It seems to me that the AFL clubs are trying to turn the VFL into a AFL club only reserve league. How is this fair to the supporters of the clubs who colours and history are thrown out the window just for the convenience of the AFL? Imagine Port Melbourne wearing blue and white stripes because of north melbourne? Imagine Williamstowns famous yellow sash being replaced by Yellow and Brown for Hawthorn. If action is not taken now soon all traditional VFL clubs will either be gone or linked so close with an AFL club that that no trace of the original club will be left. Next year my team St Kilda will possibly field a reserve team in the VFL and I will not support them at all. I will continue to follow my VFL club, I suggest everyone does this and spreads this message before there is no clubs left to save.
Borough boy 2 if you look at a previous post a lot of posters here are VFA hard core and have little following of AFL clubs or none at all.
Very true when you look at a club like Preston ?
Carlton have the nerve even to call a sie Northern Blues in the VAFA Div 3 comp. They are based in Preston yet called Northern Blues which is an utter disgrace.
I know many supporters that would barrack for their VFL old VFA team than their AFL aligned team when they clash.
Borough boy - it is inevitable that in the next few years there will be a break up of the competition with the old VFA clubs competing with one another and the AFl clubs with one another. Their will be too many clubs in a few years to sustain a healthy competition. This is only a guess of course but the signs are there that their will be a schism.
St Kilda and Sandringham allignment is to continue until end of 2016 season http://m.heraldsun.com.au/leader/bayside/sandringham-and-st-kilda-to-st…
In reply to St Kilda and Sandringham by Slammin Sammy Says
Wasn't there some talk at some point, of the VFL ending ALL alignment deals for the 2016 season ???
First time i head of that raven. Having said that though, it is inevitable that it will happen naturally one day anyway. The Sandy St Kilda allignment will probably be the 1st one to go, Box Hill will stick around for a while I think. If Casey or Preston lost their allignment that would probably be the death of those clubs. Some ex supporters of those clubs state their club died years ago and they are a afl 2nds club now.
Who knows where this league is heading !
In reply to First time i head of that by MegaA
Port Melb, Box Hill, Williamstown, Werribee, Nth Ballarat, Sandringham, Preston (if they survived the split), Frankston Casey, Coburg in a "Stand Alone" non AFL competition....could it work???
You would probably find that some of those clubs have lost allot of supporters due to their afl alignments. Supporters that will never come back. As a result this will have a flow on affect in terms of sponsorship and revenue. Preston and Casey would probably not be able to raise the funds to play in that competition and their was talk of Coburg not doing so well either.
The other thing to consider is that if their was a split and only vfl clubs played in this league - which league would the media chose to cover ? You would think that the tv coverage would go with the afl reserves rather than the vfa as at the moment they are the ones that get the majority of the coverage - can't see that changing.
In reply to You would probably find that by MegaA
Wouldnt it be an irony if the ex VFA clubs broke away from the VFL and formed their own comp?
In reply to Borough boy 2 if you look at by vfa
My AFL teams aligned team played my VFL team today - definitely was barracking for Port Melbourne. Sandringham is not StKilda. Even if StKilda does have a VFL team in future, I'd still support Port - the StKilda team would just be reserves.
I'm not sure if the "VFA" clubs (well Port, Williamstown, Coburg, Frankston and one or two others could sustain a comp on their own without AFL Vic support. Is there enough fan support? I hope so but not sure.
I don't think the AFL gain anything from splitting it into two comps. At the moment they get a good comp for their reserves teams and get to see how the best players outside the AFL compete against their own listed players, which is a great draft tool.
Of course, there is every chance that if some more alignments split then some traditional VFA clubs may struggle to survive, but we'll just have to see what happens.