wear Blue and may go where they like.

Any player that crosses his line gives away a free kick, either at their location or where the ball is at the umpire's discretion. Additional infringements may bring a 50m penalty at the umpire's discretion.

When a player moves to a different position in a different zone he must also swap his armband with another player. The armbands on field must match the 18 positions otherwise an infringement has occurred.

The AFL could pick any of these solutions and give them a try. It wouldn't be hard. Obviously the netball solution would be the last resort but the others would be easily implemented. What is holding them back? The fact that they are a bunch of small-minded drongos with their heads up their arses I guess...

Bad Rules & Bad Umpiring

An AFL umpire awards a free kick.

For ALL of the Classic Era and a third of the Golden Era there was ONE FIELD UMPIRE! Umpires like Jeff Crouch, Ian Robinson and Bill Deller were legends in their own right and they engaged in banter with the players every week. They were proper men, not milk-sops, they took the abuse from the crowd and disagreements from the players as a badge of honour and they got on with the umpiring. Sure, they made mistakes, we are all human after all, but 1 umpire was good enough for 80 years without ruining the game. In 1976 the VFL brought in 2 umpires which took a lot of the physical load off them. It was a good idea and perhaps the number of clangers reduced... perhaps... But then it was increased to 3, which was questionable and now we have 4 field umpires at every game! MADNESS! This absolutely ensures that every game will be OVER-UMPIRED!

Here is the thing about umpiring: It is generally better for the game if a foul goes unpenalised than for a penalty to be awarded that is undeserved. Back in the Golden Era it was common for the umpire(s) to just let the play go on, especially in the final quarter, unless an infringement was blatantly obvious. Technical or marginal infringements were often ignored and THE GAME WAS MORE ENTERTAINING because of it!

What REALLY annoys fans is the awarding of dubious free kick or 50m penalty which results in an undeserved goal, often against the flow of play. This kind of thing actually RUINS THE GAME! Such a thing RARELY happened in the old days. There were umpiring mistakes made from time to time, yes, but umpires were usually careful not to give away a free kick in front of goal unless it was blatantly obvious. Decisions made in front of goal are NOT the same as decisions made in the centre of the ground! Consequently teams always had to earn a win and it was NEVER given to them by the umpire.

This all changed somewhere in the 1990s and has since worsened even more. I have a dim memory of watching a game on TV at the time, where I remarked that it was the first time that I had seen a game decided by the umpires. I have now seen other games decided by the umpires and it is DISGUSTING. It strikes at the heart of the sport: the idea that the better team should win. Essendon's loss to Footscray in the 2021 elimination final was a classic case in point where umpires decided the game. The umpires were fooled by Cody Weightman "diving" at the slightest touch and effectively GAVE him a number of undeserved goals. This was bad enough but it resulted in Essendon defenders losing confidence in the umpiring and consequently not being able to defend in the normal manner. Since Essendon could not defend, Footscray were able to do as they liked. This not only resulted in Essendon being kicked out of the finals but it ended the career of Ben Rutton and ruined the EFC for the following year.

We all make mistakes but the AFL must be held to account for this change in the philosophy of umpiring. I don't know what wrong-headed vandal taught the umpires to call EVERY infringement that they see, regardless of WHERE it might be and to umpire the LETTER of the law rather than the SPIRIT, but it certainly happened in recent decades and once again THE GAME IS THE WORSE FOR IT!

How could the AFL think that the letter is more important than the spirit? How? They must be retarded morons! Why do we need 4 field umpires? Why? There is no reason, 2 are sufficient. All that 4 does is create chaos, distrust and over-umpiring. Again, how could the AFL be so stupid as to think this was a good idea? How? Again: Retarded morons with head up arse!

