Victorian identity loss

Victorian identity loss

http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2005/08/10/1123353384555.html

By Jake Niall

August 11, 2005

The greatest calamity to befall Victorian clubs isn't a lack of money or facilities, or their domination by interstate interlopers, but a crisis of identity.

Eddie McGuire seemed to sense the problem last weekend when defending Collingwood's constitutional right to bear black-and-white stripes. "We will not become a franchise for the AFL like McDonald's," he thundered.

McGuire saw the jumper as inviolate because so much else had been sacrificed on the altar of progress. "These days we don't have home games, we do not have home zones, we get our coaches elsewhere, we are forced to get our players from the draft."

The impositions McGuire spoke of have been driven by the centralising AFL, which, in its (successful) zeal to create an even and economically sustainable competition, has also made a competition in which the club differences we once celebrated have shrunk. Equalisation, sadly, has brought homogenisation.

McGuire wants to save the sacred jumper, but what do their — or any old club's — colours really represent these days? History, yes, but what about the present?


Nine teams share two grounds in this city, thanks to ground rationalisation. The clubs draw their players from a draft pool, in which anyone could end up anywhere, regardless of their geography or tribal inclination. The only significant concession to tribalism is the father-son rule.

Coaching panels contain fewer and fewer former players who played for that particular club. The only former Richmond player on the Tiger match committee is Terry Wallace! Neale Daniher's panel does not contain a single Demon.

Geelong and the interstate teams are not threatened with the same identity issues. The Cats not only retain a home ground, they have a penchant for recruiting locals and have made a deliberate effort to hire former Geelong people in their coaching panel. They are shamelessly, and blessedly, parochial.

Ground rationalisation wouldn't be so troubling if it had not been accompanied by the randomness of the draft, the career coach and administrator and other homogenising forces. Carlton, the last Melbourne club allowed to play home games, does not feel like Carlton right now. The Blues have lost Princes Park, have won a spoon and struggle to pay the bills. The system, which can and will undo any club, has humbled them. It is not the arrogant Carlton of yore. This team lets you down, quite often, while St Kilda — thanks to the system — is reinvented as a winner.

West Coast — rich, arrogant, uber-professional, with a fortress ground — is more like the old Carlton.

Something is seriously rotten in Denmark, too, when Carlton and Collingwood supporters are talking about the benefits of tanking Saturday night's game.

The AFL, doubtless, will argue that its crowd and television ratings are booming, that beanie sales have never been greater, and so on. It measures the competition's health largely by numbers, speaking of KPIs. If people are still turning up, tuning in and remaining loyal consumers, everything's fine.

I see more troubling trends. Kids today are more apt than ever to follow a winning team, or even to follow seductive and exciting players, such as Chris Judd. The game has become part of the entertainment industry, but in the process has sacrificed biodiversity and spiritual fervour.

Essendon can keep a powerful identity while Kevin Sheedy is coaching, and James Hird (father-son), Matthew Lloyd (local from the north-west) and Dustin Fletcher (father-son) are running around, but, as the draft removes their Essendon-ness and Sheedy goes, it mightn't be the same. The same goes for Collingwood, Eddie and the Clokes and Shaws.

Same grounds, same player pool, same interchangeable coaches and decision-makers. I guess the supporters are the last definers of cultural identity, along with the businessmen who represent them. The club is them and, as such, the congregations should re-assert ownership of their churches.

In Melbourne today, there are only nine churches, instead of the 11 (plus Geelong) we grew up with. For decades, we've wondered how many will be left standing but the result might be worse: nine clones, plus Geelong.