Selfish Victorians show why AFL must be dragged from Melbourne for Gather Round | Paul Starick

Victorian tantrums about missing out on blockbuster games just prove why the Gather Round should be in Adelaide, writes Paul Starick.

Selfish Victorians can’t bear the erosion of their excessive entitlement to attending AFL footy, even for one historic Gather Round, without throwing a tantrum.

Just a week after one leading football commentator seriously suggested the Showdown should be moved to Victoria, another veteran pundit says Sunday’s Gather Round blockbuster between Collingwood and St Kilda should be shifted from Adelaide Oval to the MCG “for the good of the game”.

This partisan demand from Mark Stevens, an accomplished journalist, actually proves the opposite – yet again – that the AFL must be dragged from a Victorian-centric fixation for the good of the game.

Collingwood’s Nick Daicos handpasses the ball as he is about to be tackled by St Kilda’s Dean Kent last year. Picture: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty

Some myopic fans took to Twitter to support Stevens’ misguided view. This is unsurprising. For too long, Victorian footy fans have been able to have their cake and eat it too. They have been spoiled for choice, most weekends during footy season, with top-class AFL games to attend.

This is because of the disproportionate number of clubs in Victoria. The advent of a national competition from 1987 preserved and expanded the Victorian Football League. Clubs such as Footscray, North Melbourne, Hawthorn, Melbourne and St Kilda have managed to survive merger attempts or their lowly status. By contrast, proud state league clubs in South Australia and Western Australia have been consigned to second-rate status, with diminished crowds and profile. Port Adelaide, to its credit, has been able to elevate itself to the national stage with clever manoeuvring.

Port Adelaide fans hold up their heritage banner during the April 1 Showdown at Adelaide Oval between Port Adelaide and Adelaide. (Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)

Thankfully, though, from Thursday, all nine AFL games of a single round will be played within 35km of Adelaide’s CBD – most of them at one of the world’s foremost sporting grounds, Adelaide Oval.

The AFL bills the Gather Round as “a Festival of Footy” and a “never-seen-before celebration of our great game”, which will make Adelaide “the vibrant centre of the footy universe”.

Of course, the advent of a national competition, born from the VFL, has made Melbourne the centre of the footy universe for more than 35 years. Nine clubs are based in the Victorian capital and a tenth, Geelong, is just an hour’s drive away.

Yes, Melbourne is predicted to become Australia’s biggest city and has vastly more people and big businesses than Adelaide. But the concept of recognising the Australian rules football heritage outside Victoria – just for one round – surely is not too much for Melbourne fans to bear. After all, tens of thousands of them are making the pleasant drive to Adelaide for Gather Round.

More than 180,000 tickets have been sold with four sellouts and two more games likely to sell out in coming days.

For those who can’t afford the time or money to attend, they will have to do what many non-Victorian fans have been doing for years – watch their club’s big game on TV.

Paul Starick is an Adelaide Football Club foundation member.