And it is not only bad umpiring philosophy that is ruining the game, it is also stupid rules:

Unreasonably short "Prior opportunity": Tackling a player has always been a contentious issue where the umpire is called on to make a highly subjective interpretation of the rules. Back in the '70s the grey area was whether a player was "in possession" of the ball or not. Now it is whether the tackled player had a "prior opportunity" and whether he has made a "genuine attempt" to dispose of the ball.

There is no satisfactory definition within the rules as to what these phrases mean, so it is simply a minefield where the umpire's judgement will often be questionable. A player may be tackled within 1 second of receiving the ball and that may be deemed "prior opportunity" if he were "balanced and steady". Really? Surely 1 second is not long enough BUT it's fine according to the rules.

We've all seen examples where a player has an arm pinned and consequently CANNOT dispose of the ball correctly through no fault of his own, has NOT had prior opportunity and yet is deemed to be "holding the ball" because he had an arm free. Madness! How can a player dispose of the ball correctly with one hand while he is being tackled? Players know this, which is why they do it. They NEVER did one arm pins in the old days. The objective was always a full body tackle. Not now... Is the game the better for this stupidity? Pffft!
Deliberate out of bounds: Back in the '60s it wasn't even illegal to kick the ball out of bounds on the full! Then the "on the full" rule was brought in which most people were happy with but now you can't even kick the ball out on the bounce by accident! Well you can but there is every chance that the umpire will call "Deliberate!" and it's a free kick. Two points here: 1 - What is the problem with allowing the ball to go out? Just ball it in! That's what the boundary umpire is there for! 2 - Allowing an umpire to adjudicate a highly subjective matter is asking for trouble. Most of the time the umpire can't know if it was deliberate. He is just guessing! Stupid rule!
Deliberate rushed behind: What brain-dead fool thought this one up? Backmen were allowed to rush a behind for more than 100 years with no problem: No grey area, no umpire trying to guess what a defender was thinking, no uncertainty for a backman in front of goal, everyone was happy with the rule... Everyone except "Captain Retard" and his band of sycophants at the AFL. Why enforce a solution for a problem that doesn't exist? STUPID! What are we trying to do? Copy soccer? Why would you want to go down that path?
50m penalties for technical matters: A 50m is a BIG penalty! Especially if it is given within 80m of goal. You might as well just give the team a goal! If you are going to award a team a goal for an infringement then that infringement had better be SERIOUS! It might be merited if a player is felled behind play or if a player is tripped as he is shooting for goal but NOT for a player entering some technical exclusion zone, NOT for a player not throwing the ball back, NOT for a player on the mark not moving backwards fast enough etc.

I just watched the Brisbane-GWS final 2024 two days ago and I saw the umpire award a 50m penalty against a GWS player for not throwing the ball back. It was clear that the player was unsure who had been awarded the free kick and he was asking the umpire to tell him who to give the ball to. He was very stressed because he knew that if he threw the ball to the wrong opponent it would be a 50m penalty. He needn't have worried though, as the umpire, rather than pointing to the player who had the free, simply gave the 50m penalty which brought Brisbane within range. A goal was scored that would probably not have been otherwise. Brisbane won by 5 points instead of losing by 1. Was this final decided by a bad rule and a bad umpiring decision? Possibly...

There are a host of other infringements that do not merit a 50m penalty, yet they are all awarded that even if it means a goal. There used to be a 15m penalty when I was young and it was fine, although a bit small for a serious infringement. A 20m penalty should be employed for all but the most serious infringements. 50m penalties applied willy-nilly are a BLIGHT on the game. They don't make the game better or more entertaining, QUITE THE REVERSE!

Common sense has gone out of the rules and gone out of the umpiring. There is an obsession with "speeding up the game" that is completely uncalled for. Umpires should follow the spirit of the rules in preference to the letter. Boundary throw-ins are fine. Rushed behinds are fine. Give the player a fair chance to break the tackle and a fair time to dispose of the ball. Pinning one arm does not constitute a tackle. A little blood is no reason to leave the field. Etc, etc, etc. All of this is fine and used to be the norm. There is no reason to change any of it! The wrong-headed vandals at the AFL have NOT improved the game through their simple-minded meddling, they have only made it WORSE!

