As we draw into the start of the 2012 AFL season (Yep, I don't count pre-season games as real footy) its time to trawl through my VFL / AFL 'all games ever played list'.
Last year, I could console (post-Grand Final loss) the Wobbler fans on this blog post with a bit of an historical factoid... that they are currently the team with the best winning record in the full history of the competition. (and for you Gen Y'ers, than means they are the 'most winning-est' team).
So lets paraphrase an old football adage, lets review teams performances "one decade at a time".*
*yes, the first really is only a 3 year period, so not truly a decade... understood.
THE BREAKAWAY
The first three years of the VFL involved the VFA power teams, and for geographic balance*, St. Kilda play 14 game seasons, plus a convoluted finals series that is best left for you to research and try to understand (because I wont try).
Essendon topped out the 1890's as the best, though Fitzroy actually had more Premierships. The St. Kilda failed to win a game in 3 full seasons.
* Port Melbourne were a VFA power and touted for inclusion but were rejected (possibly on the grounds that their players and supporters were 'too rowdy') in favour of weaker St. Kilda.
A NEW CENTURY, A NEW ERA
The first full decade saw the competition expand with the introduction of Richmond and University joining in 1908, and the number of games per season grow to 18. Interestingly, the VFL leaders chose to include one more VFA team (Richmond), and University which was then playing in the Metropolitan Football League.
From the turn of the century, Carlton had the best of the decade with 3 premierships, but it was Collingwood that dominated, winning 2/3rds of their games and 2 flags. Fitzroy also picked up 2 premierships as well.
University's first two seasons were quite productive, winning 15 of their first 36 games. Not a bad result for a new team, and better than Richmond performed as well. St.Kilda started to win some games, but a 25% win rate over the 10 years made for tough times at the Junction Oval.
THE YEARS OF LOSS AND SADNESS
After the introduction of new teams in the previous decade, the call to arms saw the loss of many a young man from Australia. And during the war years also saw the temporary loss of Melbourne (1916-18), Geelong (1916), Essendon (1916-17), South Melbourne (1916) and St. Kilda (1916-17) from the competition on "patriotic grounds".
Also in this decade, after 51 consecutive losses and a total of 126 games over 7 years, University left the VFL at the end of the 1914 season. This left the competition as 9 teams (and a weekly bye) at the end of the decade. A situation that would be rectified in the next decade, with 3 new teams being accepted into the league.
A nice spread of premierships too in the war years, with Collingwood securing 3, Carlton, Fitzroy and Essendon securing 2 each. South Melbourne had the best of the decade, winning almost 7/10 games, but only 1 flag. Also worth noting, three teams (South, Carlton and Collingwood) dominated, winning 2/3rds (or more) of there games for the decade... clearly more than any other team.
In the next blog post: the 20's, 30's and 40's.
Actually, the reason Port Melbourne were rejected was their working class culture. When the VFL formed the ruling classes desired to exclude the truly working-class regions because they thought they would be prepared to do unethical things to win.
ReplyDeleteIt’s notable that Footscray, who had had as good a record as St. Kilda in the VFA between 1888 and 1896, were not even discussed as an eighth VFL club, nor as a tenth in 1907. I do think that Footscray would have done better than St. Kilda had they been admitted when the League formed. Potentially Footscrat could also have found the requisite patronage to be competitive in the long term.
A chronic problem for St. Kilda was being too far from potential industrial patrons to be financially viable in a competition that quickly moved beyond its supposed amateurism. St. Kilda’s lack of wealthy supporters was also a prime reason for their bleak eras in the 1940s/1950s and 1980s. The same was even more true of Hawthorn before the gerrymandered country zoning system.
Thanks Sir!
DeleteI did find a few pages that mentioned how rough Port fans were (with teams rushing to get away from being beaten up post match), but I will accept the team might have been though to be underhand as well.
And of course... Footscray. That part of Melbourne people knew about then, but never really discussed. Surely would have been worthy.
I think of St Kilda back then as a holiday village form Melbournites... how they could have sustained any sort of team in the 1880's etc is beyond me.
Oh yes, and thanks for dropping by!