Introduction to The Way of the GOTE

Preludes to Nothing

The boy’s hard at the ball at the ‘G

Preamble 

Introduction   GOTE 2019   GOTE 2020   GOTE 2021

Whatever I might claim later, this book is about having some fun playing with data. Specifically, playing with a database of every VFL / AFL game played since 1897. Watching data “can” be fun, I think. Even watching COVID stats is interesting. Though you could never say that out loud. Because you’d be misunderstood, unless you had the good grace to catch the thing and die before you made that observation. And data can help you discover things you didn’t know, too. Once upon a time, a woman, I think it was, was working for a large star-gazing telescope somewhere in England. And her job was to stare at the night sky day after day on photographic plates. And after a long time doing this, she noticed that all the stars were moving away from each other. Bingo: the Big Bang. And it can confirm things you already knew, too. (I really should try Twitter one day, with a comment like that.) Things like the fact that Essendon, in support of our world record 16 premierships and despite our current third place on win/loss in history after Collingwood, Carlton and West Coast, is indeed the GOAT.

The Way of the GOTE ("Greatest of the Era")

See what you make of the table below. In it, you can see how many flags your team wins if you keep every season in VFL/AFL history going at the end of each year until all the teams have played each other TWICE before a finals series is played. Even if that takes three years to happen, as is happening these days, what with COVID up and about. Not that you can blame COVID for the unfairness of fixturing in the modern age. In fact, if anything, COVID has made fixturing "more" fair. Because at least every team these days is playing every other team exactly once. Which at least makes for a home "or" away season. No, usually it's the AFL that's responsible for corrupt fixturing, looking for that elusive one dollar more.

Team	GOTE Flags
Essendon	17
Carlton	16
Geelong	14
Collingwood	14
Richmond	13
Hawthorn	11
Melbourne	10
Fitzroy / Brisbane	9
North Melbourne	6
West Coast	4
Sth Melb / Sydney	4
St Kilda	2
Greater Western Sydney	1
Footscray / Bulldogs	1
Adelaide	0
Fremantle	0
Gold Coast	0
Port Adelaide	0

The two Adelaide teams are stiff there, I see. But it’s all in the timing. In GOTE Finals as in Real-time Finals, you need to win against the other top teams at the right time.

And now, for fun, let’s have a look at what the above table looks like if we weight* the results in the above table to see how many “effective” flags each team has won.

Team	GOTE Flags	Effective Flags
Essendon	17	17
Geelong	14	15
Carlton	16	13
Collingwood	14	13
Hawthorn	11	12
Richmond	13	12
Melbourne	10	10
Fitzroy / Brisbane	9	8
North Melbourne	6	7
West Coast	4	5
Sth Melb / Sydney	4	5
St Kilda	2	2
Greater Western Sydney	1	2
Footscray / Bulldogs	1	2
Adelaide	0	0
Fremantle	0	0
Gold Coast	0	0
Port Adelaide	0	0

 *To “weight” flags, we consider how many teams a flag-winner defeats to win that flag. And to do that, we define a “full” flag as one you win against 17 other teams. To illustrate, Collingwood won the GOTE Flag in 2018 and defeated 17 other teams to do so. So, that GOTE Flag is worth 1 / 17 x 17 =1. But the GOTE Flags Collingwood won before 1908, which were won against only 7 other teams, are worth only 1 / 17 x 7 = 0.4. And the GOTE Flag they won in 1917, which because of the war was against only 5 other teams, is worth only 1 / 17 x 5 = 0.3.

To We Here at The Way of the GOTE, that second table seems a fairer measure of the GOAT (the Greatest of All Time), according to each GOTE (the Greatest of The Era). The wins by GWS and Bulldogs in GOTE 2015 and GOTE 2017 have each doubled in value, whereas GOTE Flags won further back in history have been devalued. 

Essendon “has” had its real-time flags devalued, even though it doesn’t look like it. Without going back and checking, what will have happened here is that Essendon will have dropped from something like 17.4 GOTE Flags down to 16.6. That is, from 17 down to 17, so to speak, once you round to zero decimal places.

But wait! Even this is not very fair. Because GWS, for example, won its single flag in the table above inside a single decade and Essendon, for example, took 120 seasons or so to win its 17 flags.

So, we need to go a step further in the weighting game. We need to further weight each team’s flags against the number of seasons that team has played.

Have a look below and once again, see what you think.

Team	GOTE Flags	Effective Flags	Doubly Effective Flags
Greater Western Sydney	1	2	19
West Coast	4	5	15
Essendon	17	17	12
Geelong	14	15	11
Hawthorn	11	12	11
Carlton	16	13	9
Collingwood	14	13	9
Richmond	13	12	9
Melbourne	10	10	7
North Melbourne	6	7	7
Fitzroy / Brisbane	9	8	6
Sth Melb / Sydney	4	5	3
St Kilda	2	2	2
Footscray / Bulldogs	1	2	1
Adelaide	0	0	0
Fremantle	0	0	0
Gold Coast	0	0	0
Port Adelaide	0	0	0

Analysis:

• As at 2018 in the Way of the GOTE, the GOAT—the Greatest of All Time—is GWS. Because although GWS has won only one GOTE Flag, it has won it in very few seasons.
   