Too Much Advertising

In 1970 inspirational banners ringed the MCG. Now we have 4 levels of constantly changing ads!

Back in the '60s, at the footy there was NO OFFICIAL ADVERTISING AT ALL! Yes there were a FEW ads at local grounds but not any on behalf of the VFL. The players' guernseys and shorts had no ads of any kind, not even a VFL badge! The MCG hoardings had no ads and supporters brought their own banners and draped them over fences and railings however they liked. These added to the atmosphere and the Grand Final banners were particularly epic! Grounds had one name and one name only, and that was NEVER sold to the highest bidder. The name of the football season was simply the year. No one even imagined that you could name the ENTIRE SEASON after a company! Naturally the football itself was just as you would buy it from a sports store, carrying only the maker's name.

Footy was the sacred game and all its accoutrements were sacred and left untouched. There was a purity about the game in those days that has long ago passed into the distant memory of old people like me. Now we have a governing body that is an unholy paragon of amorality and greed. The AFL stand for NOTHING except MONEY! They don't care about the game, the players or spectators. "Just give us more MONEY!"

These cruel and avaricious bureaucrats will chase down EVERY rabbit-hole in the search for another dollar and will stop at nothing to extract it! Disgusting! And one of their main revenue sources is advertising. Look: I get that every business needs money and that a certain amount of advertising is normal in the modern world. I get it, but SURELY, in this pursuit the AFL have gone FAR AND AWAY beyond what any sane person would consider NORMAL or ACCEPTABLE!

Keith Greig wearing the North Melbourne guernsey in 1975. The Melbourne guernsey in recent times: 8 ads on the front and 2 LARGE ones on the rear.

Up until 1976 footy guernseys were untouched. Your mother or granny could knit you a jumper that could look almost the same as the one the players wore. Furthermore, anyone could manufacture a replica guernsey and the VFL didn't care. The game was the important thing and that was what they concentrated on. How people got hold of the jumper of their team was THEIR business, NOT the VFL's.

The rot set in in 1976 when one ad and the VFL symbol were added. Then the shorts were attacked. Now we have 8 ads on the front of all players: 4 on the jumper and 4 on the shorts. And then there's 2 huge ads on the back! Sure, 2 or 3 of these are the logos for the AFL and the team BUT in my opinion these are still ADS! There is no need for them to be on the jumper. Everyone knows what team it is and everyone knows who runs the competition. It's just pathetic narcissism responsible for that stupidity. "Self branding" my arse! Rampant Onanism more likely!

You would think that since the USA is the home of capitalism and advertising, that the NFL players' jumpers would be plastered in ads, BUT NO! The NFL actually have some reverence for their jumpers and they are pretty much clean of the tasteless advertising that blights the sacred guernseys of the AFL. Now here is the point: If they are sacred in the USA why are they not sacred here? Well, because our so-called leaders are a bunch of contemptible human beings who would sell their own mother for a fistful of cash!

It's disgusting and unnecessary and the jumper should be CLEAN. Like it was until 1976.

The once sacred "Sherrin". Now it is covered in ads! Disgraceful!

Apart from covering every spare inch of stadium hoardings with rotating electronic advertising and BANNING anyone from draping their own banner over the top and apart from naming the entire season after a car company and apart from painting huge ads ON THE GROUND ITSELF and apart from covering THE UMPIRE and THE COACHES in ads, the AFL broke the last tenuous link with love for the game when they placed ads ON THE BALL ITSELF!

Unbelievable! The rest of the world surely hold the AFL in contempt for that! We are surely the laughing stock of the international sporting community! The greatest game in the world turned into a JOKE! That's the AFL for you: The most contemptible, morally-bankrupt sporting organisation in the entire world! Devoid of common sense, decency and any respect or love for the game that they are sworn to protect. Now nothing more than a venal organisation available for purchase by the highest bidder, whether it be a fast food company or a bargain warehouse.

