Now and again, I find time to delve into the vast recesses of The Mongrel Vault… also commonly known as YouTube, to find a little more about the history of the game. It is always interesting to see how the league, and the game, operated before rule tweaks every year, before umpires wore microphones, and when switching play across the ground in the backline was a cardinal sin.
I’ll tell you something – watching this game, I did not miss the umpires wearing microphones at all. No “stand” being yelled every few seconds, no warnings to players, no unnecessary coaching or advice, and no “don’t get a fine” screamed whenever two players engaged in a bit of rough stuff.
Anyway, more on that later.
As many of you would be aware, advanced stats cannot be officially applied retrospectively. As such, some of the greatest individual efforts by players are not in the record books. Wane Carey hold the record for most contested marks in a game, with ten. However, did you know he’s done it twice?
Contested grabs started being recorded in 1999, but back in 1994, Carey took ten contested clunks against a bloke that would come to be known as his greatest opponent – Glen Jakovich. And the video of it is right there, if they ever chose to peruse the footage.
Know what else they didn’t count? Intercepts, clearances, goal assists… there is a heap of stuff they didn’t bother with/know about… but I’ll count them, because I’m a geek. A charming, debonair geek, but a geek, nonetheless.
Anyway, we miss out on a lot of that stuff, largely due to the AFL’s and Channel Seven’s ineptitude, and inability to preserve the history of the game. So much vision has been lost over the years, and it has taken passionate individuals like Rhett Bartlett, the people who run the North Melbourne Vintage YouTube account, and the St Kilda FC Archive account, keep the memories alive by discovering and sharing the rare gems from the late 70s and on into the early 90s.
And it is there, I find myself dwelling today.
This time around, I picked a game at random, having no understanding of the result. I knew that neither went on to win the flag, that both teams had several 300+ game players on the field, and that there were some young stars coming through that would be great to have a look at as they found their way in the league, but that’s all I knew.
And so, It was eye-opening.
Anyway, here is the Mongrel Time Machine review of a ripping game of footy.
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