Nearly fifty years later, I've changed my mind about the State League

Yes, the image was made with AI - so what!

Part Six: the case for it, the case against it and where I have landed

Back in July I wrote a blog after reading comments from Southern Football League President David O'Byrne.

He was talking about Australian Rules football, not our game.

But I kept coming back to one line.

Every league must have a purpose.

He talked about regional competitions making life easier for volunteers, families and supporters.

About people getting back into the habit of going to football every weekend.

About clubs being clubs again.

I remember thinking he could just as easily have been talking about football.

So I asked a question.

What is the purpose of Tasmania's State League?

I did not pretend to know the answer.

So I went looking.

I went back to 1978.

Five blogs later I have worked my way through nearly fifty years of Tasmanian football.

Three versions of a State League.

Two long periods without one.

Some terrific football.

Wonderful players and coaches.

Great rivalries.

And then, over and over again, the same things.

Travel.

Money.

Northern representation.

Volunteer workload.

Clubs withdrawing.

And eventually somebody deciding we need to start again.

Excitement first.

Rumblings later.

So what is the State League actually for in 2026?

There is a good argument for it

I want to start there because the case for a State League is not ridiculous.

The best should play the best.

Good players improve by playing good players.

Ambitious coaches want to work at the highest level.

Ambitious clubs need somewhere to go.

And I absolutely understand that this looks different depending on where you live.

In Hobart we have a lot of clubs in a small area.

That is not the case in the north.

A Launceston club playing regional football still travels.

Devonport is not exactly around the corner.

Neither are Ulverstone, Burnie or Somerset.

So for an ambitious northern club, swapping some regional trips for trips to Hobart might be worth it if the football is stronger.

Launceston City has been making that argument for decades.

When the old State League was being dismantled in 1999, City wanted to keep playing at the highest level available even if that meant travelling to Hobart every second week.

I admire that.

Ambition should have somewhere to go.

But does it need an entire season of State League to get there?

I don't think it does.

We have done without one before

This became clearer to me while writing Part Four.

From 2000 to 2012 Tasmania had no State League.

Thirteen seasons.

Football did not collapse.

Clubs developed players.

Regional leagues worked.

There was still a state champion every year.

From 2009 it was decided through a knockout series with the top four clubs from the north and the top four from the south.

Best against best.

A few weeks.

Not a whole winter.

South Hobart became a very strong club during those years without playing a statewide league season.

So did Devonport.

So it is not a choice between a State League and no ambition.

We have already shown that.

I asked Ken a fairly basic question

While writing this I asked Ken something I probably should have known.

If Tasmania did not have a State League, could we still have an NPL?

His answer was no.

He is right.

The NPL is built around each federation having a top men's competition.

Go back to separate regional competitions and we lose the NPL name.

But how much does that matter now?

The old national NPL finals are gone.

The Australia Cup place comes through the Lakoseljac Cup.

That does not need a State League.

Then there is the Australian Championship.

I have to be straight about this one.

Tasmania's place currently goes to the NPL premier.

South Hobart are in it this year for exactly that reason.

We start next weekend.

But nobody can promise it will still be here in ten years.

It is a new competition run and paid for by Football Australia.

Football Australia lost more than $15 million last year and cut a fifth of its staff.

To be fair, its chief executive has said he does not expect the Championship to be affected.

I hope he is right.

I hope it grows.

But I would not build the whole of Tasmanian senior football around a competition that is two years old.

So yes, no State League means no NPL.

And as the rules stand that is a problem for Tasmania's place.

That is a real issue.

But it is a rule.

Somebody wrote it.

Somebody can rewrite it.

Football Tasmania and Football Australia could decide that Tasmania's place goes to its state champion however that champion is found.

A short statewide series between the best regional clubs could produce one.

One national place for one club each year seems a very thin reason to keep seven clubs on the bus all winter.

Tony Pignata has also talked recently about discussions with Football Australia around NPL licensing because some national requirements do not fit Tasmania very well.

Fair enough.

Tasmania is different.

Our population is different.

Our geography is different.

Our grounds are different.

Our clubs are overwhelmingly community clubs.

If licensing can be adjusted because Tasmania is different, then surely we are entitled to ask whether the competition itself should be different too.

Keep the standards

I am not arguing for lower standards.

