In our unflinching efforts to come to grips with the fast-changing football world, we are going to attempt what some may describe as the impossible and try to imagine what various aspects of the AFL will look like in the future. In doing so we can possibly prepare for and certainly keenly anticipate the continuing and growing greatness of the game, as it surges forth into an exciting unknown.
As we approach the new season there are a number of hot topics in and around the sport – for example the Tasmanian conundrum involving that stadium and much more, the role of the media, the demands on players and officials and the very functioning of the AFL itself. How will these issues play out over the years ahead, so that when the commission faces the media on the release of the AFL’s 2036 annual report, will what they say make sense to us? And who will the chair be? Will Gillon McLachlan have been placed in the chair permanently by then, or will it be the former head honcho of a law firm or a partner in a venture capital or hedge fund, the sort of profile that’s been so sought after for the commission?
Well, these are some of the points of discussion and speculation we’re going to address here. And just a note on the title of this piece above. Hipsters and music fans among you will no doubt note what we thought was a pretty clever combining of parts of two of the 1960s British band The Yardbirds’ hit songs. Dropping The Yardbirds name does get yer a little cred here and there we’ve noticed, but we haven’t done it solely to impress the valued reader out there. No, the reason is two-fold.
Yardbird is also a slang term, as you’d no doubt be aware, for a prisoner. And as lovers of football we believe that by 2036, ten years from now, Australia might have modernised and caught up with much of the rest of the world and have in place a fully fledged and properly entrenched authoritarian government. A government with a mind to imprison anybody out there who is critical of the way AFL is played, how it is administered, covered in the media, or in any shape or form isn’t 100% fully behind the game as a whole. So, in short, if you’re going to piss on the AFL’s chips, you’ll do some porridge.
This is only fair if we consider the amount of criticism and negativity that swirls around the game currently, and the kind of people who talk the game down and have nothing nice to say. Nobody wants to throw critics into jail, but if they don’t co-operate what choice do you have? Anyway, let’s all get on board and value the freedom we will have to do what is the most important thing to us all – that is, without distractions, enjoy the footy!
Alright then, imagine if you will it’s 2036, and let’s plunge head-first into “Happenings in Ten Years Time.” First up on the agenda, Hobart’s Macquarie Point Stadium…
Well, as you might have expected all those years ago, when the stadium finally received the official go ahead in the Tasmanian Parliament, it’s been a bumpy ride for what was initially a $1 billion project. We say initially, for as you’re aware there are always blowouts in building big infrastructure, and the actual cost is now one of the most closely guarded and mysterious secrets in the whole expansion saga of the AFL in the state. One of the most mysterious along with the whereabouts of the Tassie Devils’ mascot, who was kidnapped a couple of years ago by a group of militant Launceston-based activists demanding the state government spend more on chronically underfunded health and education services. (What gives? Some people just won’t get with the program. Six seven – right?)
But there may be some good news on this front, as there have been rumours of sightings, unconfirmed as yet, of the poor fellow previously in the Devils’ costume occasionally performing a bit of a stand-up and cabaret routine on the overnight Spirit of Tasmania. So maybe he’s spending some time on the mainland undercover, as it were, as an emergency replacement mascot in Melbourne, where of course there are many more of them and every now and then there is going to be an illness or mishap. Twanging a hammy prancing around the boundary line for the kiddies, or jumping up trying to hi-five a ruck, for example.
Anyway, returning to the stadium. Looking back, the financial crash of 2027 didn’t help matters in the early stages of construction, and the legacy of that disaster is all too visible today in the “finished” arena. The towering hulks of dormant cranes still surround the stadium, and due to the sudden reduction of available funds during the crash it was decided, rather than pull the pin, to carry on regardless with the scheme with just half of the roof completed.
Consequently, among other things this has led to tactical challenges for coaches during games. One half of the ground is a bit of a bog, particularly when it snows in Hobart as the AFL Commission feared it would, constantly, when they initially demanded the stadium must have a roof. The other half of the playing surface is dry and quite sandy. A lack of sunlight has meant grass has been difficult to grow, reminding us of the early years of Docklands and its infamously patchy grass cover. This has led to interesting patterns within games, one of which for example is that wherever the wind is blowing from the scoring end is always the dry end. The other, bereft of spectators in the sleet and rain-swept empty seating, sees the occasional rushed point or a score soccered through, skating over puddles and mud.
After the terrible impact of the ‘27 crash things were looking up for a little while, but then, as you’ll remember, in 2028 came the global contagion which is now referred to as the RFK Jr outbreak. This has been covered exhaustively in other forums, and while a more intense malaise elsewhere it still had repercussions in Tasmania, far away from its source. The less said about it the better, and ditto for the locust plague that followed a couple of years later, completing the trifecta of financial ruin, contagion and pestilence. Yes…it’s been a long march for the stadium, a battle to get through one adversity after another.
But the AFL itself, strong and resilient and one of Australia’s most respected and admired institutions, survived this hellish journey in the southernmost corner of its jurisdiction, ensuring the game across the broader sweep of the country continued to thrive. It’s an institution staffed by highly regarded and qualified employees, some of whom are paid, which may seem a strange thing to say but in the contemporary world we must take into account the enormous, and impressive, advancement of AI over the past decade.
This revolutionary development has provided many positive outcomes over the years, such as phasing out boring and pretty much meaningless jobs in education, banking and finance for example, as well as jobs for writers, designers and other creative types and all manner of analysts and researchers. Unfortunately though, there have been a few negatives. Such as the resulting millions of unemployed.
Yes, sadly, while walking through city streets or even approaching a football venue, sometimes parents feel they have to shield their children’s eyes from the sight of huddles of the homeless, holding up placards critical of AI’s impact – “Shove your mega GPUs up ya chatbot” is fairly typical – and chanting (to the tune of AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”), “Tedious Tasks Done for (Almost) Free.”
Naturally the AFL has been caught up in these rapid changes of recent years, where AI has replaced many employees, from those at the desks in its offices which control the billions of dollars in its accounts, to superseding with robots the ushers in the Members’ area of the MCG. (Some of them were getting a bit long in the tooth anyway). But the AFL carries on, holding an endless cycle of preliminary meetings, followed by priority meetings, followed by summits in order to arrive at important ground-breaking decisions.
Dear reader, these reports can be quite involved and time consuming, so rather than test your patience any further let’s pick it up next week in the concluding part two, and look at some of those decisions.
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Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.
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