The Victorian Football War
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.พ. 2024
- Before the AFL, there was the VFL - but the VFA, its annoying big brother, was still running round, thinking it was the king of Victorian football. It was a brutal battle, where players and even teams swapped between the two as the balance of power shifted. In the end, they were toppled by some University students who didn't play well, and some Public Servants who never played a game. Confused? So was the VFA.
In this 9-part series, the GAZ-man explores the full history of how the AFL came to be the massive empire it is today. Part 3 covers the time period from 1907 to 1928 - the battle between the VFA and VFL to secure power over Victorian teams, the states' rulesets and its players.
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All music and backing tracks were humbly, and clumsily, self-made on GarageBand and BandLab. - กีฬา
Roy Park was one of the few University players that are still remembered these days.
Kinda fitting that the current home ground of the University Football Club happens to be in Parkville.
That as well as Roy's outstanding 1913 season where he kicked the VFL's highest number of goals that year for a side who never won a game.
Played a Test match for Australia as well as becoming a Doctor, Roy Park was a tremendously gifted man.
@@thegaz-man Was probably better at cricket but war service took a chunk of his career & after the war he was seen to side with Warwick Armstrong in his battles with cricket officials which, it is said, cost him more test caps. F/class batting average of 39.3 is not too shabby.
not true
@@thegaz-man I think he might be the only Aussie to face exactly one ball in Test cricket.
Awesome research, scripting and the ultimate balance of knowledge and humour. Love your work mate, fantastic stuff!
Thanks, you're too kind!
Really glad to hear the humour is gelling ok with the storytelling!
YES!!!! Part 3 is up!!
I’ve tried to explain universal football to people and no one believes it until I show them in the phone. It’s such a interesting alternate history.
Great video as well, as a North fan watching all that it’s amazing we’re still here given everything that’s happened. Truly the cockroaches of the league lol
Looking back at North's history, it's really fascinating. If I were to do another long history series on one team, I think it'd be on them.
Universal Football was just an utterly bizarre series of events. One of my big goals is to host the first proper game of Universal Football sometime.
The VFL dodged a bullet with the Public Servents Football Club in the early 1920s.
They would have been a disaster like University Football Club was.
Without a doubt, surely would have folded around the Thirties. Wonder how long it would have taken North to join the league if Public Service took their place in 1924
Port Melbourne and Williamstown surprisingly are still really good teams
Both also having VFLW teams and producing AFL players
Those two teams, especially Williamstown, seem like great examples of more remote parts of the greater Melbourne area having a footy club as its own heart and soul. Really like that about those clubs.
Great video s always, extremely well researched and explained
Cheers, thanks so much! This series really was fun to research
Who would have thought there really would be a Melbourne City Football team playing at the amateur football ground
It's amazing how things lined up - only took 90 years, several stadium reconfigurations and a change in sport to make it happen 😅😅
Great work!!!
I swear if you’re David M Green in disguise… love your work!
Certainly a very interesting period in football and hope more work done by researchers and historians to look even deeper into this period so we all learn more. I've found it fascinating when look back at old VFL Football Records in this era that they would list the premierships of VFL clubs and the tallies from well before 1897 and only stopped listing those tallies sometime after the First World War and always suspected it was politics between the two leagues as to why the VFL stopped doing this and then started only listing league tallies from 1897 at some point. Would have loved to be a fly on the wall in this era both at board levels in league clubs, league meetings etc. to really find out exactly why it was removed at one point.
All of us living now, have grown up used to counting how many premierships our clubs had from 1897 but if you were a person living early in 1900's and still living past the 1920's it must have been weird to have how many premierships your club counted be adjusted and bragging rights between fans all in a weird spot. Clearly the VFL of these first two decades simply considered their league a continuation of their seasons they had prior to 1897 which would have made sense if you lived in those times and your club was simply one of the 8 foundation clubs that left behind a few unwanted clubs in the VFA that had not won premierships before 1897. It is weird that the only real remnants of the post 1897 VFA that is left today that existed before 8 clubs left the VFA to form the VFL in 1897, seems to be Williamstown and Port Melbourne. Ironically in a competition now called the VFL.
Geelong’s President came out about 10 years ago and tried to get Big Gill to count VFA flags (pre 1897) as well. Nearly got there, too, they were set to announce it before the 2015 HoF gala but they weren't able to ensure accurate results from some early 1870s games
Will post the article link when I dig it up again
Awesome once again!
Thanks so much!
To add to the statement about Coburg being Richmond’s reserves side, I feel that I should mention a player of theirs from the late 00s: James Keogh, AKA Vance Joy. Played with the Tigers for two or three years, and won a best first-year player award at the club.
