I have penned this piece after reading the AFL’s ‘Special Souvenir Edition Record. Tassie. Our Time Has Come’ April 2024. It’s a great magazine with some wonderful articles. It has evoked in me some memories and reflections tossed in with a few personal views and observations…
Alastair Nicholson, as a boy growing up on Tasmania’s north west coast, says that he detested long car trips until such time as a long trip (from Penguin on Tassie’s NW coast) took him to see Tasmania play a combined Queensland/Northern Territory side in Hobart in 1993 (Realising A Boy’s Dream, The Record, pp8-10).
Alastair Nicholson’s piece is one of several wonderful articles in the record which, to a former Tasmanian and still ardent supporter of all things Tasmanian, brings emotion, nostalgia and a sense of pride to the surface.
Fortunately, growing up in a small town on Tasmania’s east coast I didn’t mind long car trips at all. Given the proximity of my town to everywhere else, there really was no option. As a young footy fanatic, there was always immense excitement when visiting Launceston or Hobart (the big smokes!) for school holidays or weekends away, but to watch an NTFA (Northern Tasmanian Football Association) match at York Park (currently UTAS Stadium) or a TFL match (Tasmanian Football League) at North Hobart with my grandfather was something else.
As a schoolboy I travelled long distances (by Tassie standards anyway!) to many other towns to play footy for my school and for representative games throughout the Fingal Valley, the North East and the Midlands. When still at school as a 14-year-old, I started playing in the reserves team of my local club and then at 16 in the senior team. The longest trip for our club (the ‘Bulldogs’) at the time was the 3 hours drive from the east coast seaside to play the powerful mountain men of Rossarden (the ‘Red Legs’) a tin-mining town on the slopes of an often snow-capped Ben Lomond. Indeed, teams often played Rossarden on a snow covered oval and sometimes games were cancelled due to heavy snowfalls. No stadium with a roof at Rossarden!
I loved to travel to Launceston with my grandfather to watch the North Launceston ‘Bombers’ play at York Park. The Bombers were coached then by Bobby Withers who, to quote a cousin, was ‘built like a brick …. house’. I also enjoyed the occasional two hour trips to Hobart to watch North Hobart play, then known as the ‘Robins’ but now the ‘Demons’. The ‘Robins/Demons’ were and remain a much favoured club in my hometown mainly because local brothers Des, Stan, Lyell and Tas Graham played for them. Thus, it was the favoured club for several of my friends and myself who variously played under age, reserves and senior games for the club. I am still a member of the Demons and I have always held a soft spot for the northern Bombers. The Bombers have always been a strong club and continue to be at or near the top of the Tasmanian State League (TSL) whereas, disappointingly, the Demons, despite a very hard working committee, have been languishing on or near the bottom for several years.
Of my more memorable trips as a youngster back and forth from the east coast to Hobart was to the 1966 Australian Rules Carnival held at North Hobart. There were so many famous players involved. I remember the carnival being Ted Whitten’s last representative appearance for Victoria. I remember Ian Stewart and Darrell Baldock – Tasmanians playing for St Kilda and Victoria – and the crowd, wanting Tasmania to win of course (never in the race!), nevertheless cheering on both Baldock and Stewart whenever they got the ball. I remember Peter Hudson playing full forward for Tasmania and kicking the most goals at the carnival, averaging five per game. I can’t forget the tree trunk legs of Carlton and Victoria’s ruckman John Nicholls or the skills of Melbourne captain ‘Hassa’ Mann and the then unusual drop punt kicks of Fitzroy’s Kevin Murray for Victoria. I remember also the fullback for South Australia, Norwood’s Ron Kneebone, who kept Hudson to his least goals during the carnival – four. Kneebone, being of similar stature and build reminded me of North Launceston’s Bobby Withers; so much shorter than Hudson but able to bother him enough to keep his goal kicking in check compared to the other full backs. I also remember Western Australia’s full back: Subiaco’s Brian Sarre. His exceptionally long torpedo punt kicks were just bliss to watch. Kicking out he would invariably reach the far end of the Ryde Street stand at North Hobart – past the centre of the oval.
How great it will be to have a Tasmanian team playing in the AFL, and not before time! There is no doubt in my mind that given what Tasmania has contributed to our national game over many generations that it should have had a team in the AFL well before GWS and the Gold Coast; the latter especially! As Alastair points out, if it hadn’t been for former Premier Peter Gutwein, followed by the support of Richard Goyder and Gillon McLachlan (finally!) who realised that the AFL was gradually losing Tasmania, ‘Tasmania would still be kicking the can down the road, to borrow a phrase from Gutwein’.
David Lithgow sums up perfectly the feelings of many Tasmanians, residents and expats alike in his article This Is For Everyone (p14 of The Record):
‘One reason why we have desperately needed our own AFL team to support is that footy isn’t the local lifeblood it once was. Sure, we still like it but but we have never had our own team to support together. We are thirsty for that community bond again. More importantly, to have our kids finally be able to dream and have their own heroes to worship.
