"1874" or "What makes us, Us?"

[Ruck'n'Roll]

I don't think anyone is saying that the current Sydney Swans football club is the Cecil Football club.

Incorrect, the thread began with . . .

Um, because it's been the same club throughout that time. The name, the location and even the colours are irrelevant.

Which prompted my question: If colours, location, name, ownership, mascot etc. etc. are irrelevant, then what is relevant?

What makes us, Us? Is it something tangible (name, colours, etc.) or something less tangible (emotions, belief)?

[Bloods05]

Actually, the thread began with . . .



Which prompted my question: If colours, location, name, ownership, mascot etc. etc. are irrelevant, then what is relevant?

What makes us, Us? Is it something tangible (name, colours, etc.) or something less tangible (emotions, belief)?

The latter. You also said it really pissed you off, which implied you thought it had to be tangible.

[baskin]

I was wondering how long ago you last went to the AFL museum? The last time I went was after the refurbishment. I noted to one of the volunteers that while all of the Sth Melb / Sydney Swans memorabilia was together and the history and notes included pre-1982, the Fitzroy information was not with the Brisbane Lions display. So the AFL clearly thinks we were a club which simply moved house while Fitzroy was a club that no longer existed as an AFL entity.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

You also said it really pissed you off.

I don't recall saying that?

[Sandridge]

You do make some valid points R'n R, but the brewing analogy is flawed.

I'm pretty sure that no one disputes that your overpriced beer is not the same thing as the water it originally was, yet I'm fairly confident that most would recognise that where it came from was indeed the water, and of course a few other additives.

Similarily, I don't think anyone is saying that the current Sydney Swans football club is the Cecil Football club. Its the result of an evolutionary process that can trace its origins back to 1874, and perhaps further as you have pointed out.

Yes the Australian Football Gallery of the National Sports Museum dates us from 1982, that being the date of the current incarnation of the club. The Sydney Swans football club didn't just start from nothing. There is a clear connection back to SMFC, and from there back to the Albert Park Football club and the Emerald Football Club, and then back to the Cecil Football club. Just because there is nothing that remains of the Cecil Football club, you cannot use that as a basis to say that the roots of the current club are not founded in the past history of that club. And thats all the 1874 number is recognising.

Well said, Doctor J! Excellent, excellent post!

[Ruck'n'Roll]

I was wondering how long ago you last went to the AFL museum? The last time I went was after the refurbishment. I noted to one of the volunteers that while all of the Sth Melb / Sydney Swans memorabilia was together and the history and notes included pre-1982, the Fitzroy information was not with the Brisbane Lions display. So the AFL clearly thinks we were a club which simply moved house while Fitzroy was a club that no longer existed as an AFL entity.

Not sure about Doctor J, I last visited in early 2010 and it was a bit patchy, when was the refurbishment?

[Ruck'n'Roll]

As for my analogy, it has been suggested that I would have been better off referring to Theseus' boat or my grandfathers axe rather than the SCG's beer.
For those like me who were unfamiliar with this paradox, it goes like this:
If Theseus changes every single component of his boat, with replacement components, is it still the same boat?

[Jewels]

As for my analogy, it has been suggested that I would have been better off referring to Theseus' boat or my grandfathers axe rather than the SCG's beer.
For those like me who were unfamiliar with this paradox, it goes like this:
If Theseus changes every single component of his boat, with replacement components, is it still the same boat?

yep

[Bloods05]

I don't recall saying that?

"It gives me the irrits" is much the same thing.

[MightyBloods]

A different analogy to the beer might be my family immigrated from Germany 6 generations ago, since arriving in Sydney they have moved to rural NSW where a great majority are still based, then I have moved to the ACT. Our sirname has been altered to reflect our situation and possibly avoid harassment in war times. From photos I know my descendants dressed very different to how I do.

Currently most of my family lives in a town in rural NSW and there is communication back to the descendants in Germany.

I recognise the background in Australia and Germany as being a part of who I am, just as I believe the swans should recognise all of the history that the made the great team we support today. We are who we are now but without all aspects of the history, even if they are still not having direct influence, we would be something else. Individual interpretation of the history will always vary little so be it.

