The Australian National Football League: a counter-factual history

(This is the first in a series of [approximately] five alternate history scenarios, intended to show how various sporting leagues could have evolved differently.)

Following the success of the 1933 interstate carnival held in Sydney, the national code continued to grow in New South Wales. By the 1960s, most Sydney first grade clubs had licensed clubs and used the poker machine revenue to lure star players from the southern states, and the increasing revenue allowed the NSWANFL to build its own equivalent of Waverley Park at Homebush Bay, which it named Pemulwuy Stadium. When the idea of a national competition was first discussed, the NSWANFL was of at least an equivalent standard to the SANFL and WANFL. In the mid-1970s, top clubs from the VFL and NSWANFL hammered out plans for a national league, which began play in 1977.

The league was named the Australian National Football League; at the time, all state leagues except Victoria had the word ‘national’ in their names. The VFL’s traditional ‘big five’ (Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Geelong, and Richmond) and post-war powerhouse Hawthorn were joined by the NSWANFL’s four power clubs (East Sydney, Newtown, North Shore, and Wests) as well as up-and-coming suburban side Campbelltown. They invited Port Adelaide and Norwood from the SANFL, Mayne and Sandgate from the QANFL, and a composite Canberra side, to be known as the Rams. To better market themselves to a national audience, Newtown and Wests rebranded themselves as the Sydney Bloods and Sydney Magpies respectively.

The sixteen teams played a twenty-two round season, with two televised matches each week at Waverley Park and Pemulwuy Stadium, followed by a final four. Minor premiers East Sydney held off Port Adelaide, Geelong, and Campbelltown in a tense finals series. Soon after the Bulldogs’ grand final triumph in front of a near-capacity Pemulwuy Stadium, the ANFL announced its seventeenth team, the Newcastle Dockers, would enter the following season.

The 1980s saw the league expand further, with the Wollongong Hoppers and Tasmania Devils joining, before the increasing ease of trans-continental air travel made it possible to recruit Perth-based teams for the 1987 season. Like Adelaide and Brisbane, Perth was allotted two spots, which went to East Perth and a combined Fremantle team, known as the Sharks. To even out the competition, a Cairns-based team, the Crocodiles, was added in 1995.

Nowadays, the ANFL’s twenty-two teams play an uneven twenty-two-round fixture which allows for blockbusters and derbies such as the Port Adelaide-Norwood ‘Showdown’ and the East Perth-Fremantle ‘Derby’. The top eight teams qualify for the finals series, which is a knockout, but the minor premier retains the right of challenge (i.e. if knocked out, it plays the winner of the final in a ‘grand final’). Matches are played over twenty-five-minute quarters with two interchange and two substitutes per team, and an ‘offside’ rule introduced to stop flooding mandates that each team have two players in each fifty-metre arc and four in each half of the field at all times, leaving ten who can follow the ball around the field.

The introduction of a national league made the old interstate matches obsolete, and though a ‘state of origin’ concept was mooted early on, the abolition of the states and the rise of Australian nationalism made such an idea seem pointless. The increase in the number of foreign players, however, has led to an ‘international’ match being played every year between the all-Australian team and ‘the Rest’.

The teams are listed with their nicknames and home grounds in parentheses, and any other relevant information in brackets.

1. Carlton (the Blues; Princes Park)

2. Collingwood (the Magpies; Victoria Park)

3. Essendon (the Bombers; Melbourne Cricket Ground)

4. Geelong (the Cats; Kardinia Park)

5. Hawthorn (the Hawks; Waverley Park)

6. Richmond (the Tigers; Waverley Park)

7. Adelaide Redlegs (Norwood Oval) [formerly Norwood]

8. Port Adelaide (the Magpies; Football Park)

9. East Perth (the Royals; Subiaco Oval)

10. Fremantle (the Sharks; Fremantle Oval) [merger of East Fremantle and South Fremantle]

11. Tasmania (the Devils; North Hobart Oval and York Park, Launceston) [composite team; nickname taken from the early 2000s Tasmanian VFL team]

12. Campbelltown (the Swans; Monarch Oval, Campbelltown)

13. East Sydney (the Bulldogs; Sydney Cricket Ground)

14. North Shore (the Bombers; Gore Hill Oval, Chatswood)

15. Sydney Bloods (Pemulwuy Stadium) [formerly Newtown]

16. Sydney Magpies (Pemulwuy Stadium) [formerly Western Suburbs]

17. Newcastle (the Dockers; Newcastle No. 1 Sports Ground) [composite team; nickname inspired by the real-life Fremantle franchise]

18. Wollongong (the Hoppers; Wollongong Showground) [composite team; nickname inspired by North Albury FC]

19. Canberra (the Rams; Manuka Oval) [composite team; nickname taken from the NSW-ACT TAC Cup team]

20. Brisbane Seahawks (Brisbane Exhibition Ground) [formerly Sandgate]

21. Brisbane Tigers (Brisbane Exhibition Ground) [formerly Mayne]

22. Cairns (the Crocodiles; Cazaly’s Stadium) [composite team]