Invitation to Rotary Hawthorn Zoom Meeting

Colin Carter, a former AFL Commissioner and Geelong Club President, has written a book that challenges the AFL’s view of its history. The book is titled Football’s Forgotten Years – Reclaiming the AFL Competition’s Earliest Era – 1870 to 1896.
 
For almost the past 100 years, the AFL competition has been deemed to have started in 1897 when the VFL was formed after eight clubs seceded from the VFA. But new research makes it very clear that the VFL’s founders, the VFL clubs and media commentators agreed that 1870 was their competition’s first season.
 
A lot of our football history has been misplaced – 27 years of it - and Colin’s book outlines why these foundation years must be included in the AFL competition’s history, and the players and administrators who set up the game during those years recognised for their achievements.