Chapter 1: What significant events marked the AFL centenary year in 1996?
know your history. Sometimes it's music that can transport you back to a certain moment in your life. And this will put you right back in the AFL centenary.
I thank you for the tears. And I thank you just for helping us.
I'm not quite sure how that makes me feel. Shannon Gill, welcome. Jared, good to see you. You said that could put you back to 1996. A lot of the reviews from 1996 says it could put you to sleep. There's a lot of contention around it. So I rather love... The two texts we've got here, right? And this sort of takes us right to the core of our starting point.
I wore my AFL centenary polo shirt to my 18th birthday party in 1997 because that was the actual bloody centenary. And yes, I'm a total nerd. That's from Noah. And then Andrew chimes in with, Jared, 1996 is 100 years. 1897 is not year zero. It's year one. And this is where the late, great Patrick Smith did some of his greatest work.
So it's 30 years, and May 8th was the designated nights, and here we are on May 7th. So we're on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the centenary round. Mitchell and Ness, who do all the retro footy gear, have sent through special centenary editions of the rugby polo top. So we'll have to put those on later on, Gerard. They've got a centenary edition throwback. Set us up.
So the riders that we spoke about ā It was, so first of all, it was the centenary of the, well, we'll get to whether it was the centenary, but the centenary of the VFL AFL they were celebrating. But what got lost in a lot of the messages, because a lot of the messages say we're celebrating a hundred years of football.
They weren't celebrating 100 years of football because 12 years later, they celebrated 150 years of football. So it wasn't the centenary of the sport or the code. And there's a Twitter account that likes to differentiate between the code and the league. They would have had a field day in 1996. Let's just put it that way. So first of all, that was one thing. Then was it really a centenary event?
It was the 100th season. We've got two different views on what a centenary is. To me, it would make 1997 the centenary of it. They did jump the gun. As Patrick Smith wrote at the time, the calendar is proof that this is not the AFL centenary. It is 100 years of football, but not a centenary, not by any accepted definition bar that of the commission. The centenary falls in 1997, not now.
So why are we having a party a year before all logic says we should? The cynical among us could suggest it is linked more to the departure of Ross Oakley. Ross Oakley was the boss of the AFL. There was a solid feeling that this would be his last year. And then there was a conspiracy theory that the whole centenary was built around the fact that he wanted to be there when the centenary happens.
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Chapter 2: Why was there controversy around the centenary celebrations?
forced them to play two Friday night games the week before. That was a reason for playing two Friday night games, Gerard, not like today. Yes. So they had a break. Now, there is video and audio highlights of this, which I'll tweet out later on. And they are worth your afternoon. Absolutely. So it starts off with the TV broadcast starts in black and white as well, which is a nice touch.
And this is Bruce McIverney wearing a top hat on. welcoming us to the game.
Hello everybody, welcome to the Melbourne Cricket Ground on this special evening when we celebrate 100 years of Australian football. Remarkable scenes here as we're going to see tonight the same olds, the Essendon Football Club, up against the Pivotonians from Geelong. They played in the very first match under the VFL banner back in 1897.
A lot of people here tonight and there's a tremendous crowd dressed a little like I am.
When he says remarkable scenes, he's not lying. No, no. Then there's a montage. It goes for about four or five minutes of all that's going on around the MCG. And there's heaps going on. The crowd shots of people walking into the game and outside the ground in period costume. And it's, I don't think the rank and file were turning up in this gear. A lot of extras.
I feel every extra actor in Melbourne and a lot of street theater types, which is a 90s thing. were employed by the AFL to be running scenes of 1897 outside the front of the match. So it goes on. There's vintage cars taking people in. There's penny farthings, people riding around on penny farthings. See if you can follow along with Bruce.
A terrific build up as I said. The Model T Ford was a part of the entertainment as this huge crowd came into the ground. I think one of the great things tonight is everybody's got into the spirit. The AFL and Ross Oakley must be absolutely thrilled to bits with the period costumes. Cobb and Co bringing them in.
Some people decided to take it the hard way with a penny farthings and rode their way into the Melbourne cricket ground tonight. They got here from about half past four. I don't think there's been any arrests so far. There's a policeman from the early century. And there's your goal umpire also from the beginning of the 20th century saying all through. And don't the women look fantastic?
Including all the Channel 7 people here tonight. And a few of them have decided they won't show their ankles.
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Chapter 3: What unique features were included in the centenary round of matches?
The attempts at entertainment, in most part, failed.
yes it didn't go well this is how they launched the season um and the centenary season in february at the mcg i think in their heads they thought hot summer's night we'll get everyone along get some entertainment and everyone will love this night it was cold it wasn't it wasn't a good night this was the night before the lightning premiership started too Which got ruined by weather.
Yeah, which got ruined by weather. And yeah, it just doesn't land. As Patrick Smith says, could not generate any energy bar from a group called the Wiggles who had the kids hopping, bopping at the start. Dorothy the dinosaur is not without talent. He also talks about Leon Cameron, Brad Boyd, John Platton and Tony Woods hammed it up as they jigged about to a Beatles melody.
Then more footballers, including Bill Brownless, David Schwartz, Justin Madden and Stephen Alessio appeared on stage and turned around in circles for three minutes while the song Simply Irresistible belted out over the speaker. In truth, the players were very resistible. So Patrick didn't, didn't enjoy it. It does seem a little strange.
The fact that they got the Wiggles is probably the best thing out of it. Like the retrospectively, is this the biggest act to ever play at an AFL event? Possibly. Um, they, on the night they announced, so they announced the, the hall of fame members, which is fantastic, but there's 136 members, initial inductees to the hall of fame.
So the announcement of 136 members of the Hall of Fame is a 25-minute video. So you don't really, those 136 inductees never got their moment. Three of the Hall of Fame members appear to represent their colleagues. Captains and coaches of the 16 teams did a lap of honor. Kate Sobrano performs. The Girl Guides unfurl a centenary banner. That was a bit of a showstopper, I thought. Yeah.
The George Burns impersonator arrives by helicopter, of which they unveil the ad. The could have been champions perform fireworks end of the night. And it just didn't land. Before the end, people were heading for the exits cold and uninspired. They no doubt felt grateful that an AFL centenary launch comes about just once every 100 years. So it didn't get off to a good start.
It was struggling to get going. And then when we talked about the lightning premiership earlier in the year, that was a flop too. Yeah. So February wasn't a great start for the centenary. The theme song, Kevin Johnson? Yes. So the theme song. This was another miss to a degree. In the 70s, there's an Australian singer-songwriter named Kevin Johnson. He's a one-hit wonder of sorts.
He has a signature song called Rock and Roll, I Gave You the Best Years of My Life. Now, this is a song about a kid growing up dreaming of rock stardom and ultimately failing. Here's a few bars of it. I'm starting to picture a scene from Love Actually here, where we then misappropriate the song and mangle the words. Completely. So that was released in 1973. Somebody at the AFL had a broad idea.
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