World Footy News

"I make no apologies that this list is of those who dominated in the VFL competition, and then the AFL, as I believe the Victorian competition always was a quasi-national competition. The game started in Victoria, and has been led from Victoria."

With that statement Melbourne-based journalist Mike Sheahan condemned many of the greatest footballers of all-time to distant memories and destroyed any chance the AFL-commissioned book "The Australian Game of Football" had of truly being an accurate reflection of the great Australian game.

Sheahan was charged with the formidable task of producing a list of the greatest 50 players in the sport's history. Obviously such a process will be highly subjective and can't really adequately judge players from much earlier eras. But the enormous blunder of deliberately omitting some of the all-time greats because they didn't play in the Victorian Football League reeks of arrogance and pettiness, but fundamentally, a deep lack of understanding of the history of the sport. I have previously, in general, had plenty of respect for Sheahan's thoughts, but here he has made a mistake of historical significance and poured salt on old wounds.

This is not to denigrate Victorian football as the origin of the game or so often the leader in it. No one sensibly argues that the VFL was not the leading competition until it evolved into the AFL. But similarly no one can sensibly argue that the top leagues across Australia were not peers for the best part of a century leading up to at least the 1970s. It was only then that the flow of elite players hastened to the point that the VFL began to establish as a complete tier above the others.

Of course Sheahan's list does acknowledge some of the greats of the game who hailed from places such as Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and the Northern Territory. But only if they moved to the VFL, or played in the modern era of the national league. A champion such as Stephen Kernahan, who smashed the Big V in State of Origin prior to moving to Carlton, presumably only made the top 50 because of his exploits at the Blues, not for Glenelg or South Australia. Malcolm Blight won a Magarey Medal before his Brownlow Medal (it's an interesting fact that the awarding of the Magarey Medal in 1898 pre-dates the awarding of the Brownlow). But was he not a champion of the game before heading southeast?

Just about any veteran commentator of footy in Adelaide will tell you that North Adelaide's Barry Robran and Port Adelaide's Russell Ebert were the best two players the state has produced, including the modern crop of stars now performing on the national stage. It has been reported that during North Adelaide's 1972 club championship of Australia victory over Carlton, Robran performed "with such brilliance that, on more than one occasion, opposition player Alex Jesaulenko ... broke into spontaneous applause". Jesaulenko was ranked 26th by Sheehan. Robran, having never turned his back on his club, was presumably considered inferior to any player to have played in the VFL. He has at least been elevated to Legend status in the Australian Football Hall of Fame - not bad for a player who couldn't make the top 50.

A quick note to refute the argument sometimes wheeled out regarding Ebert's abilities given that he did have a short stint in the VFL. It needs to be remembered that after a decade trying to entice him over the border, he was finally recruited at age 30 to a star studded North Melbourne team, played only one season, was played out of position, and if memory serves correctly was flying in for each match, not even training regularly with the Kangaroos. No player would be expected to star under those conditions, particularly in a sport which relies on team-mates to share the ball.

Consider Ken Farmer. In an era of Australian Football when kicking 100 goals in a season in the VFL, SANFL and WAFL was virtually unheard of, Farmer burst onto the scene with 105 in 1930. He went on to kick 1419 goals, was never held goalless in a match, and slotted 100 goals in a season for 11 consecutive seasons! The SANFL leading goalkicker award is named after him and he should be elevated to Legend status in the Australian Football Hall of Game in the next few years. If you needed to show form against the supposedly very best, well Ken Farmer reportedly averaged 5 goals per game against Victoria (that's averaging 110 goals in a 22 round season of footy) despite generally playing in losing sides against supposedly the best defence in the business - what might he have kicked with a steadier supply of the football?

In another era, New South Wales born Wayne Carey, Sheahan's number one player, who moved to South Australia with family, may never have left North Adelaide to join North Melbourne. Possibly the greatest player ever would have missed the top 50.

Apologies for focussing on the South Australian examples, but being Adelaide born and bred it is far easier to discuss local cases (we'd be happy to hear reader comments on other greats similarly "ineligible"). There's no doubt equally good points can be made for all other states and territories, particularly the stronger football areas. Maybe that's part of Sheahan's thinking. It would be much more difficult to go out and research a serious top 50, learning about the true history of the sport, devising a means of comparing between leagues, taking account of interstate matches and talking to experts from across the country. So much easier to eliminate hundreds of players worthy of consideration with one simple but unjustifiable criterion.

In a chapter on indigenous Australians playing the game, Sydney's Adam Goodes makes it clear that most of the best Aboriginal players gravitated towards Perth and Adelaide, rather than Melbourne. They too are expelled from consideration by Mike Sheahan.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the farcical attempt at a top 50 is the message it sends to Australia and the world. It condemns Australian Football as a small sport that was somehow only relevant in one state in the corner of Australia. Lovers of the Rugby codes dismiss Aussie Rules as a Victorian game, not deriding it as invented in Victoria but as only played mostly by Victorians. This small minded view is happily reinforced by myopic opinions such as Sheahan's top 50. The AFL increasingly strives to spread the game across Australia and the world, but there is the constant baggage that the only truly significant involvement must be connected with Melbourne. It's a disdain that is meted out to the world, to other states of Australia, and even to country Victoria.

It is a view that risks being repeated in the Victoria versus the rest match later in the year. If the result is victory to Victoria, then what does it say, that after 150 years the game has grown so poorly that Victoria is still better than the rest put together? That overlooks the fact that the Victorian players will be playing for their state and the coveted Big V jumper, whilst the rest are simply participating in an exhibition match, but history will mostly note the result not the motivation.

I applaud the AFL for commissioning the book, but ensuring it achieved a balanced and accurate view needed to be a key requirement of something that many will regard as the definitive history of our sport. The Australian Game of Football will be released on Sunday March 9th. One can only hope that the rest of the book is better balanced than its top 50 list and dedicates at least 60% to non-VFL material, and discusses the small but widespread growth of the game beyond Australia's shores. We can hope, but I don't advise you hold your breath.

For what it is worth, Sheahan's list of the top 50 Australian Footballers (or rather VFL/AFL footballers) of all-time can be viewed here.