Keep coaching qualifications.

Keep medical and player welfare requirements.

Keep youth development.

Keep proper governance.

Keep sensible facility standards.

Keep club licensing.

Football Tasmania has already started applying standards further down anyway.

There is no reason Championship football cannot have strong standards.

But standards and statewide travel are two different things.

You do not need to drive a bus to Devonport to prove you have a qualified coach.

Then there is the cost

As I understand it an NPL club is paying somewhere around $20,000 to take part.

That includes things such as referees and statewide bus travel, so the money is not disappearing into thin air.

But look at the sums.

Eighteen league games.

Only nine at home.

That is more than $2,200 a home game before you have turned on the lights.

At $12 on the gate you need 186 paying adults at every home game just to cover the fee.

Count the crowd next time you are at an NPL match.

Yes, some clubs do well at the bar.

Some sell plenty of pies.

Some have good sponsors.

But that money is supposed to run the football club.

A Championship club pays a fraction of that.

I am leaving wages out of this.

Players, coaches and physios would still need paying in a strong regional competition.

So the question is about the gap.

How much of it is buying better football?

And how much is simply the cost of moving football around Tasmania?

There is prestige in being State League champions.

I have celebrated those titles myself.

But prestige does not pay the bills.

How much should community clubs be expected to pay for it?

And the world has changed

The State League of 1978 existed in a completely different world.

So did the one that started in 1988.

Even the Victory League of 2013 arrived before clubs had the tools they have now.

One argument for a State League has always been profile.

But what media coverage are we talking about now?

Tasmanian football clubs largely create their own.

We write our own stories.

Take our own photographs.

Run our own social media.

And we can stream our own football.

I know this because last season Ken and I sat in Tasmania watching Nick play and Max coach for Northcote City.

Northcote streamed its home games.

You can buy the technology.

You can sell sponsorship around it.

You can make some money from it.

Commentary is lovely but we do not even get that on every NPL match now.

You do not need the federation to put you on a screen any more.

Regional football does not have to disappear from view.

And livestreaming has another side.

I love it.

I am also guilty of what I suspect plenty of other people do.

It is cold.

It is raining.

The game is on the television.

I make a coffee and stay home.

Sometimes the match is only twenty minutes away.

People are watching.

They are just not there.

I miss the club day

Perhaps this is nostalgia.

I'm happy to own that.

I miss knowing Kingborough were coming.

Not just Kingborough's senior team.

Kingborough.

Their Under 19s.

Their reserves.

Their seniors.

One opposition club.

One ground.

One day.

A young player could play in the 19s and then sit on the bench for the reserves or seniors.

Coaches saw them.

Supporters knew them.

The pathway was happening in front of you.

Families stayed.

The canteen stayed busy.

The clubhouse had people in it.

The senior players knew the young players coming through.

The younger players could see exactly where they were trying to get to.

It felt like one football club playing another football club.

Now teams from the same club can be playing different opposition at different venues and sometimes on different days.

Everything is more structured now.

I am not sure it feels more like a club.

Volunteers pay too

And not just financially.

I did NPL and WSL club licensing for years.

It is a shit load of work.

There is no more elegant way to say it.

Some requirements are important.

Some unquestionably make clubs better.

Some make you wonder whether the people designing them have ever tried to deliver them at a community football ground.

I told the story of our players' race in Part Five.

Four volunteers, some bollards and an orange plastic chain.

Requirement met.

Somebody still had to buy it.

Put it out.

Take it down.

Store it.

One tiny requirement.

Multiply that across an entire licence.

At some point we need to ask whether we are raising standards or asking volunteer clubs to behave like professional organisations without professional resources.

And then the draft roster landed

While I have been writing this, the draft 2027 roster has come out.

Here we go again.

Seven teams means three rounds, 18 matches and three byes.

I understand the mathematics.

If you play another club three times, somebody gets them twice at home and somebody gets them twice away.

There is no perfectly even draw.

It is a draft and I am sure it will change.

So I am not going to quote numbers from it.

But it did make me think about fairness.

Somebody has to decide who makes the extra trip.

How is that decided?

Is it random?

Is it last year's ladder?

Is it ground availability?

Or is it about making the State League easier for the clubs who travel most?

I do not know.

I would like to.

Because a State League comes with travel.