Free To Air Viewing Is Disappearing

The way VFL broadcasting was in 1979: Drew Morphett presenting the Footy Replay and the World Of Sport footy panel including Bob Skilton and Jack Dyer.

Before 1971 there was little TV football broadcast, just some final quarters live and some replays. The VFL wanted people to go to the games and live football was seen as potentially risky in that regard. There was live radio coverage of course, which was fantastic and many people had a transistor in their ear while they were at the ground watching the game. I still remember those days when there were 6 games on Saturday arvo and you had to look at the code on the scoreboard to see how the other games were going.

For most of the 1970s the only TV football broadcast were replays. We used to go home from the ground and gather around the TV to watch the replays over dinner. Then on Saturday morning there would be more replays before the legendary "World Of Sport" began, which was full of ex-VFL commentators having a fun time. Great days that we took for granted!

In 1977 Channel 7 did the first live TV broadcast of a Grand Final and the die was cast. I think every GF since then has been broadcast live and it was only a matter of time before ordinary games would be also. Channel 7 paid 3.5 million for the 1986 rights and away we went.

Because there was only one network doing the broadcasts the number of live games was very limited as most games were still on Saturday afternoon. This all changed on 29 March, 1985 when North Melbourne played Collingwood under lights at the MCG for premiership points. This quickly became a standard part of the fixture when Friday night games were added every week and North Melbourne saw a marketing opportunity and volunteered to have their home games played in that slot. When the West Coast joined the competition they saw the opportunity too and so for a while Friday nights were usually West Coast or North Melbourne.

VFL games on Sunday had been banned by the Victorian Government but they relaxed this restriction also in 1985. Most of the time the Sunday games were in Sydney or Brisbane.

Up until 1994 only 2 games per week were televised live and then a couple more on delay which Channel 7 paid 6 million a year for, but in 1993 they upped their payments to $17,000,000 per year which entitled them to broadcast 3 or 4? games per week live from 1994. Voila! The era of the football couch potato had arrived! At the time there were 15 teams in the competition and 7 games per week so on any given weekend, if your team were playing, there was a 3/7 or 4/7 chance you could watch it live on free to air depending on the number telecast that week. Pretty good odds!

In 1995 the number of AFL teams went up to 16 and the number of games per week to 8 so your odds of seeing your team on free to air dropped a little.

Murdoch owns the AFL now.

In 2002 Rupert Murdoch's Foxtel got their grubby hands on broadcast rights for the first time and set about their goal of broadcasting ALL the games for money. By this time the AFL were receiving $100,000,000 per year for the broadcast rights. Things didn't seem too bad at the time as Channels 9 & 10 also shared the rights. With 2 games per week from each of these broadcasters you had a 50% chance to see your team free to air on any week! This was the high water mark for free-to-air fans and we were all hoping that it would continue...

In 2008 FoxTel had tightened their grip on footy broadcasts and had every game live for money. Channel 7 was reduced to 3 games per week so your odds of seeing your team play on free to air had now reduced to 3/8.

In 2024 the AFL announced a new deal with Seven, Foxtel and Telstra from 2025 to 2031 the licensing fee amounts to $643,000,000 per year. That's a LOT of money and it funds all the crazy expansion adventures that AFL likes to embark on, like GWS and their showgrounds stadium, which is right next door to the SCG, which is already set up for football and like the new stadium on the Gold Coast. It also funds the insane levels of player payments these days as well as propping up poorly supported clubs and paying for all the unnecessary consultants and extra staff at central office and at all the clubs.

