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Queensland Footy History
Qld
Footy History Overview
19th Century
1903 to 1914
1915 to 1926
1927 to 1940
1941 to 1958
1959 to 1971
1972 to 1986
1987 to 1999
2000 to 2010
2011 to present
Qld Footy Hall of Fame
Qld Players in VFL/AFL
Brisbane Lions History
Gold Coast Suns History
The AFL Competition - Overview and History
The AFL Competition - Overview
The Australian Football League, commonly referred to as
the AFL, is Australia’s national Australian rules football competition.
Eighteen teams currently take part in the AFL. Of these, ten are based in
Victoria, two in South Australia, two in Western Australia, two in
Queensland and two in New South Wales.
Each season, there are twenty-three rounds of premiership matches known as
‘home-and-away’ games or the ‘minor round’, in which each team plays
each other either once or twice, with each team having one bye. It is
commonly accepted that ideally each team would play each other an equal
number of times during the home-and-away season. However, playing each other
just once would result in seventeen rounds, considered far too few games to
satisfy supporters, sponsors and television networks, while playing each
other twice would give thirty-four rounds, considered far too many games for
footballers to physically endure. After the home-and-away matches, the top
eight teams progress to the finals which take place over a further four
weeks, culminating in the Grand Final which is traditionally played on the
last Saturday in September.
Carlton and Essendon have each won sixteen premierships, the most of all the
clubs. Collingwood is next with fifteen.
The governing body of the competition is also known as the ‘AFL’, and
its roles are many and varied. These include administration of the national
competition, promotion and development of the game across the country, and
provision of funds to local competitions.
The AFL clubs have traditionally used a member-based system of ownership in
which the members, rather than shareholders, make decisions. Private
ownership of footy clubs has been the exception rather than the norm over
the years. Sydney became the first club to be privately owned when Dr
Geoffrey Edelsten bought the club in July 1985. Shortly after, during their
days at Carrara, the Brisbane Bears were owned by Christopher Skase, then
Reuben Pelerman, whose intervention rescued the club from a likely demise.
Both clubs had reverted to traditional member-based structures by mid-1993.
And in late October 2008, North Melbourne reverted to a member-based
structure after 22 years of private ownership.
As at 30th June 2011, there was a combined total of 650,373 members in the
then-seventeen AFL clubs, translating to an average membership of over
38,250 per club.
The AFL website is probably the best resource for keeping up-to-date with
the competition and all of the other AFL goings-on. Their home page is here:
AFL
website home page
With a slightly Queensland perspective, the Brisbane
newspaper The Courier-Mail’s online AFL section is also very good:
The
Courier-Mail AFL section
The AFL Competition - History
The competition known as
the AFL, the Australian Football League, first took place in 1897. The
league, which was originally named ‘VFL’ (‘Victorian Football
League’), had been formed in 1896, and
comprised eight Victorian teams: Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong,
Melbourne, St Kilda and South Melbourne.
Up to and including 1981, by which time twelve teams took part in the
competition, all of the league’s teams had been based in Victoria.
The relocation of the Swans of South Melbourne to Sydney in 1982 began a
national expansion of the competition that would see all but one of
Australia’s states represented a decade later. A change of name from
‘VFL’ to ‘AFL’ in 1990 was an important step in the process.
The competition’s history has been very well documented in paper, video and
digital forms, and it is not my intention to ‘reinvent the wheel’ on
this website. The abovementioned AFL website is an excellent resource
for all matters relating to the history of the competition.
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