What the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers have done, albeit on a slightly smaller scale, is a template of what will happen across Tasmania when the AFL footy dream starts for us all.’
I agree. With a Tasmanian team in the AFL, I am sure the game will explode again in the southernmost state.
Tasmania has been dudded by the AFL for too long, resulting in footy in the state over the past couple of decades particularly, deteriorate gradually in participation and interest. Poor vision and strategy by the AFL over these years has seen football struggle and fall away right across the state and other sports take over. The debacle of what has been the Tasmanian State League (TSL) has seen the loss to the state of many young talented footballers to other states (e.g. QAFL, SANFL and WAFL).
The AFL in Melbourne has (had!) taken footy in Tasmania for granted for far too long. In pushing for an Australia-wide competition at the elite level, the AFL pushed Tasmania – a substantial tree root of AFL football – to the back-burner. The deleterious effect on the mums and dads, the tireless volunteers, the small town well-being and camaraderie that a local football competition brings has been huge in Tasmania. Ask any country town footy supporter. The AFL would argue against this view, but I can assure them that it is a view held not only in the country football community in Tasmania, but also in Victoria. In short, the AFL focus is seen to be on the money not the community. To paraphrase a recent comment made to me over a pie and beer by a committee member of a small Victorian country football club, ‘The football world is about profiteering these days and despite what the AFL says, the community pleasure in the game is largely ignored’. To quote a chap at the bar of Hobart’s New Sydney Hotel, ‘the AFL in Tasmania has failed to pass the pub test down here’.
Good on you Peter Gutwein for threatening the AFL with ceasing State funding for Hawthorn and North Melbourne to play in Tasmania and to transferring those funds to other community based sports. This was an instrumental move in getting the AFL to start doing something positive about a Tasmanian team. Not sure about you promising a roofed stadium though Peter!
I was in Tasmania for a few weeks recently visiting friends and family (north west coast, Launceston, Hobart, and in the country) and wherever I journeyed around the state I was often asked where I stood on the new stadium? It is a very topical subject and strong and passionate views pervade on both sides of the for and against argument. With friends, family and acquaintances on both sides of the argument, I was very careful with what I said as it is a fine line to tread when offering a view. I chose to play the politician and trod the neutral non-committal line!
I have no doubt that those that proffer that the stadium will be an economic fillip to the state in the longer term will be proven correct. I do think though that there were a couple of other options that might have been considered regarding building a new stadium and its proposed location. I do wonder too, about why a new stadium is to be built with a capacity of only several thousand seats more than the current Bellerive stadium? Why not be a bit more visionary and build, say, a 40,000 seat capacity stadium similar to GMHBA in Geelong? Indeed, could Bellerive even be gradually built up over time similar to the Geelong stadium? The other controversial aspect of the debate is the chosen location of the Devils’ training facilities – Rosny College and the former Rosny public golf course.
I note the comments by Grant O’Brien, the Devils inaugural chair, about a stadium capacity of just 23,000: ‘I think the average number of matches that a member of a current AFL club attends is something like three games. There are very few members that attend every single game. You can’t build something that’s going to be only one or two-thirds full. You need something that’s going to be in high demand for every game’ (Beyond Expectations, The Record, p13). Mmm, like a few locals I have talked to I don’t think a lot of AFL club supporters would agree with you, Grant. Isn’t the intention to use the new stadium to attract other events too; not just AFL football? And, being prepared and looking forward!
Anyway, enough on this subject lest I start among readers an avalanche of for and against comments!
I am confident that the north v south issue in Tasmania which has permeated the state for generations, not only in sport but across a wide range of subject matter, will not be an issue for a new Devils team. Remember Gil McLachlan referencing this as a possible impediment issue in the early days? Yes, it is still there but not nearly to the extent I remember when I was young. These days you can now buy Cascade beer in Launceston and Boags beer in Hobart!
I note in the Record that it is intended that Devils’ home games will be played between the new stadium in Hobart and UTAS stadium in Launceston. This is smart and how it should be. The UTAS stadium in Launceston is an excellent facility. Like Alastair Nicholson’s family did in 1993, as I did as a boy with my grandfather, and what the population from all parts of the state have proved many times before, Tasmanians will travel readily to support Tasmanian representative football. They will do so even more for a Tasmanian team in the AFL.
‘Australian Football in the ‘Sporting Island’ has been the holiest of sporting religions for most of the last 150 years. ‘Footy’ has often been of primary importance, from the paddock to West Park, from the backyard to York Park, from the school playground to North Hobart, from seaside St Helens to the gravel surface of Queenstown. Since football came to Tasmania (as ‘Victorian Rules’, later becoming ‘Australian Rules’ football) in the 1860s, it has excited Tasmanians, divided them by club and region, and united them when it has put Tasmania on the map’ (Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, 2006).