By all reports Riptide tore the joint up at the post match function.
No way, that's pretty cool! Must have been pretty handy to make it that far, but what a lineup he, Nason, Roberts and Webberley would have made.
Makes me think that Fire and the Flood was about Rodney Eade's coaching career
Hell yeah nice one
Imagine crunching into Bill Walton 2 minutes before half time, then him walking in telling you that you need to go harder🫠
The AFL needs Alistair Clarkson running around on field in a Hawks jersey barking orders at North while running from a Harry Cheezel tackle 🤣
Excellent work. I hope you run a story on the failed North-Essendon merger that saw Essendon pinch North players and win back to back flags after a decade without making finals. Those premierships should be posthumously awarded to North Melbourne.
That whole 1918-1925 period for North is one of the most interesting stretches for any club in any sport.
I'm looking to do a few North vids toward the end of the year, I might have to go into a deeper dive during that series!
@@thegaz-man Great. I am somewhat of an amateur North historian myself as my family's involvement with the club stretches back to these times. I unearthed the previously unknown 1932 North best & fairest Jack Patterson & Eugene Arocca added Jack to the tally of Syd Barker Medalists shortly after being made aware of this, so if I can assist in any way then drop a line. I also have a solid knowledge of the Machiavellian chicanery between North & EFC around this time.
@@user-kw1gp3dq4o that's actually super cool that you helped a club recognise its own history!
I'd be keen to collaborate later down the line when I cover North in more detail!
@@thegaz-man Be honored to assist Gaz. I have some information in a few very old books that could assist you with your historical series.
Love it. Something on Dave McNamara would be great. Not to belabor St Kilda, but would like to see something on Keith Miller.
Miller was a figure I wished I'd unearthed sooner when doing my Saints series, would love to talk more about guys like him and Simon O'Donnell.
On doing more research, I think Big Dave might just be my favourite player of all time haha
@@thegaz-man I like him as much as Simon Black and Andrew McLeod. Bring back the place kick.
@@MarkDash-kn5gb The AFL needs more massive dudes who can kick goals from the next suburb over
I did write a short article about the Motordrome for a website, and that's had a few interesting stories. It was built on the site where the Melbourne Zoo was first opened (before the zoo moved to its current location a year later), it held everything from speedway to cycling to Ostrich races (which was reportedly a disaster), would ultimately host several VFA matches (and 3 home VFL matches for Melbourne), and after a fire demolished it in 1951, the site would be rebuilt for the Olympics as both a hockey ground (later a greyhound track) and a velodrome.
Also that story about a crowd invasion stopping the North player from winning a game after the siren is reminding me of the more bizarre story of the Tasmanian State Premiership Final of 1967, where a player had a chance to win the game, only for a pitch invasion to tear down the goalposts. The game was ultimately recorded as a no-result and the premiership upheld.
Nice! That venue remains one of the great what-ifs for Aussie sport - if the VFA retains control of that venue with Public Service, Melbourne City and Richmond City, does that kill Melbourne Storm and Victory a ways down the line, or would the venue have been consolidated during the cash strapped 1980s?
That Tassie story is pretty hilarious, might have to do a video on that one day haha
The demise of "The Dreadnoughts" is a story in itself. Research the history of EFC administrator A.F. Showler (later had a grand stand named after him at Windy Hill), and his sly dealings with the local council for the promise of a "tram spur" which saw Essendon Association ousted from Windy Hill and in to extinction! Essendon were FINALLY Playing football in Essendon!
Yeah will look it up! Seems a shame, the Dreadnoughts were pretty decent there for a while with Big Dave
Kit designer: So we have two designs.
West Melbourne:yes
Great video series. I've always wondered why Hawthorn were admitted to the VFL with Footscray and North Melbourne. They never had any premiership success in the VFA and Glenferrie oval is probably the worst ground. But they did become the more successful of the 3 teams. I'm sure ive heard somewhere that they considered admitting Prahran in the VFL around that time but obviously it never happened.
Having said all that I'll always wonder why St Kilda was admitted to the VFL. Unlike Hawthorn they've never been successful.
Thanks! Yeah one thing I should have expanded upon was Prahran being originally selected instead of North.
Will touch on that in a series about North at the end of the year.
As for the Saints, I've done a series on them which explains why they got selected - mainly because of their southern positon
"...They never had any premiership success in the VFA...." Sat what?! The 1915-1918 North "Invicibles" have claims to the greatest side OF ALL TIME! 3 flags & 49 wins in a row and beat any VFL team that was game enough to take them on!
