This would interest a few OERites who are into or involved in Suburban footy:
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Policy prevents formation of super league
Paul Daffey
The Age
December 9, 2006
FOR years, Eastern Football League powerhouse Vermont and its Diamond Valley league counterpart Northcote Park played a practice match in March. As well as providing a good hitout in the lead-up to the season, the game served as a duel for the unofficial title of the strongest club in suburban football.
Speculation comparing the relative strengths of clubs and leagues is a regular part of football in metropolitan Melbourne; every week, players and supporters from a strong club in one competition can be heard weighing up how they would fare against their peers from the next kingdom. Such speculation has naturally led to suggestions of a suburban super league, featuring the standout clubs from the Southern, Eastern, Western Region, Essendon District and Diamond Valley competitions.
But two recent rulings by Football Victoria, the body that oversees local football, suggests that a suburban super league is never likely to eventuate, or at least not while there's a policy favouring regional divisions, as there is now.
The board of Football Victoria upheld the appeal of the Balwyn Football Club to leave the Southern league and join the Eastern league, which in recent years has become widely accepted as Melbourne's strongest suburban competition, while it dismissed the appeal of the Heidelberg Football Club, which was trying to leave the Diamond Valley league to join the Eastern league. In both cases, geography was a big influence on the decision.
In the past, Balwyn was a nondescript club that played in the Federal league and the South East Suburban league before being conscripted into the Southern Football League when it was formed in 1993. The Tigers won the Southern league's division-two premiership in 1997 and so began an era of success.
Balwyn won the next three premierships in division one, from 1998 to 2000, before winning again in 2003 and 2005, the last one under the coaching of former St Kilda defender Matthew Young.
In those years, the Tigers brought in many recruits with AFL experience. Few players actually lived in Balwyn, or even in surrounding suburbs. The lack of an under-18 competition in the Southern league gave less of a chance to develop local players.
Balwyn's argument to Football Victoria was that joining the Eastern league, which has an under-18 competition, would enable the club to develop its own players rather force it to pay big money for recruits. According to former coach and current football director Paul Johnson, the club plans to raise its quotient of local players to 25 per cent in two years and 50 per cent in five years. The success of Balwyn in a local junior competition up to under-17 level suggests such a plan is achievable. The appointment of Mick McGuane as coach for the 2007 season will help.
The plan to encourage juniors to stay on with the Tigers would have been unachievable if the club had stayed in the Southern league, as Balwyn would have remained an isolated club at the northernmost tip of the Southern league's area.
The suburb of Balwyn aligns itself with the eastern suburbs. The fact that Balwyn Football Club's ground is on a thoroughfare into the eastern suburbs, encourages this alignment.
Balwyn's case to transfer was strengthened considerably when the Southern league withdrew its objection to the proposal. The Southern league has been in trouble in recent years. Letting Balwyn go is just one of the changes that will culminate soon with the election of a new board.
The Southern league has been in administration and earlier this year began the season with just three board members. A report by Football Victoria on football in the south-eastern suburbs and the Mornington Peninsula was followed by an investigation into the Southern Football League.
This report found that the competition had been losing clubs because they were winding up or going to other leagues. There was little to no co-operation between the Southern league and local junior competitions. The Southern league's lack of an under-18 competition counted against it.
Financial support has been pledged from Football Victoria and an under-18 competition is to start in the 2007 season.
In the wake of Heidelberg's disgruntlement with the Diamond Valley league, a similar report is about to be written on that competition, which is based in Melbourne's north-eastern suburbs. The report is expected to receive the official go-ahead at a Football Victoria board meeting on Tuesday night.
Heidelberg president Trevor Barrot believes the administrations in the Diamond Valley and Eastern leagues can be compared by looking at the websites of the two competitions. The Diamond Valley home page shows its site to look like a schoolboy blog, while the Eastern league site is thorough and professional.
Under Barrot's thinking, Diamond Valley's administration does nothing to change perceptions of the competition as the football equivalent of the OK Corral. The rough-house reputation was the principal inspiration in Heidelberg's bid to join the Eastern league.
Heidelberg has managed to re-form its junior club only in the past five years. Now that many of these juniors are about to step up to senior football, which starts in the Diamond Valley with its under-19 competition, their parents are against them playing in a competition that is perceived to be excessively rugged.
Barrot's concern at the Tigers' potential loss of players, who were about to step up to senior level, led him on his campaign to swap leagues. As the Tigers were a foundation member of the Diamond Valley league, in 1922, it took him considerable energy to persuade old Heidelberg families of the merits of his case.
"They thought I was on drugs," Barrot said.
His case was not helped by Heidelberg's success. Despite having only three or four local players in their team, the Tigers won the premiership in 2004 and again this year, largely through strong administration and powerful recruiting.
Barrot said the club would die if it had to continue bringing in big names. "It's not a sustainable business model."
In late September, more than 200 Heidelberg members voted overwhelmingly to try to gain entry into the Eastern league. The club was disappointed by the initial rebuff from Football Victoria, and hugely disappointed when its appeal went to the Football Victoria board and was dismissed.
Barrot said Heidelberg would meet administrators from Football Victoria and the Diamond Valley league to try to improve matters in the Diamond Valley league. Then the club would look at its situation after next season.
Should they again try to move to the Eastern league, what goes against the Tigers is the club's location north of the Yarra River. Football Victoria is happy with its set-up of one elite competition spanning the suburbs of Melbourne, the VFL, and a regional set-up at "the community level".
It makes no sense to Football Victoria to introduce a second-tier competition across Melbourne's suburbs, especially when the TAC Cup under-18 teams, such as the Northern Knights and the Eastern Ranges, which take their players from either side of the Yarra River, have been aligned with suburban regions.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/12/08/1165081155993.html
