VFL to AFL and On Trivia Quiz

Answer: 8

The eight foundation members of the Victorian Football League were Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, St Kilda and South Melbourne. In 1908 it expanded to ten teams, with the addition of Richmond and University. University left after the 1914 season, reducing the competition to nine teams. In 1925 Footscray, Hawthorn and North Melbourne joined the VFL, creating the twelve-team competition that lasted until the 1980s.

This painting, "The National Game, 1889", is by one of Australia's finest artists, Arthur Streeton (1867-1943). Streeton is best known as a landscape painter. This small (11.8 x 22.9cm, or 4.6 x 9 in) painting was originally shown as part of an 1889 exhibition at a Melbourne art gallery called 'The 9 by 5 Exhibition of Impressions'. At the time, the game was far from being the national game!

Answer: South Melbourne Football Club

Canberra, Darwin and Alice Springs are not in Victoria, and, while they have local Australian Rules football clubs, never participated in the VFL. South Melbourne ran into serious financial difficulties during the 1970s, and were issued with an ultimatum from the VFL - leave the competition, or move to Sydney and be given substantial assistance as part of the league's efforts to expand the impact of the game. The early years in Sydney are best remembered for the flamboyant Dr Geoffrey Edelsten, who became the first private owner of a VFL team when he purchased the Swans in 1985, and players such as Warwick Capper, who sported a mullet haircut and wore pink football boots, along with incredibly short, tight shorts, on the field, while driving a pink Lamborghini (usually featuring a fashion model in the passenger seat) off the field.

The picture shows Sydney's official mascot, Syd 'Swannie' Skilton. Its name refers both to the swan logo of the team and to Bob Skilton, one of the great players for South Melbourne, who won the Brownlow Medal (awarded by umpire votes to the year's Fairest and Best Player) three times.

Answer: Brisbane Bears

As you might guess from the picture of a koala, the Brisbane Bears were intended to be ferocious koala bears. This led to a lot of mockery, as the koala is neither a bear nor particularly ferocious (although they do bite and scratch when you try to cuddle them for a cute photograph, as many a celebrity has discovered).

The new team performed poorly for a number of years, and gained such nicknames as "Bad News Bears" and "Carrara Koalas", the latter from the fact that they had to play their home games at Carrara Oval, an hour's drive south of Brisbane on the Gold Coast because there was no suitable oval in Brisbane itself. Carrara wasn't much better than an amateur ground at first, with temporary seating, and portable facilities for players and officials. During the five years when Carrara was the home ground for the Brisbane team, they only won 21 out of their 61 home games, including a loss to Fitzroy in their first game, and a win over Sydney (meaning that Sydney finished in last place, with Brisbane in second-last place) in their final game, played before a mere 4319 fans.

Answer: Western Australia

Western Australia, unlike Queensland, already had a strong local competition in Australian Rules. Over the years, their best players had moved to Victoria in order to participate in the game at the highest level, and this expansion gave them an opportunity to stay home and compete. As a result, the West Coast Eagles were by far the more successful of the two expansion teams in the early years. They ended their first year with 11 wins and 11 losses, in sixth place (and only one win away from playing in the finals series); in 1988 they made the finals, lost the grand final in 1991, and won the premiership for the first time in 1992, the first non-Victorian team to do so.

The picture shows the banner used by West Coast for their 2005 Grand Final match against the Sydney Swans, only the second time that the Grand Final was played between two non-Victorian teams. The banners are an important part of the ritual of the game in Australian Rules. The team's supporters create a new banner for every match, with a suitable message (basic support, congratulations for a player who is playing a milestone game, etc.), and the players run through it as they take their places at the start of the game. It's a lot of effort for something that gets destroyed within seconds, but it's tradition.

Answer: Adelaide Crows

The SANFL had been negotiating (since 1981) to have a team in the AFL starting in 1993, but one of the teams in the SANFL, Port Adelaide Magpies, started negotiations on their own to transfer from the SANFL to the AFL. The SANFL fast-tracked their efforts, and the Adelaide Crows were in the competition for the 1991 season. The SANFL is actually the oldest football league in Australia, having been organised in 1877. The Adelaide Crows won their first premiership in 1997, defeating the St Kilda Saints by a score of 19.11 (125) to 13.16(94) in the Grand Final. In the process, they had won four finals matches played in three different states.

A short lesson on reading Australian Rules game scores follows. There are two types of score: a goal (worth 6 points) is scored when the ball is kicked between the two central posts at the end of the ground towards which the team is playing; a behind (worth 1 point) is scored if the ball comes off another part of the body rather than being kicked, or if it is touched by a player of the opposing team, or if it bounces off a post before going through, or if it goes between one of the outer posts and an inner post. (Rule changes that might alter these conditions, such as allowing a ball that bounces off a goal post to count as a goal, have been discussed, and may come into effect sometime, but this gives the general picture.) Scores are reported by giving the number of goals, then the number of behinds, then the total score. Adelaide's score of 19.11 (125) means they kicked 19 goals, for 19 x 6 = 114 points, and scored 11 behinds for another 11 points, giving a total score of 114 + 11 = 125 points. St Kilda, on the other hand, scored 13 goals for 13 x 6 = 78 points, and registered 16 behinds, for a total of 78 + 16 = 94 points.