• Having said that, the way stats work, if they now go too many seasons without winning another one, they will start to slide faster than will, for example, West Coast, if West Coast likewise goes too many seasons without winning another one.

Comments.

• Behind the scenes, the Effective and Doubly Effective Flags are normalised and rounded. So, the total count of Effective and Doubly Effective Flags for all teams combined may well be one or two up or down on the total count of GOTE Flags. But that doesn’t offend my sense of stats. The dice can roll however it wants when it’s normalising and rounding.
   
• Except for Brisbane Bears games in 1996 only, which are excluded for logical reasons (Brisbane Bears was unable to contribute enough games in 1996, its final year before it folded, to participate in a full GOTE Season), University and Brisbane Bears games are INCLUDED in GOTE Footy. However, in each of their short histories, neither of these teams troubled the scoreboard in terms of GOTE Flags. So, we've excluded them from the above GOTE Flag Tables for the sake of neatness. My apologies to any lingering Uni fans out there.
   
• And “hmm”, the results for St Kilda and Bulldogs looked strange to me. Because St Kilda has been in the VFL/AFL for longer than Bulldogs. So, how come Bulldogs dropped a flag between the second and third columns and St Kilda held steady? Well, I inspected the hidden fields that created the table above and got my answer. It’s the old roll of the stats dice, once again.
   

North finds itself everywhere except on John Coleman

GOTE History 1897 to 2018

Can Richmond keep its 2020 form going into 2021 to take out the double? The GOTE 2020 Flag “and” the Real-time 2020 Flag? So far so good, here in Round 5 of real-time 2021, by the look of it.

And on that form, St Kilda may well drop out of finals contention in GOTE 2020, even though it made the finals in real-time 2020. 

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. For now, let’s just have a squiz at how things pan out in more detail, if we follow The Way of the GOTE back in time to 1897.

Geelong, King of the 1890s

You may recall that in the VFL in real time, Essendon was awarded the inaugural flag after a round-robin finals series. But here at The Way, we play a standard finals series between the top four teams the way those were played in almost all seasons in real time between 1897 and 1971.

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1897	Geelong	31	Essendon	24
GOTE 1898	Fitzroy / Brisbane	22	Collingwood	11
GOTE 1899	Geelong	57	Fitzroy / Brisbane	12

 

Carlton, King of the 1900s

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1900	Geelong	44	Collingwood	31
GOTE 1901	Essendon	43	Collingwood	16
GOTE 1902	Collingwood	33	Essendon	25
GOTE 1903	Collingwood	42	Fitzroy / Brisbane	33
GOTE 1904	Fitzroy / Brisbane	61	Collingwood	50
GOTE 1905	Fitzroy / Brisbane	80	Essendon	37
GOTE 1906	Carlton	77	Fitzroy / Brisbane	25
GOTE 1907	Carlton	91	St Kilda	35
GOTE 1908	Carlton	50	Essendon	33
GOTE 1909	Carlton	92	Essendon	56

 

Carlton, King of the 1910s

South Melbourne runners-up three years in a row from 1912 to 1914, I see. That’s stiff. But you can be stiff in GOTE too, even though it’s a fairer measure of Who’s Best, I think, than is the Real-time AFL in the modern era of rigged seasons, at least.

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1910	Collingwood	55	Sth Melb / Sydney	44
GOTE 1911	Essendon	41	Collingwood	35
GOTE 1912	Carlton	80	Sth Melb / Sydney	60
GOTE 1913	St Kilda	84	Sth Melb / Sydney	51
GOTE 1914	Carlton	45	Sth Melb / Sydney	39
GOTE 1915	Carlton	54	Fitzroy / Brisbane	38
GOTE 1916	Carlton	91	Richmond	41
GOTE 1917	Collingwood	65	Carlton	30
GOTE 1918	Sth Melb / Sydney	58	Carlton	53
GOTE 1919	Richmond	74	Collingwood	45

 

Collingwood, King of the 1920s

Something statistically bizarre happens in the 1920s. I could have run this app I’ve written to process The Way of The GOTE for a thousand years of real-time VFL/AFL games easily not see this happen.

Time to explain. A certain game played once upon a time in the real-time 1920s has ended up being the GOTE Grand Final for both GOTE 1927 "and" GOTE 1928. Now, emotionally this makes no sense, unless you’re a Pies fan. And yet, stats-wise, it DOES make sense, albeit in an unlikely way verging on the ridiculous. But not impossible. Because in real time, Collingwood and Melbourne played each other only once in 1927 and three times in 1928. And of the three times they played in 1928, one was an uncannily well-placed draw.