I can remember NWFU and NTFA supporters travelling to Hobart to watch their representatives fight it out with those TFL southerners and vice versa. All matches were very hard fought battles and between players who would soon be playing with each other in a Tasmanian representative state team. I remember my grandfather once commenting about a TFL v NTFA match that we were to attend on the following Saturday that ‘we are about to witness WW3!’ I was with my grandfather at York Park when in 1966, City South, a former powerful Launceston team, coached by Graeme Wilkinson, won the state championship beating the Hobart Tigers. For the northerners, in the euphoria of the moment, it was certainly like winning WW3.
History has shown that a Tasmanian representative side can draw sizeable local crowds. For example, in 1960 when Tasmania defeated Victoria in Launceston (16,000), when Tasmania defeated Western Australia in Hobart in 1970 (20,000) and in 1990 and 1991 when Tasmanian played Victoria famously beating the Vics in 1990 by 5 goals (20,000 attendees on both occasions). Granted, not large crowds by today’s standards, but large in the day and proof that the local population in Australia’s smallest state will travel to see their state representative team play.
Another example from my youth is the famous 1967 state title between John Devine’s North Hobart and John Coughlan’s Wynyard. Very many Robins supporters from Hobart and elsewhere in the state travelled to the NW coast for that game. It was a packed house and those that couldn’t be there were either glued to the home Bakelite wireless, their transistor or a car radio!
As proven, Tasmanians (players and supporters) have no interest and won’t travel for the TSL normal week to week club football. Supporters simply won’t travel from the NW coast to Hobart or Launceston and vice versa, to watch their local team play away every second Saturday, but they will travel for a local competition that includes their home team. This is a big reason why the state league has struggled for crowd support.
When I have watched North Hobart play in the TSL over the past few years, the attendances were pitiful compared to yesteryear. Friends have mentioned that more people attend a local amateur competition match or a country game than do so for a TSL match. I have verified this myself. I once attended a game between country clubs Triabunna and Campbelltown the week after attending a North Hobart and North Launceston TSL match at North Hobart. Whereas the TSL match would have been lucky to have attracted 100 people, the Triabunna oval was surrounded by cars and jam-packed with several hundred supporters. The line up for pies and hot dogs (savs in Tasmania!) was constant.
Football fans in Tassie will tell you that the wants and desires of the local football community across the state were severely lacking in the conception and implementation of the TSL by the AFL, contributing to a fall of interest in the game itself.
I understand that moves are afoot to replace the TSL in 2025 with three regional competitions. Many Tasmanians believe that the old NWFU, NTFA and TFL structure should not have been tinkered with by the AFL in the first place. The details of the re-structure for 2025 are still being worked through and let’s hope that in its concept and implementation the AFL has learnt from it’s mistakes with the TSL. ‘We want three strong and united football regions in our state underpinning our talent pathways, VFL/VFLW and AFL/AFLW teams’ (AFL Tasmania 2023 statement).
Personally, I think a return to the model similar to the NWFU, NTFA and TFL structure of the past can still work and include a workable pathway for players to the VFL/AFL. I’m watching the space so let’s see what develops.
Appointing Brendan Gale as the Devils’ inaugural CEO is laudable and the AFL’s appointment of Kath McCann as the club’s first Executive Director seems to be working out well. Hobartians tell me that McCann is respected locally and was the prime mover behind the highly successful foundation member drive. By all counts, McCann has a solid football and Tasmanian pedigree and understands the need to communicate with the local Tasmania football community – in small town areas and the state’s major regional centres.
‘Building an AFL club from the ground-up is different to how others have done it. Traditionally these things have happened top-down. But Tasmanians are different. And we are good with that. We are aiming to make this club the largest community sporting organisation in the world, a club that fosters belonging and inclusion and reaches far beyond the boundary line. To achieve that, we have to build ground-up, because community are, and always will be, the foundation of the Tasmanian Football Club’. (‘Community Connection The Key’, Kath McCann, The Record, p.6)
Management-wise things look pretty good at the Devils with Gale and McCann, a strong calibre board and Jack Riewoldt working hard as Culture Manager. It’ll be interesting to see who will join this strong club administration in the inaugural roles of coach and football manager.
The day Tasmania plays its first AFL game – wherever it will be – I will be there. I’m sure both Alastair Nicholson and David Lithgow will be too. I just wish that I could repay my grandfather by taking him along.
‘You see this is for everyone. All Tasmanians. The young and the old. The little ones looking for heroes and the old ones craving some late inspiration in life.’ (David Lithgow, This Is For Everyone’ (p14 of The Record)
50 years plus Carlton supporter, Geelong resident and future avid Tasmanian Devils fan – sorry Blues and Cats, from 2028 you’re relegated to 2nd and 3rd!
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