Welcome to the home of
www.GRANDOLDFLAG.com.au
A site specialising in the buying, selling and trading of
Melbourne Football Club Memorabilia and general
V.F.L. / A.F.L. items
Last Updated 9/11/2024
My name is Joel Williams and I am a fanatical collector of Melbourne Football Club memorabilia. This website is dedicated to buying, selling, trading and providing information regarding V.F.L. / A.F.L. memorabilia - especially Melbourne Football Club memorabilia.
As you wander through the site, you will see . . . .
Items from my personal collection
Items I am chasing for my collection
Items available for sale or trade
An information service re: Melbourne Football Club memorabilia e.g. cigarette/trade cards, football records (including night games, practice matches) etc
Wants list section (where you can email your wants lists)
In the beginning.....
I first started collecting Football memorabilia as a small child hoarding Scanlens cards and rain soaked Football Records (picked up off the ground after Football games) in the very early 80’s. Due to the addictive nature of collecting, it became clear very quickly that collecting all things Football would become very time consuming, very difficult and very costly. My passion for the Mighty Demons ensured that I would soon specialise in Melbourne F.C. items predominantly and, after that decision, things have progressed fairly smoothly ever since.
My three main vices are football cards, football records and football jumpers…
FOOTBALL CARDS
From the first Sniders and Abrahams series of Australian Footballers in 1904 to the glossy, high quality signature and tribute cards of today, football cards have progressed at a rapid rate. They depict the famous, infamous and sometimes unknown stars of the day as well as providing a vital source of reference information.
In my opinion the mass-produced, “limited edition” cards of today pale in comparison to some of the more obscure issues of yesteryear. I have more pleasure (and difficulty) searching for 1958 "Jonco" cards than any current Select signatures!
FOOTBALL RECORDS
Everybody knows the weekly “AFL Record” is available at all games throughout the Football season, but how often does a copy of the programme from Melbourne v. Central Goulburn Valley Football League (played in 1948 at Shepparton) come around for sale? Practice matches, night series records, overseas/exhibition matches, commemorative records - these are the true football record collectibles.
There were 100,022 people at the 2018 A.F.L. Grand Final and probably in excess of 50,000 AFL Records printed. How many copies exist of Melbourne v. North Launceston (played in 1950 in Launceston) or Melbourne v. East Perth (played in 1956 in Perth)? One wonders…
FOOTBALL JUMPERS
For many years, VFL players were usually issued a maximum of two Club jumpers – one to be used for training and the other on match days. Long sleeve versions were always scarce and hard to obtain, and damaged jumpers were repaired rather than actually replaced more often than not. Throughout the 1980’s when sponsor patches began appearing on the jumpers, many clubs simply removed and replaced these patches at years’ end (as the sponsors changed) making the task of finding an example of each and every year’s variation exceedingly difficult.
Fast forward to today, and Melbourne wore SEVEN different designs throughout the 2018 AFL season – Regular Home, Indigenous, ANZAC, Breast Cancer, 160th Anniversary and two varying Clash jumper varieties! This obviously presents a whole new set of challenges (and considerable expense) to us hardcore jumper collectors!!
Despite all of this, the search continues…