Yeah it's heartbreaking. Entire sides of my family were wiped out in WWI, and I'm lucky just to be here because of WWII taking my pop just after dad was born. Good thing he left nan with a "goodbye present" haha.

I love the history of football. We don't celebrate it nearly enough, it doesn't help when we don't have the media on our side ramming it down our throats every minute of the day. We have to look for it ourselves. This is another great piece:

https://www.footballvictoria.com.au/the-story-of-football-in-victoria-01

It gives me the shits that AFL have taken the brand label of being Australia's native game. Yes, the original aussie rules clubs have endured time, but the actual sport they were originally playing, the rules they were using, are much closer to "soccer" than what AFL is today. Rules copied from and heavily influenced by rugby schools, football, maybe caid and more... AFL is unique today, but it's original rules were as native as me in an Ibiza nightclub... i.e. a myth.

WWI decimated football here, maybe set it back half a century. But forever behind the pack, as you said, as the other codes that kept playing. I hope one day somebody in the media can piece it all together and give the history the attention it deserves.

Im an armchair historian too, and fascinated by our game both here and abroad... Ian Syson amongst a few hardy others has done some stellar work but, the fact remains we are a small silenced voice in the juggernaut that the AFL and NRL present to the rest of the country... Soccer is and has been for a loooong time a "foreigners" game here and what do we do as a code? Accept the sterotype and argue amongst ourselves about it :(

All the UK leagues continued during the great war, but stopped in WW2. All teams in Scotland played in regional leagues for the six or so years during WW2.

Bump past spam 

UK (apart from maybe Gaelic football) didnt really have an "indigenous" code competing for hearts and minds though... 

True, compounded by the lack of unity/ambition shown by the game's early powerbrokers here. There was talk of a tour of England by a NSW XI in the 1880s that never eventuated, for instance.

I suppose it makes sense that newcomers to the game here typically have next-to-Buckley's interest in learning about its history in Australia bc they know just enough to dismiss it as a "losers' history". This was the impetus behind the Crawford Report, creation of the A-League, success of the Socceroos and Tillies etc. - creating a 'new' history that 'mainstream Australia' could get behind from scratch. But as Joe Gorman wrote in his book, as well-intentioned as that agenda presumed to be...the exclusion/derision of pre-2005 Oz football was a veritable slap in the face(and then some) to the game itself.

Pity that he's apparently a Marxist-Leninist IRL.

hahaha is he? Eh academics.... they all are in some way :P

Well said there BA81.
The post GG young followers since then have no care how or what occurred all long ago be it post WW's let alone making the '74 WC that was massive for a pack of ametuers.....
TBH I'd say that was a bigger achievement under their circumstances to Gus's GG making it.

Both Rugby codes ?

And with only a 16 team finals.

Yep that’s right, massive to qualify and what they went through getting there.
Makes next WC a joke when you consider the numbers.

Well sad that 140 million was badly invested. It should of went to the A-league men's sides 

Yeah true but, from what I can understand, sort of different appeal to different demographics wasnt it? British lads didnt come back from the war and all of a sudden there weren't any football clubs left and the majority of the population flocked to Rugby.... 

Meanwhile, those loyal and patriotic VFL clubs during WWI...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1916_VFL_season

• Carlton, Collingwood, Fitzroy, and Richmond had each volunteered to devote a significant proportion of their 1916 gate receipts to what were known as Patriotic Funds and also conduct a number of special fundraising activities; however, in June 1917, an audit by the VFL of the money that each club's "patriotic fundraising" had delivered over to the State War Council disclosed that the four clubs, which had appeared to all and sundry to be suffering considerable financial distress during the 1916 season due to the reduction in gate receipts, etc., had apparently discovered that their fundraising had involved an extraordinarily large amount of "expenses". From its recorded "patriotic fundraising" receipts of £918 (equivalent to $52,343 in 2022), Fitzroy could only deliver £152 (equivalent to $8,667 in 2022) after "expenses"; Collingwood, £40 (equivalent to $2,281 in 2022) from £664 (equivalent to $37,860 in 2022); Richmond, £90 (equivalent to $5,132 in 2022) from £614 (equivalent to $35,009 in 2022); and Carlton, nothing at all from £884 (equivalent to $50,404 in 2022). The State War Council censured the clubs, and appointed its own supervisors to oversee the clubs' fundraising in 1917.

Had it not been for Kevin fcking Sheedy, there likely never would have been an ANZAC Day fixture in the AFL..or the NRL for that matter, as they got the idea from the former.

That's the other thing we lack in Oz football that the 'traditional' codes have - stubborn idealogues, zealots even, who live&die for their individual clubs but aren't at all above putting the league/code first when it's for the greater good. And the ones that we've had(Johnny Warren, Les Murray, Fozzie) haven't been w/o their share of vocal resistance from within the game..never mind from outside it. 

"Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters" mate..... Some things will NEVER ever change.

That's one of the worst stories I've read! And Collingwood play on ANZAC Day, how pathetic.

EXACTLY but nobody ever holds them to account... We are too busy fighting amongst ourselves.  All these podasters and content creators waffling on about garbage... Not one of them makes a 10 min video on how UN_Australian the AFL truly is? Would help footballs cause a million times more than Star Wars round I reckon :P

Quite a number of those ⚽️ influencer/podcaster-types also follow AFL/NRL w/nary a feeling of conflicted loyalties, so ‘tis be asking way too much of them dare I say.

And anyway it’s much too late for all that now; the cultural-programming’s already set in stone. Telling an AFL tragic about 🇦🇺⚽️‘s contribution to the WWI war-effort would be met with disbelief at best and incredulous ridicule at worst, like you’re telling them about some parallel-universe alternate history..

Just copy the MLS

https://x.com/MLS/status/1813747094710350198

Or Oakleigh :P

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11213303/Football-club-makes-history-giving-14-year-old-goalkeeper-debut-against-League-side.html

I see it's your lunch break, mono. 

Eddie Maguires company to take over A-League match production

https://www.perthnow.com.au/sport/soccer/eddie-mcguires-tv-company-to-produce-a-league-matches-c-16096305

apparently a money saver

"Whose ready for 4 quarters of FOOOOOOTTTBBBAAALLLLLL !!!!!!!!!"

🤣🤣🤣

😢😢

They did a good job with all access and I'm pretty sure they do the AFLW. Could be a good thing, plus better than working with a start up that has no other clients...

Thats what we ALL said when Channel 7 bought the rights to broadcast the NSL. hahahahahahahahahahahah

yer the afl aligned station for how long.
You see this is where/why I loath this POS McGuire, two faced P who has brandished our game over so so many years, belittled it, daggers in the back, joked about it, though where there's a $$ he's all who wants to be a millionaire man.
How can you trust this P whilst he's in the Chairs seat.
Its like Lowy having put in ARU/NRL/afl flog CEO's in the past.
APL your idiots but not surprised, sure easier making a tie with this known political rich flog due to your budget restrictions instead of working with smaller start up crowd who would bleed doing the best they can for you and you have them in your pocket, whereas ol P Eddie sit in his Chair giving only so much for the pass tick but not more to keep it under control.