If you are a free-to-air footy fan living in Melbourne there are now only 3 games per week broadcast into Melbourne out of 9 matches so your chances of seeing your team play on Channel 7 have now dropped to 1/3. This is a BIG come down from 50% and if your team is performing badly the odds are even worse. All the serious footy fans have moved to FoxTel or Kayo now and are paying to watch their team. Rupert has won! Things will only get worse as more teams are added to the competition and the disingenuous filth that are the AFL will continue to proudly assert that they have kept live free-to-air footy available for the common punter. Pull the other one!

If the AFL had any love for the game and its long-term viability they would have looked at what has happened to cricket in the UK. Once it was as popular as soccer. Now it is a minor sport that few people are interested in except in general terms. Rupert Murdoch has complete control over cricket's broadcast rights and NONE of it is free-to-air. It took a while but the English gradually lost interest in the game that was quintessentially their own. You can't follow what you can't see, so it disappeared from the common psyche. The same thing will one day happen to the AFL.

It's easy to foresee the day when TV disappears entirely from Australia and all entertainment will be on the internet. On that day the AFL will hand ALL the rights to Foxtel and the poor will no longer be able to see even 1/4 of the games. On that day the poor will go and watch something else. The game of Australian Rules was built on the POOR! When the poor go the game will go.

It's sad and if the AFL had any common sense or decency they would see this coming and would insist that free to air broadcast rights be offered for 50% of all matches and that the broadcaster stream them live and free on the internet too. This would have kept the poor interested. Many poor people like me have already lost interest since we can't see our team play most weeks. I still listen to the radio some weeks but there's nothing like being able to see them play. It's fair to say that I no longer feel as invested in the competition as I once did.

This is the weird thing about capitalism: The more money a company makes, the nastier, greedier and more short sighted they become. In a time where the AFL could best afford to look after their fans they are screwing them harder than ever!

Money-Grubbing Approach To Ticketing

The Western Oval in Footscray in 1970. Mostly unticketed standing room.

Once upon a time when you bought a general admission ticket to the MCG you could sit anywhere except the Members stand or the corporate areas. You could sit right on the fence, behind the goals, up to the railing on the top deck or right at the back. You could walk around to the other side and sit there. YOU COULD SIT WHEREVER YOU LIKED! It was all one price too...

Now it's all seat ticketed except for a few bays at the back of the top deck. If you want to sit in a good spot you'll have to pay extra. Thanks AFL and MCG... Docklands Stadium is even worse.

The AFL like to boast about how affordable going to the footy still is but is it? If you are happy to sit in the worst seats in the house and you don't buy any food there, it is indeed still affordable ALTHOUGH, as I have pointed out earlier: It is not as cheap, adjusted for inflation, as it used to be. HOWEVER, if you want to sit closer to the action, all of a sudden it's a different story!

And then there are the food concessions, which are certainly not cheap and I assume the AFL and the ground management are taking a significant cut. This is all very different from the old days at Windy Hill where pies were cheap, Mr Peanuts made his way through the crowd and you could buy full strength VB underneath the scoreboard for a reasonable price.

Yes, you can still go to the footy but you feel like you're being screwed all the time and it's NOT a pleasant feeling. Everything you do is now an opportunity for the AFL to make money and that ABSOLUTELY is not the way it used to be. Going to the footy used to be a GREAT FEELING! You'd feel it long before you even got to the ground. The sight of other fans all going to the same place to have a great time... It warmed the cockles of your heart!

Nowadays, not so much. The cold, dark, concrete mausoleum of Docklands is no substitute for the cheerful old gravel standing room of the outer. Watery beer in a plastic cup is no substitute for a cold can of VB. Sanitised individual seating arrangements are no substitute for "sit where you like". Being bombarded by ads and regulations is no substitute for floggers, banners and duffel coats.

The AFL, the clubs and the players are rich but the charm is gone people!

The AFL Should Not Be The Arbiter Of Morality

The "Pride Game" 2018. The AFL nails its colours to the woke mast.