@@user-kw1gp3dq4o I think the original comment was just referring to the Hawks.
@@user-kw1gp3dq4o I was referring to Hawthorn
@@thegaz-man Cheers gaz-man. Most folks these days have the entire 1900-1940's VFA-VFL comparisons all out of whack. There are solid claims that the better VFA sides were the strongest at the time (Footscray) & there was little difference in the competitions for many of these years. Ron Todd, Bob Pratt....North's Neville Huggins was reported to be the highest paid captain - coach in Australia when he went to Williamstown in the mid 1930's.
The Public Services team was envisaged as having players from the fire brigade, police etc. (who all had their own teams) not necessarily the bureaucrats that we think of today when we refer to the 'public service.'
Also, North was the 12th team selected in 1925, their place was going to go to Prahran but their area was the Melbourne (VFL) district for players.
The primary reason for admitting University in 1908 was 'tone' in that they would play as strict amateurs & some believed that the panacea for the shamateurism that had existed for many years was a return to strictly amateur teams, University leading the way. The other place was always going to go to Richmond as they spent a lot of time unofficially negotiating with other clubs & their delegates.
Public Service makes a lot more sense in that regard!
Shame it didn't work out for University, almost as if they were just used as a stopgap in the professionalism debate.
@@thegaz-manYeah, they kind of were. Their expenditure was only about 10-15% of the successful teams. Most players in those days were blue-collar working class & PS could've put together a decent team in the 1920s. To play for Uni you had to have matriculated & back then that usually meant going to a private or selective school. Either way, these teams had no 'natural' supporter base & no real hope of building one.
It's a bit skewed reading the old newspapers as the writers back then (eg. Wilmot, McDonald, Healy etc) were staunchly old-school in their opinions, ie. they believed in amateurism & muscular christianity, it's 'not whether you win it's how you played the game' & so forth. Their complaints about player payments & their pining for the good old days may not have reflected the views of the spectator on the terraces who just wanted the local boys to win. Not much changed after professionalism was approved in 1911; it just meant the clubs no longer needed to hide player payments on their balance sheets. Good video btw 👍
another damn banger
Thanks so much!!!
Bill Walton was a wild fella.
Takes a real unique character to coach a team and play against them haha
@@thegaz-man sociopath 😂
Coburg, Williamstown and Port Melbourne would have been those sliding doors teams who could have been in the VFL during the mid 1920s. At least from what I understand from this video.
I reckon Port Melb could have been really good for the VFL too, a competitive side with a passionate fanbase. Nice ground, too.
@@thegaz-manStory has it, that Williamstown was the preferred side from the Western Suburbs to join the VFL in 1925, but Footscray's win over Essendon in the 1924 charity match made it virtually impossible to ignore the tri-colours case. Legend also has it (at the Port Melbourne Footy Club), that the reason the Borough put numbers on their jumpers, was because they kept being stolen!
@@warfradio4287 oh man I hope that Port story is true 🤣🤣🤣
Footscray's entry is a weird one, they got rejected and kinda badmouthed by some figures in the VFL in 1922, but it kinda feels their admission was inevitable. Williamstown would have been intersting in the VFL, but I think the right choice was made in the end.
@@warfradio4287 Story is wrong. After WW1, Footscray spent many 5 years buying players, winning flags, developing their ground & constantly lobbying for inclusion in the league. They had a huge push behind them from the local council & businesses. It was expected they'd be the 10th team & the decision to admit 2 more teams was quite late in the proceedings. At no stage was Willy considered for the League & AFAIK, they never applied.
How did I not get a notification for this lol
TH-cam bugging
They're trying to silence me 🤣🤣
Enjoy the videos but it’s hilarious listening to a non Victorian trying to pronounce Melbourne suburbs wrongly. Having grown up in “North COAT” it’s extra fun this week
Haha yeah for whatever reason Vic place names seem to trip me up every time! Prahran in particular has made me trip more than once
@@thegaz-man where are you from?
NorthCOAT
Love the footy history minus the boring retelling of facts long forgotten. The game has always seemed to attract people who probably could never get a kick but have a fierce determination to control its destiny. Maybe you could call them Eddies.
Love the Eddie call 🤣🤣
Eddie to me though will always mean Betts, not McGuire
I may not agree with a lot of what Demetriou did, but at least he could kick a footy
gets your facts right
Anyone else going to look up Mr dobolina after watching this? Been years since I heard it
Discovered it through a mate three weeks ago and can't get it out of my head haha
@@thegaz-man we used to sing it in class back in high school, one of our mates had similar sounding last name so sometimes we use his name instead. Good memories