The rugged men of Geelong West’s former VFA team could provide the AFL with a history lesson in generating larger TV audiences, according to their annual pre-Christmas gathering.
And it’s all about the biff, explained their guest speaker and former umpie Frank Vergona.
Frank recounted how the live telecasts of Geelong West’s matches attracted a big audience each Sunday.
The VFA had a good idea why it was so popular, too, Frank said.
“It was a pretty rugged competition,” he reminisced.
“But I really think the association just let it go because the VFA was a ratings winner for the TV station.”
Might be something for the AFL to consider as it continues sanitising its own competition.
Lindsay Toulmin, Double Take’s correspondent at the gathering, was also thrilled to see some high-profile ex-players in the crowd.
Eric Nicholls, Bill Goggin and Brian Brushfield (pictured) all helped Geelong West to VFA flags after crossing over from the Cats.
Nicholls and Brushfield earned a premiership medal each in 1964 and ’68 respectively, while Goggin scored a pair in ’72 and ’75.
“Goggin came close again in 1979, with his side trailing Coburg by one point with two minutes to play but eventually going down by eight points,” Lindsay said.
Two more VFA flags fell just beyond the Roosters’ grasp as well.
Not a bad effort considering the team was in the association for only 29 years.
Now the dust has settled on Geelong’s Citizens’ Jury, other municipalities might like to consider pulling the welcome mat if the convener’s ever sent to their town.
After all, NewDemocracy Foundation, an “independent, non-partisan research and development organisation” that the Andrews government appointed to conduct the jury, has left Geelong with the threat of reduced democratic representation rather than increasing it.
And that’s despite some pretty pre-jury window-dressing.
“We innovate in how we do democracy,” the foundation declares on its website, asking: “Can democracy be done better?”
Well, according to the foundation’s Geelong jury verdict, democracy is “done better” with fewer councillors (from 13 to 11), fewer wards (12 to four), and the loss of the public mayoral vote.
So less democracy is better democracy?
Double Take would call a vote on that but, these days, it could probably be “done better”.