50 years ago, what happened on the field stayed on the field, what happened on the footy trip stayed on the footy trip and what a man did in his private life was his business. Men were men, they were not perfect and they certainly were not saints! Players were often not paragons of good behaviour and THEY WERE NOT EXPECTED TO BE!

50 years ago the VFL was an organisation that ran FOOTY and that's ALL they did! They didn't get involved in politics or social philosophy. If a player broke the rules by striking another player he was dealt with by the VFL tribunal and on-field order was maintained. There was no drug testing and no preaching from the pulpit. If a player broke the law outside the competition that was a matter for the police. Women did not umpire the game or serve on the boards, that was inconceivable in a men's competition. Homosexuals stayed in the closet and transgender was an aberration that barely existed. Today it is all different:

Now we have to put up with the progressively more insulting and divisive "Welcome To Country" which I find grossly offensive. It's my country too! How dare you welcome me to my own country? Why are you more Australian than me? We were both born and bred here. Get back in your box and stop pretending to be something special.

Don't get me wrong. I value Aboriginal culture and aboriginal people but that doesn't mean I put them above me or that I cede them any special power or authority beyond that of any other born-and-bred Australian. The dreamtime matches are fine but leave out the "Welcome To Country". It's had its day and now it's just a pulpit for disingenuous Aboriginal mafia heads to make political capital so that they can increase their wealth and power at our expense. Last week in Sydney we had to put up with some deranged "elder" claiming that "Welcome To Country" had been practiced for 250,000 years in Australia. What GARBAGE! The ancestors of our Aborigines only got here 40-65 thousand years ago and NO ONE, not even today's Aborigines, knows what their customs were!

Now we have to put up with lectures on "respect for women" issued by the AFL. I certainly don't advocate violence against women but it is NOT the AFL's job to lead community debate on the subject. There are plenty of rabid feminists out there in the media and in politics, spruiking the cause and repressing men as hard as they can. In fact, if the AFL were clear-headed on the subject, they would realise that, as a largely male dominated organisation, it is THEY who are really under attack! They should be carefully taking the men's side, in a fact-based, balanced and nuanced manner.

I may be "old school" in some of my views but I don't believe that women should be involved in the umpiring or coaching of the men's game and I wouldn't expect men to be involved in those roles in the women's game. The same goes for administration of the men's game. IMO the men's game should be run by men and the women's game should be run by women. THAT would be fair!

Now we have to "celebrate" homosexuality and gender diversity when these things are, in fact, often a destructive aberration. Yes, LGBTIQ etc people exist in this country and their activities are legal but this DOES NOT mean that the AFL has to cheer them on! The AFL ought to take a look at what they are supporting and take a look at "normal" footy fans and STAY OUT OF IT!

I don't hate homosexuals who can't help what they are but I DO see them as aberrations and the AFL are simply demonstrating their ignorance and gullibility in the matter by "celebrating" such people. It is fashionable to pour scorn on our ancestors who enacted laws against homosexuality but has it occurred to anyone that they might have had good reason to do so? I'm not saying that the practice should be illegal but I do find as I get older that our ancestors were often wiser than had I thought and it is PURE ARROGANCE on the part of the young to think that they know better than their elders.

I realise that this is politically incorrect but I do find it disturbing that a grossly disproportionate percentage of women players are lesbians. Excuse me for telling the truth but when I see a female player on the AFL red carpet introducing another woman as her wife I want to throw up. I accept that these people have a right to exist and to play the game but I find it disturbing that the numbers are so disproportionate. The AFL ought to be asking itself why this is...

People go to the footy to see FOOTY, not to be bombarded with woke propaganda! Most footy fans aren't interested in woke issues and they don't enjoy the experience of being ear-bashed with it. Most of them won't say anything because they have been brain-washed in the culture at large and know that they have to put up with it but that DOESN'T mean that they LIKE it! The AFL should stop pretending to be a priest, a school-teacher or a politician and stay out of these matters altogether. They should also immediately stop the practice of "Welcome To Country".