+1

Firstly, I can't believe anyone questioning the relevance of the history of our great club.
Secondly, to those same people questioning it, do you also question the relevance of your family tree? You probably have a different name, different location and possibly a different look. You are still a branch grown from the birth of a tree......or does your history begin with your own birth and even discount the relevance of your own parents? I think not.

[Bloods05]

yep

+1

Firstly, I can't believe anyone questioning the relevance of the history of our great club.
Secondly, to those same people questioning it, do you also question the relevance of your family tree? You probably have a different name, different location and possibly a different look. You are still a branch grown from the birth of a tree......or does your history begin with your own birth and even discount the relevance of your own parents? I think not.

Now there's an appropriate analogy.

[dimelb]

I'm surprised that no-one seems to have picked up what seems to me to be the obvious thread of continuity between all the groups that could be the ancestors or predecessors of our club, namely the people concerned.
It would no doubt take a bit of digging through archives, but I'm confident you'd find that the people who started out as the Cecil Club were the same people (or part thereof) who changed the name to Emerald/Albert Park/South Melbourne, and that, as now, despite deaths, departures, changes of allegiance and other comings and goings, the people provided the continuity. Some would have been players, some would have been committee members, some were WAGS, some were offspring and so on in the usual manner of all social groups.
I'm sure those who settled on the final merger between Albert Park (red and white colours) and South Melbourne (name, who agreed to leave behind their blue and white), would have seen themselves as linked to the past through all these very ordinary ties of family, friendship, playing together, organising, moving into the area and so on.
In a sense nothing's changed. We are the club. Who made us so? We did, over generations. The spirit is summed up in the words of an (I think) eight-year-old on the last Saturday in September 2005: "We've been waiting 72 years for this!"

[Xie Shan]

What would a club be without its people? The club is the glue that binds us together, irrespective of what name(s) it might have been called in the past.

[Bloods05]

+1

Firstly, I can't believe anyone questioning the relevance of the history of our great club.
Secondly, to those same people questioning it, do you also question the relevance of your family tree? You probably have a different name, different location and possibly a different look. You are still a branch grown from the birth of a tree......or does your history begin with your own birth and even discount the relevance of your own parents? I think not.

I'm surprised that no-one seems to have picked up what seems to me to be the obvious thread of continuity between all the groups that could be the ancestors or predecessors of our club, namely the people concerned.
It would no doubt take a bit of digging through archives, but I'm confident you'd find that the people who started out as the Cecil Club were the same people (or part thereof) who changed the name to Emerald/Albert Park/South Melbourne, and that, as now, despite deaths, departures, changes of allegiance and other comings and goings, the people provided the continuity. Some would have been players, some would have been committee members, some were WAGS, some were offspring and so on in the usual manner of all social groups.
I'm sure those who settled on the final merger between Albert Park (red and white colours) and South Melbourne (name, who agreed to leave behind their blue and white), would have seen themselves as linked to the past through all these very ordinary ties of family, friendship, playing together, organising, moving into the area and so on.
In a sense nothing's changed. We are the club. Who made us so? We did, over generations. The spirit is summed up in the words of an (I think) eight-year-old on the last Saturday in September 2005: "We've been waiting 72 years for this!"

Which is why MightyBloods' analogy with family is so apt. If you don't understand that, you don't understand what a footy club is.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Firstly, I can't believe anyone questioning the relevance of the history of our great club. .

Me neither, who did?

Secondly, to those same people questioning it, do you also question the relevance of your family tree? You probably have a different name, different location and possibly a different look. You are still a branch grown from the birth of a tree......or does your history begin with your own birth and even discount the relevance of your own parents? I think not.

Great analogy, so what your saying is that just as i should recognise both my parents as a part of my history, then the club should recognise both of it's "parents" too.
The thing is, by choosing 1874, the club is actually doing the opposite of this. It is doing the equivalent of me saying that while i honour my mothers (lets call her "South") part of my history, my fathers (lets call him "Albert") involvement isn't a part of the picture until six years after my birth.
What I was trying to say in this thread, but which has been lost by some people's disinclination to read, let alone think about what has been said previously in a thread before "contributing" - is that the only physical connection the present club has to its origins is the red and white we play in. Those colours belong to the Albert Park part of our heritage, and that team doesn't get a mention in any swans history that I have read until it and south amalgamated.
How could it when the club only traces its history back to 1874?