I’ll leave it at that. It was possible, and it happened.

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1920	Richmond	52	Collingwood	35
GOTE 1921	Richmond	36	Carlton	32
GOTE 1922	Fitzroy / Brisbane	68	Essendon	45
GOTE 1923	Fitzroy / Brisbane	68	Essendon	61
GOTE 1924	Essendon	65	Sth Melb / Sydney	57
GOTE 1925	Geelong	79	Collingwood	69
GOTE 1926	Collingwood	65	Geelong	49
GOTE 1927	Collingwood	68	Melbourne	64
GOTE 1928	Collingwood	68	Melbourne	64
GOTE 1929	Richmond	123	Collingwood	61

 

Collingwood, King of the 1930s

South Melbourne once again stiff, I see. This time between 1933 and 1936.

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1930	Collingwood	135	Carlton	74
GOTE 1931	Geelong	68	Richmond	48
GOTE 1932	Richmond	92	Carlton	83
GOTE 1933	Richmond	108	Sth Melb / Sydney	64
GOTE 1934	Sth Melb / Sydney	105	Richmond	59
GOTE 1935	Collingwood	78	Sth Melb / Sydney	58
GOTE 1936	Collingwood	140	Sth Melb / Sydney	85
GOTE 1937	Collingwood	95	Geelong	90
GOTE 1938	Collingwood	123	Carlton	84
GOTE 1939	Melbourne	122	Richmond	99

 

Essendon, King of the 1940s

 

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1940	Richmond	84	Carlton	83
GOTE 1941	Essendon	135	Richmond	81
GOTE 1942	Essendon	97	Richmond	84
GOTE 1943	Richmond	97	Fitzroy / Brisbane	51
GOTE 1944	Fitzroy / Brisbane	66	Richmond	51
GOTE 1945	Carlton	117	Sth Melb / Sydney	109
GOTE 1946	Essendon	85	Melbourne	75
GOTE 1947	Carlton	86	Essendon	85
GOTE 1948	Melbourne	89	Essendon	50
GOTE 1949	North Melbourne	86	Essendon	71

 

Melbourne, King of the 1950s

Collingwood stiff. Runners-up five years out of ten.

 

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1950	Essendon	92	North Melbourne	54
GOTE 1951	Geelong	62	Collingwood	33
GOTE 1952	Geelong	98	Collingwood	73
GOTE 1953	Collingwood	77	Geelong	65
GOTE 1954	Melbourne	111	Geelong	62
GOTE 1955	Melbourne	64	Collingwood	36
GOTE 1956	Melbourne	121	Collingwood	48
GOTE 1957	Melbourne	78	Collingwood	33
GOTE 1958	Melbourne	99	North Melbourne	44
GOTE 1959	Essendon	78	Melbourne	65

 

Essendon, King of the 1960s

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1960	Essendon	87	Melbourne	78
GOTE 1961	Hawthorn	69	Essendon	52
GOTE 1962	Essendon	90	Carlton	58
GOTE 1963	Geelong	109	Hawthorn	60
GOTE 1964	Melbourne	64	Collingwood	60
GOTE 1965	Essendon	105	St Kilda	70
GOTE 1966	Richmond	85	St Kilda	53
GOTE 1967	Richmond	118	Carlton	72
GOTE 1968	Carlton	56	Essendon	53
GOTE 1969	Carlton	210	Hawthorn	82

 

Hawthorn, King of the 1970s

Remember above, in the 1890s, when I mentioned that a proper GOTE Finals Series is one in which the top four teams play a finals series the way those were played in almost all seasons in real time between 1897 and 1971? Well, in The Way of the GOTE, as it was in the VFL in real time, we switch to a Final Five, come 1972. And we play that Final Five the standard way a final series was played in real-time between 1972 and 1990. (That’s Peter Knights there on the burst, further below.)

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1970	Hawthorn	96	Carlton	36
GOTE 1971	Hawthorn	82	St Kilda	75
GOTE 1972	Carlton	177	Richmond	150
GOTE 1973	Richmond	116	Carlton	86
GOTE 1974	Richmond	128	North Melbourne	87
GOTE 1975	North Melbourne	122	Hawthorn	67
GOTE 1976	Hawthorn	100	North Melbourne	70
GOTE 1977	North Melbourne	151	Collingwood	124
GOTE 1978	Hawthorn	121	North Melbourne	103
GOTE 1979	Carlton	82	Collingwood	77

 