Players Are Overpaid

Just some of the AFL stars that have been in court charged with various serious matters: Ben Cousins, Gary Ablett Snr & Jake King.

Before North Melbourne went on the greatest player buying escapade the Aussie Rules world had ever seen, back in 1972, players were poorly paid. Few if any players were paid enough to be full-time footballers and consequently they all had daily jobs.

Since players had regular jobs earning regular pay, they were just ordinary people when they weren't playing the game. They had the same financial stresses that ordinary people had and lived the same sort of lives except for their hours of glory on Saturday afternoons. This all helped to cement footy as the game for the common man.

It took some years but gradually the football pay began to overshadow the regular pay from their day jobs. More and more players became full-time footballers as the broadcasting rights brought a previously unheard of windfall of cash. The salary cap was brought in in 1987 and it rose rapidly. By 2017 the AVERAGE annual player payment was an incredible: $371,000!

Now I believe in people being paid fairly for the work that they do and certainly AFL players risk serious injury and entertain millions of viewers for 6 months of the year every year that they play and deserve to be well paid. "Well paid" is a subjective term however. Currently an "average" player is paid more than an Australian Senator. Considering the weight of responsibility and the amount of overtime required this seems excessive! And that is only the ordinary players... top players are often on payments of $1,000,000 per year or more. The Prime Minister and most CEOs don't even get that!

So it is that MANY players are now millionaires with no higher education or trade. They are disconnected from the normal world and their previous friends and family as they have become RICH! You give a young man a rock star salary and with no wisdom or strong philosophical foundation to guide them they will be susceptible to any crazy fashion that is around. They can afford expensive experiences including drugs, prostitutes, fancy cars, big houses, foreign holidays etc and paragons of good behaviour THEY OFTEN ARE NOT!

Contact with the drug world can, in some cases, lead to players becoming friends with underworld figures which is not only "not a good look" but it opens the door for the corruption of clubs by organised crime and consequently the corruption of the game itself. There continue to be cases of famous players associating with criminals and it can only be bad for the sport.

Reducing player payments to be more in line with conventional jobs would reduce the tendency for players to lose their centre and to stray into undesirable areas. Perhaps extra money could be paid into a trust fund to be released after the player's career is over or perhaps to be released as an annuity. Certainly I believe that AFL players should be well paid but I believe it has gone too far and is now counter-productive.

If the players were paid somewhat less, say half what they currently are, some, if not all of the advertising in the game might be removed. This would benefit the game as a whole.

Conclusion

Gary Ablett Senior - The Golden Era

"Aussie Rules" used to be, the greatest game of all! It was a magnificent spectacle for the viewer and fun to play, although most players didn't really see enough of the ball. Going to the game at a suburban ground in Melbourne was an almost religious experience that picked you up and made you feel good, at least until your team lost... It was a pure experience, consisting of footy, beer, meat pies, mates, banter and not much else. There were few ads, no loud audio or huge screens to distract you and no one was telling you what to think. You could sit or stand where you liked and the game was an absorbing, high-scoring contest where players stayed, mostly, in their designated positions. Tickets were cheap, players were modestly paid, there was little or no live TV coverage and the League was not rich. 8% of Melbournians went to the footy on any given weekend and the city was FOOTY OBSESSED!

As big money entered the scene, due to live TV coverage, EVERYTHING CHANGED! For a short time the poor fan could watch 4 games a week for free on his TV at home, with a 50% chance that one of those games would involve his own team. But that soon disappeared as Rupert Murdoch took control and now your chances are no more than 1/3. Most seats are ticketed and controlled and they are significantly more expensive.

The game is less satisfying to watch as ALL players desert their proper positions and play a nuanced flood, full of manic handballing, tackling, free kicks and ball ups. Over umpiring and bad rules also make the game a frustrating business where goals appear out of nowhere and the best team does NOT always win.

