Club History A compendium of Tasmanian club heritage

[Devski]

G'day everyone

The last two expansion teams in GCS and GWS came in to the competition devoid of any real culture or heritage behind them.

What does it mean to a player to throw on that red or orange guernsey?
What kind of legacy do they inherit on draft night?

What do they represent other than the AFL's desire to expand?

With this in mind, I'm hoping to take on a personal project to create a Compendium to highlight what we want the club to represent.

A collection of key moments, experiences and ideas that make up the Tasmanian identity. Obviously this would need to include key topics that relate specifically to AFL footy, but I also want it to reflect the broader Tasmanian history.

I'm hoping everyone here can chuck in their thoughts on what should be included. I'm happy to do all the research etc, But I need help to capture a broader view than what I would be able to create alone.

There's no right or wrong answers, I'm happy to hear anything you feel is relevant.

I'd love for a player to be able to flick through the book and get a quick understanding of what their guernsey represents.

 

[Jazny]

Sometimes these cultural things can happen organically. Like "Defend the Island" for the Jackjumpers did even though its a new franchise I think that will stick in Tasmanian basketball for a long time.

I was too young and not that into football when the Devils played VFL, so don't know much about that era and what cultural ideas they had but might be a starting point.

 

[Gibbke]

What's been proven twice now is that Tasmanians will back the side. We just saw 200k people sign their names as members...of course, $10 each will do that, but they expected 40k and lived in hope...

The other time was those Devils years. It happened quickly in 2001 because Statewide folded, but Tassie's first scalp was Carlton, in Melbourne and live on cable TV (I have the recording). Martin Flanagan was there and wrote an article on the first win - you can bet the overwhelming mood in those changerooms was that they'd just done something historically right up there, right alongside games such as the win over the VFL in 1960. Remember too that only a couple of years previously the TFL had just completed wins over all of the Big Three in rep footy, and crowds of several thousand were fronting up to big TFL matches on occasion...and suddenly it was a national stage...

What then happened was a lapse into selfish mismanagement. Tassie had crowds doubling every other VFL team, to the point where the VFL said any final they played would be at home, even if they finished eighth, up to the PF. It got silly when Southern opposition politicians campaigned to bring the Devils to Hobart because a)Launceston had the Hawks, and b) because they wanted to paint a picture that the North didn't follow the team...the numbers were like an average 5000 at Hobart and 4000 at YP, but even though it was still double any Victorian team it was seen as a liability...as soon as that was aired, northerners dumped the team, and it became a self fulfilling prophecy..."Southerners taking it all for themselves again"...! For the rest of the journey, you could only see a Devils match at YP if you bought a Hawks AFL ticket because they were the curtain raiser, and later teams like Coburg sold matches to the NW Coast. In 2008, and this surely was the biggest slap in the face, the Devils conducted a training session in Scottsdale which was advertised as a promotion for northern footy fans. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't North Melbourne who screwed the Devils, it was our historic intrastate grudges fuelled by politics...and once the Devils were all about drafting, that was the end of the dream...

Bottom line - the typical Tasmanian wants a dark green two headed monster slapping mainlanders every week as a united entity. The basketball is a classic example - the 1980-90's Hobart Tassie Devils were seen as Hobart, partly because they obviously were and also because they were actually up against Launceston and Devonport in the early years...finances for basketball were really tough back then too, so eventually they were ousted. The Jackies, however, got clever...at no stage has that team ever referred to itself as Hobart even though every game but two is at Glenorchy, and the promo and coaching pushed Tassie...they could have said "Defend The City"...! Cricket's an interesting one...I find it hard enough to barrack for a team called the Hobart Hurricanes, but I guess because it's cricket and the opposition are all mainlanders I can overlook that...the Tigers also needed to rationalise, so the move to Bellerive in the 1980's robbed me of my games at the NTCA but at least stopped our team being consistently shithouse! Fun fact - I was a lone spectator at a shield game once, and for years afterwards on the sports report on TV I could be seen every time they needed filler cricket action for a news story...Tassie bowler, SA batsman, and me way back there on the hill next to my bike!

So the Devils in 2001 filled the void...we were showing up in thousands to games against VFA teams most had never really heard of, and also against AFL reserves sides, pretending they were watching the real thing. When the rest of the state is invited, they will join in...but the second it becomes North v South, the bat and ball is taken back home...