I've read and re-read this and still can't understand what they're on about. Are they going to annex the past, or do they thing that Australian football doesn't exist outside the AFL?
The V/AFL did start in 1897, it didn't start in 1877, 1870 or 34 b.C, for that matter. Clubs that won "notional" premierships, or VFA premierships, between 1870 and 1896 won those, and exactly those, not AFL flags. It doesn't mean that such triumphs are forgotten, or that they somehow "don't count", they do count, but they are what what they are, not V/AFL flags, but VFA flags, or, before that, "premierships" that were decided by the press or by the experts, as used to happen in English cricket until the late 1800s.
I mean, I may be wrong, but it looks that the AFL wants us all to believe that if something doesn't have their "seal", it doesn't really matter. Footscray won 10 senior flags. Not 10 V/AFL flags, but 10 flags nevertheless. Collingwood won 16 senior flags, 1 VFA and 15 V/AFL. "Honouring" those teams from 1870 through 1896 by declaring they "won" a competition that didn't yet exist is absurd... Anyway, maybe it's me who's wrong...