Tasmania is long.

That is the product.

If travel is the great difficulty, you do not fix it by handing more of it to somebody else.

That just moves the problem.

Every club is playing for the same trophy.

Every club is meeting the same licensing requirements.

Every club is paying to be there.

So fairness matters.

Are we preserving a competition or a map?

Perhaps this is just Tasmania.

We are an island of regional loyalties.

Hobart.

Launceston.

The north-west.

York Park gets a big redevelopment.

Dial Park gets upgraded at Penguin.

Macquarie Point gets a stadium in Hobart.

If one region gets something the others want their piece too.

Maybe football is doing the same thing.

A State League does not feel statewide unless there is a club in Hobart, a club in Launceston and a club on the coast.

I said as much myself in Part Five.

I understand the politics of it.

I understand the parochialism.

I am just no longer convinced it is the best way to design a football competition.

Tony Pignata said recently he expected the next NPL place to come from the north.

Northern clubs were showing ambition and working towards licensing.

Southern clubs were not putting their hands up in the same way.

Fair enough.

If a northern club wins the Championship, meets the licence and wants to come up, good luck to them.

But that is different from the idea that the place ought to go north simply because a State League needs northern representation.

And if we then start shaping fixtures to soften the travel that comes with it, we are entitled to ask the question.

Are we designing the best competition we can?

Or are we preserving a map?

A football competition should not exist to colour in Tasmania evenly.

Seven teams

And now we arrive at 2027.

Seven teams.

Eighteen league games.

Nine home league matches for most clubs.

Nine home gates.

Nine canteens.

Nine bars.

That is not a lot of football.

And then we have finals.

I will wait to see the final structure before getting too carried away.

But I may start making up the lolly bags.

Everyone gets a prize.

I understand why finals exist.

They give clubs more football.

They can create great occasions.

But at some point you have to ask what the league season itself is for.

Regional football has problems too

I am not suggesting we abolish the State League tomorrow morning and everything suddenly becomes wonderful.

It won't.

The standard can drop if we let it.

An ambitious northern club may find there is not enough strong opposition nearby.

Travel does not disappear in the north.

And history tells us something else.

When Tasmania has abandoned State League football before, people have soon started talking about bringing it back.

Walter Pless was arguing for its return within a few years of 1999.

Ken was warning that playing standards had fallen badly.

Eventually we got another State League.

That cannot just be dismissed.

But there is another way to read that history.

Maybe every time the State League disappears we remember what we liked about it.

And every time we bring it back we rediscover what made it so hard to sustain.

That is the bit I cannot get past.

So take the best bits

Why does it have to be all or nothing?

Strong regional competitions.

Proper club licensing.

High coaching standards.

Good player development.

Promotion and relegation where the numbers allow it.

The Lakoseljac Cup.

Australia Cup qualification.

And a short statewide championship for the strongest regional teams.

We ran exactly that sort of model from 2009 to 2012.

Best against best.

A state champion.

Without spending an entire winter doing it.

We could still have ambition.

We could still have high standards.

We could still have national pathways.

What we might not need is five or six months of clubs travelling the length of Tasmania to prove we are serious.

I have changed my mind

I do not want to rewrite my own history.

I loved that Campbelltown City afternoon at D'Arcy Street.

I loved the Army Band.

I loved those Devonport nights at Valley Road.

I even ruined a beautiful pair of French shoes.

I believed in the Victory League.

I helped run a club in it.

Some of my favourite football memories came from it.

There has been brilliant football.

That was never the problem.

But after living it, and after weeks going back through nearly fifty years of Tasmanian football, I no longer believe a full season State League is the best structure for Tasmania.

It costs too much.

It asks too much.

And the football world of 2026 does not need it the way 1978 did.

I understand why northern clubs want stronger opposition.

I understand why ambitious players want the highest possible level.

I understand why people value the NPL name.

I understand why clubs want national opportunities.

I understand all of it.

I just no longer think those things have to come in one package.

Keep the standards.

Keep the ambition.

Keep the pathways.

Keep the best playing the best.

Back in July I asked what the purpose of the State League was.

Here is my answer.

If we cannot clearly explain what a full season State League gives Tasmanian football that we could not deliver better another way, then perhaps the question is no longer how we save it.

Why are we still trying so hard to prop it up?