As AFL booms across the country, Victorians hate it and so do I.

COMMENT

The 2024 AFL season has seen some absolute works of art: Isaac Heeney’s stellar season; Harley Reid’s ridiculously good debut; Jesse Hogan’s surge to the Coleman Medal; Zak Butter’s becoming a two-time All Australian; a Sydney versus Brisbane grand final; Will Ashcroft taking home the Norm Smith Medal; and a Brisbane Lions premiership.

What do these achievements all have in common? All teams and players come from teams outside of Victoria. Victorians hate it, and even as someone from New South Wales, so do I.

I have technically lived in NSW my whole life but for most of my childhood I was brought up in a small town right on the border with Victoria, where following AFL is basically a rite of passage and in our blood. It’s a part of the culture and the community. My team is the NSW-based Sydney Swans and I follow them religiously.

Victorian AFL culture is what made the game what it is today. The camaraderie, the passion, the rivalry.

Despite my Swans devotion, being so close to Victoria does make me biased to the idea that AFL is a Victorian-based sport and no matter how many great teams are created outside of the state, it won’t beat the culture in Melbourne and greater Victoria. And no stadium in Australia, or the world for that matter, will live up to the great Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Victorians can sometimes be a little bit snobby, and a lot defensive of their favourite teams and just how good they think they are. I am not saying that they are right in that, but they are right when they say AFL belongs to their state.

To be clear, my unease with the growth of the game does not mean I want all non-Victorian teams to lose, I go for Swans after all. I want them to be successful and for the Swans' Heeney to win that Brownlow Medal one day, but I don’t think the game should be taken out of its home … and that home is Victoria.

Life-long love affair with the Swans

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It all started with the controversy of the new Opening Round, with the first four games of this year's season being held in Sydney and Queensland. In the hopes of expanding the game into the northern states, the AFL forfeited the iconic Friday night season opener clash between Carlton and Richmond. That's giving up a near-packed out MCG for the season opener on a Friday night. You can’t get any better to kick off a new season of the greatest sport in Australia but this year they simply abandoned it.

As a lover of the game, and a loyal Swans supporter, I can see where the growth of the AFL is amazing for the game, the players and the fans. But when I hear whispers of the grand final being played anywhere other than the MCG, I physically feel ill.

Can you remember the 2020 COVID AFL grand final at the Gabba in Brisbane? No? Me either. Probably because we all blocked that era out. The AFL Grand Final belongs to the MCG. Over 100,000 diehard fans. Millions more watching from packed pubs around the city.

Greater Western Sydney has had 12 years to join the Giants' bandwagon but they still can’t fill a stadium.

With two Sydney teams making the qualifying final this year, NSW Premier Chris Minns suggested Sydney should host a future grand final at the Sydney Cricket Ground. If a grand final was actually held in Sydney, there would have to have at least one of the Sydney based teams contending, otherwise Sydneysiders wouldn’t give a second thought to Australia’s largest sporting event of the year. As much as I would love the Swans to make the grand final every year, it can’t be guaranteed. So, sorry premier, it's a no. Personally I'd prefer the opportunity of stealing the trophy from the G and bringing it back to the Swans HQ anyway.

It’s important to grow the game and allow all the teams within the league to get equal opportunity, but I don’t think they all deserve it. Greater Western Sydney for example has had 12 years to join the Giants bandwagon but they still can’t fill a stadium. Good luck to the league's newest team the Tassie Devils is all I can say.

The Victorian AFL culture is what made the game what it is today. The camaraderie, the passion, the rivalry. It has been over 40 years since the Sydney Swans relocated to Sydney, and their most loyal fans are still in South Melbourne. In recent years, living in Sydney, I've witnessed the lack of passion for myself. I would say 18 in 20 people I have met don’t even know what the Swans are, never mind the Giants (sorry guys). The difference between AFL in Victoria and the rest of the states and territories in Australia is painfully obvious for people like me who have lived in a diehard AFL region, and then a not so diehard one.

To all you non-Victorian AFL fans, we know you’ve all wanted to go to a Saturday night, prime-time game with your team, probably versus Collingwood, because let’s be real, even though you don’t like them, the stadium would be empty without them. It’s an atmosphere you cannot get anywhere else.

So you can be part of our game but don't think you can shift the grand final goalposts interstate, they forever belong in Victoria. I genuinely believe even the players from the Lions, Swans and Greater Western Sydney don't want to win a grand final anywhere other than the MCG. It’s iconic. It’s tradition. And it is where the game should stay. So good luck to the non-Victorian clubs for 2025 but stop with the talking points on a grand-final move to the north. It's just not footy.

– Podcast interview by Brendon Saad, Clare Jenkins, Mikaila Roesler and Emma Peters