Answer: Fremantle Dockers

The other teams are members of the West Australian Football League (WAFL). Fremantle was chosen by the AFL to be the base for its second Western Australian team because, along with Perth, it was one of the major strongholds for Australian Rules in local competition. There are two Fremantle teams in the WAFL, as well as Fremantle in the national AFL. They were officially nicknamed the Dockers in reference to the fact that Fremantle is a port city. In 1996, a copyright dispute with Levi Strauss & Co led to the discontinuation of the official use of that name, but the settling of that dispute in 2010 meant the restoration to official status of what had continued to be the popular way of referring to the team. Although the team trains in Fremantle, they play their home games in Perth, about 12 km (20 mi) upstream on the Swan River, at the same ground as the West Coast Eagles.

The official mascot for the Fremantle team is Johnny 'The Doc' Docker. He is supposed to evoke images of surfing, and his nickname is a reference to the cool breeze, called the Fremantle Doctor, which often blows across the Perth area on hot summer days.

Answer: Fitzroy Lions

The merger saw the Brisbane-based team wearing the traditional Fitzroy colors, and adopting their team nickname. Possibly equally importantly, they kept the tune of Fitzroy's club song ("The Marseillaise"), the song that is played at the ground and sung by fans and players after a winning game.

The Bears had been reasonably successful prior to the merger, unlike Fitzroy, who had finished in last place for two years. In their first year as a merged club, they made the finals; in their second year they won the wooden spoon (a phrase meaning they finished in last place).

The appointment of Leigh Matthews (legendary Hawthorn player about to become legendary coach) led to a dramatic turnaround in the team's performance, and premierships in three consecutive years, 2001-2003.

They lost the Grand Final in 2004, thereby failing to equal Collingwood's record of four consecutive championships, set in 1927-1930.

Answer: Port Adelaide Power

The Port Adelaide mascot in the picture, called Tommy "Thunder" Power, is supposed to resemble a lightning bolt. It's not easy to produce a material symbol for an abstract concept! The Port Adelaide Football Club, who had contested with the SANFL for the right to enter the first South Australian team in the AFL, were allowed to join the AFL when Fitzroy's merger with Brisbane left a vacancy. There was much speculation at the time as to that their colors and nickname would be, as the AFL already had the Collingwood Magpies with a black and white strip. Port Adelaide arrived as the Power (with the Magpies continuing to play in the SANFL, and the two teams rejoining into a single entity for the 2011 season), wearing teal, black and white. If you're not sure what Colo teal is, look at the mascot - the light blue of its uniform is officially teal.

The 2004 Grand Final was every Victorian's nightmare, according to the media, with Port Adelaide defeating Brisbane, and no Victorian teams in sight. This was the start of a trend - Grand Finals for the next two years were also contested only by interstate teams. In 2005, Sydney defeated West Coast by four points; in 2006, West Coast defeated Sydney by one point. 2007 saw Geelong beat Port Adelaide by 119 points, and the premiership came back to Victoria.

Answer: Gold Coast Suns

The AFL had been keen to get a second team in southeast Queensland, traditionally a stronghold of the rival football code rugby league. When North Melbourne finally refused to agree to a move northwards at the end of 2007, it was decided that a new team would be set up, to play their home games at a revamped Carrara Oval, now brought up to a standard appropriate for a professional football team.

In 2009 the Gold Coast Suns fielded a team in the TAC Cup, an under-18s competition in which they finished in fifth place. In 2010 the senior team participated in the Victorian Football League (which replaced the Victorian Football Association as the second-tier Victorian competition when the VFL changed its name to the AFL in 1990) alongside the reserve teams for AFL clubs, finishing with 6 wins and 12 losses. They started the 2011 season by losing their first three games in the AFL before notching their first victory, an away win against Port Adelaide.

The other three teams all play in the northern conference of the North East Australian Football League, which runs the Australian Rules competition in New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Queensland and Northern Territory.

Answer: Giants

The Greater Western Sydney Giants were officially established in 2008, and entered a team in the under-18s competition in 2010. The Giants participated in the pre-season AFL competition called the NAB Cup in 2011, losing both of their pool matches. Their regular season competition in 2011 was in the North East Australian Football League, in preparation for an AFL debut in 2012. One of their highest-profile recruits was Israel Folau, a Rugby League player formerly with the Melbourne Storm and the Brisbane Broncos in the NRL.