Swans to "Win" 5 more Flags?

[Ruck'n'Roll]

In the past, during the off season, some of us on RWO have discussed Swans History. I for one have occasionally displayed some mild irritation that while the club celebrates it's AFL and VFL premierships - insufficient attention is played to it's early history.

It appears however that this might be coming to an end. According to an Age article by Daniel Cherny, apparently the AFL is strongly considering a series of recommendations which if accepted will backdate the competition's official history to 1870. The article also notes what this will mean to various Victorian clubs.

So what should this mean for the Swans?

Firstly it means the club can reclaim the 1881 and 1885 premierships AND it's three-peat of 1888, 1889 and 1890 (this clubs true "Golden Age").

[tasmania60]

Great piece of information,hope others read.Going to chase article .

[ScottH]

Port to lobby for SANFL flags to count in revised AFL tally

[Matt80]

Port to lobby for SANFL flags to count in revised AFL tally

This will demonstrate the full influence and power of David Koch. My view is that the AFL would not like adversary first thing in the morning.

[Melb Blood Bro]

Port to lobby for SANFL flags to count in revised AFL tally

That would be good. Wouldn't that put them ahead of Collingwood, Carlton & Essendon.

[mcs]

This will demonstrate the full influence and power of David Koch. My view is that the AFL would not like adversary first thing in the morning.

What next.... reserves premierships count as well?

[Matt80]

What next.... reserves premierships count as well?

I think it should stay the same. I'm only saying that David Koch is formidable and judging by how the AFL works with Eddie, they will not want Koch offside.

[Ludwig]

Eddie McGuire is against it. I won't happen.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

This will demonstrate the full influence and power of David Koch.

Certainly his influence is sufficient to hijack a thread on Swans history

[Go Swannies]

Port to lobby for SANFL flags to count in revised AFL tally

as long as WAFL Premierships count too, that's fair.

But what about the original Marn Groot winners - we could have 40,000 years of Premierships. Cool.

[Faunac8]

Port to lobby for SANFL flags to count in revised AFL tally

So if successful they could technically win two flags this year? The NEAFL should count as well then. Really if this proposal is even fleetingly considered I would be surprised. Having lived in SA for a few years I can say that they have a intriguing mix of arrogance and victimisation going on at Port. Bandwagon supporters that they conveniently credit the Adelaide oval for this year. The only supporters that make McGuirewood supporters seem lucid and sophisticated by comparison.

- - - Updated - - -

This will demonstrate the full influence and power of David Koch. My view is that the AFL would not like adversary first thing in the morning.

Now if we can get Koch to move to Bondi Matts world would be complete.

[Melb Blood Bro]

If the premiership tally was to be accurate then the tally should start when the AFL was commenced. It's unfair that the VFL teams get to count their premierships whereas the WAFL and SANFL premierships don't count.

[R-1]

Someone on Bigfooty suggested what I think is a very fair way of looking at it - the concept of defining "first class premierships".

We're currently treating the administrative history of the league body which runs the game now as equivalent to the history of our sport. This is because the AFL tends to blur its two functions. The AFL both runs the top league and is also the top level guardian and representative of the sport. Combining the two roles creates an unrepresentative version history for the pre-1980s era.

Firstly, the three state leagues were all close enough in standard to beat each other in representative footy. Sure, players went to the richer VFL but the three competitions had some rough parity for most of their history. As the only entity to transfer from another state league, Port really serve to bring the tension into relief. It's too simplistic to say they began in 1997, they gained that spot as the only standalone club to make a transition *because* of their dominance in another. Clearly they are an entity that existed before 1997 and it's really just plain ahistorical to keep a history of top level Australian football that does not acknowledge their historical success at all.

So it makes sense to take a view which is more holistic in its view of the sport, a view which includes the top levels of our game over its entire organised history. This is similar to how Superbowls only started in 1967 but the NFL counts both AFL and NFL titles as "league championships" prior to that era. American football thus talks about, for example, the Browns having a championship drought back to 1964 even though the Superbowl didn't start til 1967.

In our Australian context, we never had a national competition prior to the 1980s and so there's no strict analogy with American or European sports. Instead we had premier state leagues. Bringing all this together, the suggestion is we use the logic that initially the state leagues were equal but at some point the VFL/AFL supplanted the VFA, SANFL and WAFL as the premier competition. Easiest cutoff is when the VFL/AFL entered that state. We thus call the following "first class premierships":

VFL/AFL is first class from 1897.
VFA until 1897 is first class.
WAFL until 1986 is first class.
SANFL until 1990 is first class.

That leaves a table that looks something like this table. (there's a couple mistakes in this table by whoever made it, but bear with me)

Other cutoff points are arguable of course. 1987 or 1982 as a blanket for WAFL and SANFL perhaps. Or the mid 1970s when representative football switched to state of origin rules. But the principle, I think, is sound. AFL/VFL history is NOT the history of top level Australian football and our 1933 flag doesn't really have more intrinsic worth in the history of Australian football than West Torrens or East Freo winning in the same year.

[bodgie]

Interesting chart that makes some sense. When I first read this thread I thought it was yet another Victorian claim to ownership.

[dimelb]

I confess I hadn't thought about it very much, even while reading about the Swans' history, but I think it would be a good idea to implement some such system. I think it would go some way to clarifying that AFL is a national game and to curtail the Victorian sense of ownership which we still come across occasionally - e.g. I think it is partly responsible for Eddie's latest brain-fade.