The question is not whether the introduction of a Tasmanian team to the AFL could have been handled better, but whether it could possibly have been handled worse.
The two people I feel sorry for right now are Brendon Gale, the CEO of the newly formed Tasmania Football Club, and Grant O’Brien, its chairman. Both emerged from the Penguin Football Club, a great little Tasmanian footy club that battled the odds and won occasional premierships because they were a formidably tight unit. I believe Brendon and Grant love Tassie footy, as do I.
New renders for the proposed Macquarie Point Stadium.
The paradox at the heart of Australian football is that it’s a great game by world standards played by a tiny percentage of the world’s population. It’s also a 19th century game. The art of keeping it alive in the 21st century is a measure of its leaders. Right now, in Tasmania, the organisation demonstrating this art with zest and conviction is the NBL 2023-24 premiers, the Jackjumpers. Head coach Scott Roth crisscrosses the state meeting locals and talking about his game. People are impressed. I hear his stories being retold.
You could write a footy TV drama, a black comedy, and title it The Stadium. It would tell the story of a proud little footy state that battles away for well over a century – and, for a period in the 1960s, produces the best and most exciting talent in the country – and then finally gets its chance to play in the big time BUT … a condition is attached. A condition never attached before. The Stadium.
Tassie will build, and basically pay for, a new stadium. Along with nearly all the AFL’s brainstorms, the idea comes from America. It’s a way of divorcing investors from the social costs of sport.
The Stadium was also awarded – again, no one seems to know exactly how – the Macquarie Point site.
Martin Flanagan on the Longford ground where he played his first game at the age of six.
Hobart’s renowned beauty has two obvious aspects, the mountain and its colonial waterfront. The Stadium will dwarf the colonial waterfront, sitting behind it like a giant hamburger bun. (And good luck with the glass roof on days when the fierce old Tassie sun, unhindered by the ozone layer, breaks through).
The first question my TV drama will ask is – whose idea was this? The AFL, you see, insist it is not theirs. They say it came from the presidents – that is, the 18 AFL presidents who meet on Tuesday to consider whether the Tasmania Football Club’s invitation could be withdrawn in light of the ongoing trouble over this idea of theirs which has now precipitated a state election in which the two major parties will support The Stadium and a majority of Tasmanian voters will oppose it.
And if that’s not weird enough for you – because of The Stadium, Tasmania could now get archaic Liberal Eric Abetz as premier.
The special arrogance of the people who cooked up this idea was thinking that the locals would swallow what they were fed. One of the arguments in favour of The Stadium goes like this: the people of Adelaide didn’t want changes to Adelaide Oval when it became a three-sided stadium, but now they love it. Therefore, the argument goes, that’s what’ll happen in Hobart.
The Stadium will dwarf the colonial waterfront, sitting behind it like a giant hamburger bun.
There’s a difference between the two cities. When did you last hear of a public protest in the streets of Adelaide? There’s one every other month in Hobart. It’s a city with a non-stop history of citizen political activity going back to the 1960s.
Right now, the three hottest issues are salmon farming, logging native forests and The Stadium. In some minds, they are interchangeable.
Around now, if I were Brendon Gale, I’d feel I was stuck in an absurdist play. The still unborn Tasmanian Devils are now front and centre in the island’s culture wars, the last place you want it to be if you were the one person with the vision and ability to build a football club for the new Tasmania that was ready and waiting to jump aboard … until The Stadium.
What makes some of us angry is that it didn’t have to be like this, particularly when so much is at stake.
There are now clubs in Tasmania where once there were associations; Bracknell is one of them. A proud little footy survivor, a town of 300 people, the same couple of families keeping the club going for three generations. No AFL player has ever visited the kids at Bracknell Primary School but – guess what? – Jackjumpers head coach Scott Roth has.
Bracknell does not receive one cent from the AFL. The club secretary works 30 unpaid hours per week as well as managing the office of her family business. Remember this when next you see a story saying the AFL made a multimillion-dollar profit last year with the implication that the game is in boomingly good health – that is a dangerous illusion because it only tells the story at one level.
In 1973 Scottsdale were the best team in Tasmania and competed against Richmond, Glenelg and Subiaco for the Australian championship. For three decades they were a top Tasmanian club. Three weeks ago I watched as they kicked 0 goals, 0 behinds against their old foes, North Launceston. If Scottsdale Football Club expires, there will be no football club in the north-east of the island between St Helen’s on the east coast and Bridport on the north coast.
Over the past century, the west coast of Tasmania had eight different associations and around 100 clubs. It now has two clubs. In the bottom third of the island – including the greater Hobart area – there are only 16 football clubs left. The game is much stronger in the north and north-west, but these are precisely the areas where The Stadium is most unpopular.
The unique genius of The Stadium is that it has alienated so many footy followers. Should the Tasmanian club’s licence now be withdrawn, I would expect a loss of enthusiasm for the game at all levels, including the AFL.
What is happening to Australia’s great 19th century athletic invention in Tasmania is happening in various degrees to grassroots footy in other parts of the country. To those who insist on seeing the game and its future in purely corporate terms I say – get real. Without grassroots footy, there is no “AFL industry”.
Our game has competition aplenty. That roar heard around Australia last week was the Socceroos qualifying for the World Cup. The historical weakness of Australian football relative to soccer and rugby has been its failure to expand internationally. We have ourselves alone.
If I were addressing the 18 presidents I’d say – we need the team, and you need us. You needed us in the past and you will need us again in the future, if there is to be one.
Martin Flanagan is a member of the Tasmanian AFL Hall of Fame and is currently writing a book on country football.
