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Many people write about the vote all those years ago, but I don't think there has been a thread on it .
The thing that has always intrigued me is that people fell for the concept of strengthening WA football by taking forty extra players out of the competition.

In terms of the actual vote, I have never understood why Subi votted for it given that, whatever happened, it would be the club most affectted. We had to fight for the rights we ended up with from the beginning; had to fight off a propossed merger in the late 1980s; for those reasons alone I would have had Subi in the column with SF and SD at the vote on the night.

It still rankles some of us to this day AR
I am not saying that a National Competition should never have happened just not the ramshackle way this was done really just being an extended VFL.
All strong State Leagues should have been kept in tact with a Big Bash type set up for a 10 team National Competition.
Historically weak clubs like St Kilda, Footscray, North Melbourne etc had no right to be in a supposed elite National Comp!

the whole thing was ridiculous -- set up by a private company for goodness sake. They have fixed that part of it up. Yep, we should have joined at the same time, and in alliance with, the South Australians. People were conned, there is little doubt, when I hear justifications decades later. Some people, it seemed, believed that 'we will be able to watch state of origin standard every week'. Whom in their right mind would have believed that the bottom of the VFL was anywhere near that standard of football? Such people, of course, aware or otherwise, have had to suffer the cruel irony of the demise of state of origin football.

The Wafl clubs just got it wrong.The competition was raped at the end of 1986.Without the transfer fees the Wafl clubs recieved in the past.
Don't think the 8 clubs could foresee how quickly the footy fans would dump the Wafl comp.Dont think a 2nd Afl club based out of Perth was on the radar also.
Just think the Wafl clubs thought they had control of the new expanded VFL club.I've been of the view that the AFL brand is now to strong for all tier 2 competitions.
As for Subi the reigning Premier who where about to lose half there side.A story was sold to them in the benefits of the VFL expansion.

The most hastily cobbled together consortium I've ever witnessed - dead against it at the time and still am to this day
But even so , I never thought they'd take over the game itself for themselves - they've saved every single crab of a side even Fitzroy got relocated (and still exist as a club in Melbourne Amateur ranks)

And used this state to do it

One of the ironies of the situation is that a club, such as North Melbourne, had to be saved by West Aussies very recently.

I wonder if we will ever see a Western Australian chairman of the AFL?

Arkroyal - ever heard of Mike Fitzpatrick and Richard Goyder ?

MO: neither of them are the boss as Wayne Jackson was in his time. You are stretching it to call Fitzpatrick a West Aussie. In any case, even if they were to appoint one in the future, it would be of little recourse because he would have to toe the Victorian line.

Jackson was the CEO.

Fitzpatrick and Goyder held/hold the role of Chairman who the CEO reports to.

the ceo reports to the board to be absolutely correct in the matter. I had a quick look at the AFL Commission, as a body it certainly does not lack ambition, claiming as it does, ' to be the universal keeper of the code'. There I was thinking the WA Commission ran football in this state.

I see Jason Ball is on the Commission?