Hawthorn, King of the 1980s

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1980	Richmond	159	Collingwood	78
GOTE 1981	Carlton	92	Collingwood	72
GOTE 1982	Carlton	103	Richmond	85
GOTE 1983	Hawthorn	140	Essendon	57
GOTE 1984	Essendon	105	Hawthorn	81
GOTE 1985	Essendon	170	Hawthorn	92
GOTE 1986	Hawthorn	110	Carlton	68
GOTE 1987	Melbourne	96	Carlton	66
GOTE 1988	Hawthorn	135	Essendon	91
GOTE 1989	Melbourne	116	Hawthorn	104

 

Essendon and Geelong, Kings of the 1990s

In the Way of the GOTE, Brisbane Bears is a standalone team from 1986 to 1996 and Fitzroy becomes the Brisbane Lions in 1997. Brisbane Bears games in 1996 are excluded from GOTE Footy, because in 1996, Brisbane Bears failed to play every other team twice. Put another way, from 1996 onwards, Brisbane Bears played too few games to complete a full GOTE 1996 Home and Away Series.

Also, remember above, in the 1970s, when I mentioned that a proper GOTE Finals Series is one in which the top five teams play a finals series the standard way those were played between 1972 and 1990? Well, in The Way of the GOTE, as it was in the VFL in real time, we switch to a Final Six, come 1991 and then a Final 8, come 1994. And we will be playing those the standard way final series have been played in real-time since 1991.

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 1990	West Coast	115	Essendon	52
GOTE 1991	Hawthorn	152	St Kilda	74
GOTE 1992	Geelong	124	Collingwood	96
GOTE 1993	Essendon	133	Carlton	89
GOTE 1994	Geelong	105	Carlton	72
GOTE 1995	Geelong	98	Carlton	86
GOTE 1996	North Melbourne	83	Essendon	64
GOTE 1997	North Melbourne	105	Adelaide	92
GOTE 1998	Essendon	80	Footscray / Bulldogs	76
GOTE 1999	Essendon	165	Hawthorn	82

 

Brisbane, King of the 2000s

That three-peat I see there by Brisbane mirrors what happened in real time. Fair enough too. What with all those draft picks.

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 2000	Essendon	122	Hawthorn	57
GOTE 2001	Fitzroy / Brisbane	129	Port Adelaide	72
GOTE 2002	Fitzroy / Brisbane	138	Port Adelaide	82
GOTE 2003	Fitzroy / Brisbane	100	Sth Melb / Sydney	56
GOTE 2004	West Coast	84	St Kilda	66
GOTE 2005	West Coast	93	Adelaide	77
GOTE 2006	Geelong	182	West Coast	47
GOTE 2007	Hawthorn	115	Geelong	89
GOTE 2008	Geelong	80	St Kilda	68
GOTE 2009	St Kilda	70	Geelong	46

 

Sydney, King of the 2010s (so far …)

Era	Premier	Score	Runner Up	Score
GOTE 2010	Collingwood	120	Geelong	79
GOTE 2011	Sth Melb / Sydney	106	Hawthorn	69
GOTE 2012	North Melbourne	91	Sth Melb / Sydney	48
GOTE 2013	Sth Melb / Sydney	107	Hawthorn	88
GOTE 2014	Hawthorn	94	Fremantle	67
GOTE 2015	Footscray / Bulldogs	89	Sth Melb / Sydney	67
GOTE 2016	Geelong	103	Greater Western Sydney	59
GOTE 2017	Greater Western Sydney	79	Richmond	77
GOTE 2018	West Coast	98	Collingwood	76

 And that will do for Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, we will have a closer look at how The Way of the GOTE is derived from real-time VFL/AFL results.

There above is a picture of Tom Wills, who started it all. Unless, of course, football-playing indigenous mobs down here in our corner of Australia did.

Which gives me an idea for an afterword.

Afterword

But I need to be careful. Because I could easily be interpreted as being political, with what I’m about to say. But I’m not being political. I’m just being competitive. See what you think.

My bet … is that given it seems Wills probably wasn’t unaware of marngrook, which was the indigenous footy game that was up and about when our game came into existence back in the 1850s, then there is at least “some” connection. Because once you see any form of footy, you don’t usually forget it. Especially if you’re a football kind of person. Which Wills clearly was.

In which case, both I and indigenous people, I think, can support a case that our game is descended from their game. With a question mark only over to what extent.

And this is good for someone like me, especially. Because as I’ve suggested, I’m competitive. And I happen to like the idea that we seem to have the oldest football “code” in the world. Certainly, it seems, the oldest big league professional football teams in the world in 2021 are Melbourne and Geelong. So, why would I make a “point” of being certain that we have no indigenous origins, when no such certainty exists? And, indeed, when it seems more likely that we “do” have indigenous origins? Better, I think, to market the likely of a connection, rather than dismiss it out of hand. That way, we have an even better argument that our game is older and better than “newbie” football codes like soccer and rugby.

Sporty Monk, 16 Apr 2021