GEORGIE PARKER: South Australian icon Barrie Robran not widely recognised because he did not play in the VFL

West Australian

12 hours ago

I awoke to a text from my mum last week: 'Barrie Robran has died. I am devastated.'
She is an avid North Adelaide fan and passed that down to us kids, so I know all about Robran and how good he was.
'The best South Australian to have ever played the game,' I've been told by Mum and my Grandpa — and confirmed by none other than Ron Barassi. Bruce McAvaney simply described Robran as the 'Bradman of footy.'
When Robran passed away, South Australia lost one of its most respected footballers: a three-time Magarey Medallist, seven-time premiership player, and the first SANFL inductee to be elevated to Legend status in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
For much of his career, Robran turned down lucrative offers from Victoria, staying in my home state of South Australia.
He didn't need the VFL to prove his greatness — he was that good. Robran was, by any measure, a giant of the game.
The news of his death made national headlines, with AFL CEO Andrew Dillon offering a touching tribute.
Yet, outside of South Australia, it did seem his death passed with relatively little fanfare.
Partly, I'm sure, because he kept a low profile and shied away from publicity. But I also can't help but think that if someone of his calibre had played in the VFL — even with his quiet existence after his playing days — it may have been higher up the news bulletin order.
This is not just a matter of nostalgia for me, my family, and those who support the North Adelaide Roosters or South Australian players in general.
It's something that always bubbles away under my skin: the AFL, in building itself as the national competition, has slowly airbrushed away the history of the leagues that laid the groundwork for its success.
The VFL flags, the VFL awards, and the VFL history exist — very loudly and proudly — but the stories of the other state leagues, particularly the SANFL and WAFL, which are fiercely followed and proud competitions in their own right, are too often treated as a side piece rather than as integral parts of the game's progression to what it is today.
The VFL was just one of several — not the only — elite competitions across the country before the AFL.
In South Australia, the SANFL was not a feeder league. It, along with the VFL and the WAFL, were premier leagues in their respective states, with interstate matches fiercely contested.
History outside of the VFL matters, and it's frustrating that it feels so secondary to the AFL.
Sport is richer when it remembers where it came from. It builds identity.
Clubs like Port Adelaide didn't start in 1997. Their cultures, rivalries, and supporter bases stretch back decades — and deserve to be told with the same prominence as the VFL clubs' histories.
None of this means turning back the clock. But it does mean respecting the parts of the game that didn't originate in Melbourne. It means treating figures like Robran not as state-based legends, but as national icons — just like we do for the VFL equivalents.
We've created a wonderful national competition that encompasses the entirety of this great land.
We've combined all these proud leagues, so can't we also tell the stories of those who made the game great in those places long before the AFL arrived, with the same amount of gusto we give to those who played for Collingwood or Carlton in the same era?
I don't know if I'm alone in this feeling as an 'interstate' supporter, but I feel as though we are the second cousins in all of this. The ones you don't really know much about, but your parents said you need to invite anyway.
Robran never needed the VFL to validate his career, so I guess he wouldn't be too worried about my gripe.
But it's a real shame that his legacy isn't showcased to the extent it probably should have been — and that a whole generation of kids will walk past his statue out the front of the Adelaide Oval and say, 'Mum, who's that?' rather than smiling at it with pride, like I do.