Brisbane Versus Sydney: Australian Rules Football Wins!

Over thirty years ago, I spent many months working in Dandenong. I was not really much of a beer drinker yet, but many people around me were, and the attitude was that products brewed by Carlton and United Breweries in Melbourne were the only acceptable beers we should consume.

Times move on, and whilst the Southern Aurora Hotel is gone, it’s bottleshop remains near Dandenong Station as an archaeological reminder of our beer drinking preferences of that time, particularly in the form of a mast which displays several of the key CUB beer brands of the era.

[Can someone tell me when Carlton Light Ice disappeared from the fridges? You can still see a reminder of its former existence on top of that bottle shop.]

I do not consider that we Melburnians are that parochial anymore, although I am not exactly sure of the provenance of most of the craft beers that we now consume, suffice that I am fairly confident that most of them are owned by either Asahi or Kirin, the two giant Japanese beer companies.

I wish our recently developed open mindedness about our beer consumption applied to our attitude towards Australian Rules Football. Every time we see an interstate team in the AFL Grand Final, let alone two teams (perish the thought!), Melbourne newspapers and the general mainstream media are full of the Fake News that this is a disaster and huge tragedy for Victorian Football.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In two days’ time, Sydney and Brisbane face off in the AFL Grand Final. I expect the indignant whining from some Melbourne football commentators to get really tiresome between now and the hangovers on Sunday morning.

As a matter of history, this will be the fourth time that two non-Victorian teams have faced off in the AFL Grand Final, the other times being Brisbane V Port Adelaide in 2004, Sydney V West Coast in 2005 and 2006.

It is extremely good for Australian Rules Football, and particularly for The Australian Football League for such grand finals to occur. These are a measure of the success of the AFL.

Since the VFL rebadged itself as the AFL in 1990, it has gone from strength to strength in its quest to become a truly national competition. West Coast has won 4 flags, Brisbane has won 3, Adelaide and Sydney have each won 2, and Port Adelaide has the one flag so far. Fremantle and GWS have also each made the grand final once.

Thanks to COVID, the 2020 Grand Final was played in Brisbane and the 2021 Grand Final was played in Perth.

As well, each of the surviving legacy VFL teams, with the exception of St Kilda, has won at least one premiership in the AFL era – including my own beloved Footscray / Western Bulldogs.

Club memberships, crowd numbers, and TV ratings are at all time historic highs. Everyone (except St Kilda) is enjoying the national competition.

Arguably, Australian Rules Football is the oldest codified form of Football in the world, and several of the AFL clubs are far older than any other football code clubs in the world. It is a sport which developed in the late 1850s out of the post Gold Rush wealth which blessed Melbourne.

So, as a Victorian creation, we Victorians should rejoice that it has been embraced by the rest of the nation to the extent that two non-Victorian teams are facing off in the AFL Grand Final again (although if you happen to wonder around both South Melbourne and Fitzroy tomorrow or Saturday, I am confident that you will see plenty of evidence that Sydney and Brisbane’s antecedent teams are still beloved down here).

Obviously I wish that the Bulldogs had not bombed out in the elimination final. But as they did not make it to the big dance, I am very happy that it is an exclusively non-Victorian final.

Whatever happens on Saturday, Australian Rules Football (a sport born in Melbourne) wins.

I am very happy with that.