Attending the game is also irritating due to the AFL preaching on social issues that they have no business being involved in and invariably taking a hard "woke" political line. Many fans find this biased, uncalled-for hectoring offensive and particularly so the "Welcome To Country".

We are also subject to MAXIMUM advertising on absolutely everything associated with the game from the team jumpers, to the name of the ground, to the stadium hoardings to the FOOTBALL ITSELF! This is highly offensive to the football purist who just wants to see the game and doesn't want to see companies' names plastered all over everything.

Although total attendances at games are at record levels the PERCENTAGE of Melbournians who actually attend games has more than halved since the Classic Era of the 1950s. It remains a huge part of Melbourne culture but NOT to the extent that it once was.

We are facing a time when TV will disappear as EVERYONE moves to the internet for their video entertainment. Once that happens free-to-air live broadcasts will CEASE! When the poor can no longer watch the footy on TV the game will fade. It won't happen instantly but over 20 years or so it will fade into the category of "just another sport". The money will dry up, crowds will thin out and the game will die.

In order to obviate this catastrophe I propose the following measures:

Change the broadcast licensing at the next opportunity to fix the MINIMUM number of free to air games to 50% of all games involving clubs from the state broadcast into. Such matches must also be streamed live and free on the internet.
Remove all advertising from club guernseys, (including the club and AFL logos), the umpires, the ground and the football itself. Discontinue the practice of advertising in the name of the season itself.
Halve the salary cap so that the AFL and the clubs don't need to chase advertising dollars so hard. Players will still be well paid, just not excessively.
Assign ALL seating, (with the exception of members and corporate areas), in grounds, as unticketed general admission at one price.
Mandate that the objective of the AFL is to look after the best interests of the game, NOT primarily to make money! Yes, the League needs to make money to achieve its goals BUT the money is a means to an end, not the end in itself! The AFL should not pursue money that it doesn't need.
Reduce the number of players in each team to 16. Get rid of the interchange bench and reinstate the practice of substitutes for injuries only. Make a rule that at least 3 players from each team must be on each side of the centre line at all times.
Get rid of all rules involving the word "deliberate". Restore the previous rules allowing out-of-bounds on-the-bounce and rushed behinds. Give a player a fixed minimum time for "prior opportunity" say 3 seconds. Make a rule that a one arm pin does not constitute a tackle. Specify that a 50m penalty should only be for a "serious" infringement. Technical infringements such as: not giving the ball back, or not getting out of the way, or entering a protected zone, etc, should only attract a 20m penalty.
Mandate that umpires should umpire the SPIRIT of the law rather than the LETTER. Free kicks should not be given that will likely result in a goal unless the infringement is in clear breach of the SPIRIT of the law. Reduce the number of field umpires back to 2.
The AFL should discontinue the practice of "Welcome To Country" and should be wary of giving any Aboriginal "Elder" a free pulpit from which to propagate their political objectives.
The AFL should remove itself from all social and political matters and should avoid taking a side in any such matters in the future. They are there to administer and foster the game and NOTHING MORE!

These measures are designed to restore the game to the pure contest and experience that we all enjoyed so much in the past. The game was great for a hundred years and has only been ruined in the last 20. If it ain't broke don't fix it!

Are the AFL going to adopt these measures? Don't be absurd! They have become a bunch of amoral, small-minded vandals, devoid of imagination and common decency. They are obsessed with one thing and one thing only: MONEY! The game exists for them only as a vehicle to attempt to sate their unquenchable thirst for more MONEY! They don't care what the game looks like or what surrounds it so long as the MONEY keeps rolling in.

Sadly, there is no prospect of this changing. Once the worst excesses of capitalism become entrenched in a corporate board they are never removed. Money is just too strong a force and corruption is just too common. Any voice attempting to oppose those forces can only lose.

Sad...

What would the likes of Jock McHale, Jack Titus or Haydn Bunton think if they could see what their game has become? They would throw up...

Warren Mars - September, 2024