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I clicked the about VFL button in the VFL app today. There is not one mention of the VFA or the fact the comp started in 1877. All it mentions is that the V/AFL was founded in 1896 and the ex VFA clubs are “long standing clubs”. Have a read https://www.afl.com.au/vfl/about
What an utter disgrace and a clear indication of the AFL's attitude toward our competition. To them our history and our own stories are not worth preserving or remembering. It's an obvious attempt to bury the fact that the VFA was an independent competition that made its own contributions to football, and to reinforce the myth that the modern VFL exists purely for their own purposes. Disgusting.
You know what I'd love is for the standalone clubs to collaborate on a documentary series or something. Even just a Youtube series explaining the history of the VFA. The AFL are clearly not going to do anything to ensure we're remembered, so we need to do it ourselves.
hardly surprising, the AFL Clubs themselves have little realisation of their own history before 1896, the Collingwwod v Carlton clash last night only referenced the number of encounters since the formation of the VFL and ignored the number of times they had clashed since 1892 when Collingwood joined the VFA
Might have to set something up on YouTube. Oldest competition in Victoria is the VFA which was formed in 1877. Got plenty of footage and can easily do a 60min doco. I'll work on something. Today I watched my old team Richmond central play Canterbury at Canterbury. The Canterbury football club was formed in 1881 which is older than Collingwood and the vfl which is now afl. If the afl want to upload their history they can. They need the get their facts correct. The afl was officially formed in 1990 and not 1896.
Good pick up Comeng. That's is an absolute disgrace and I think that needs to be highlighted to the AFL that it is unacceptably false.
My mind goes to the saying 'History is written by the victor.'
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
The VFA continued to run (albeit renamed to the VFL in 1996) while the VFL/AFL clubs continued to play in their own competition until 1999 (the VSFL).
It wasn't until 2000 that the AFL clubs rejoined the competition either as standalones or alignments.
I wonder who at the AFL actually put that 'history' together.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Some GenZ clown would have written this crap NorthPort......I don't know whether to cry or laugh at the absurdity of it. That's the way of the world these days eh.....if we don't want to acknowledge what was, we just delete it like it never happened. Amazing stuff.
I do notice an ever-growing trend on any VFL forum (aside from this one) for supporters of AFL clubs to completely disregard all the standalones and traditional VFA clubs as if WE are somehow the interlopers in their playground. This narrative is undoubtedly written by someone pandering to those fools.
The AFL have set up a committee to examine the history of football in Victoria and I know personally two of the members who are on it, one of whom is quite passionate about the VFA. He and another member of the committee are pushing the AFL to get access to whatever records the AFL holds from VFA House but the AFL are strangely reluctant to hand them over or give them access but they are going to persist. The contents of VFA House are an ongoing mystery but hopefully these two get to the bottom of it one day and the true history of football in this State can be rectified and glorified. Every attempt that i, and many others, have made to find out what happened with the contents of VFA House have been met with silence from the AFL and others who were part of the VFA in the mid-90's.
Most empires fall in time. I wont live long enough to see the demise of the AFL
won't happen in our lifetime, blackrocker