Forty Years Gone: AFL Dumps the Cards That Raised Us

Forty years. Nearly four decades of ripping open packets in the newsagent, praying for a Pies player and copping a Carlton rookie instead. Gone. The AFL has officially parted ways with its long-time trading card partner, and footy traditionalists like me are, to quote the headline, extremely disappointed.

Is nothing sacred anymore?

A Near 40-Year Love Affair, Over

Think about that number for a sec. Forty years. That’s longer than most AFL coaching careers, longer than Carlton’s premiership drought is going to feel by the time they finally get one, and it’s basically the entire lifespan of the competition as we know it since the old VFL days.

Generations of footy fans grew up with these cards. You’d swap them in the schoolyard, stick the good ones in the spokes of your bike, and absolutely lose your mind if you pulled a rare one from the pack. For a Collingwood supporter like me, there was nothing better than finding a Pies legend staring back at you from that little cardboard rectangle.

Now that partnership is done and dusted. The AFL has moved on. And while I get that footy is a business now more than ever, this one stings a bit different.

Why Does This One Hurt More Than Most?

We’ve seen sponsorship changes before. Guernsey deals come and go. Broadcast partners shuffle around every few years like it’s musical chairs. Usually I shrug it off because that’s modern footy, carn the Pies and all that, but the cards feel different.

Trading cards weren’t just a commercial product. They were a rite of passage. Ask any footy fan over thirty what their first pack of cards felt like and watch their eyes light up. It’s nostalgia in its purest form, and honestly it’s one of the few bits of footy culture that hasn’t been completely corporatised into oblivion.

Or so we thought.

The truth is nothing stays the same forever in this competition. The AFL has shown time and time again that if a bigger or shinier deal comes along, the history books get rewritten pretty quickly. Forty years of partnership doesn’t carry the weight it should when there’s a bottom line to think about.

What This Says About the Modern AFL

Here’s my issue with it all. The AFL loves to talk up its heritage. They’ll wheel out Bob Rose, they’ll show footage of the 1990 Grand Final on a loop, they’ll remind us constantly that this is the people’s game. But when it comes to actually backing in the things that built that heritage, like a trading card company that’s been part of the furniture since the eighties, it’s suddenly just business as usual.

You can’t have it both ways. Either tradition matters or it doesn’t.

And don’t get me started on how this impacts the next generation of footy fans. Kids today are glued to phones and iPads, sure, but there’s still something about a physical card you can hold, trade, and argue about with your mates. Are we really saying that experience isn’t worth protecting?

The Collingwood Angle, Because Of Course

Look, I’m not going to pretend this is some massive football operations issue for the Pies. It’s not going to affect our midfield rotations or whether we can finally nail down a key forward. But it does feel like another small piece of the traditional footy experience chipped away.

As a Collingwood supporter you get used to things feeling like they’re stacked against you. The umpires definately have had it in for us over the years, and don’t even get me started on some of the dodgy free kicks we’ve copped in finals. This card news isn’t in that category, but it’s part of a broader pattern where the stuff that made footy feel like footy just keeps disappearing bit by bit.

Remember when you could actually afford a membership without taking out a small loan? Remember when the footy record was something you grabbed at the ground instead of scanning a QR code for? Little things add up, and this trading card split is just the latest one.

What Happens Now?

The AFL will no doubt find another partner. There’s always someone willing to step in when there’s a licensing deal on the table, whether that’s a digital card platform, an NFT style gimmick (shudder), or some new-age collectibles company that none of us have heard of yet. Footy will survive, it always does.

But it won’t feel the same. There’s something about a near 40-year partnership ending that marks the end of an era, even if the AFL frames it as a routine commercial decision. These things always get dressed up as forward thinking or modernisation, but fans can see through that pretty easily.

Should the AFL have fought harder to keep this one going? Probably. Will they lose sleep over a bunch of grumpy traditionalists like me being filthy about it? Not a chance.

Final Word From a Rusted-On Supporter

At the end of the day footy is about memories, and for a lot of us those memories include ripping open a pack of cards hoping for a Collingwood great. That connection between fans and the game isn’t built through flashy sponsorship logos or app notifications. It’s built through the small stuff, the stuff you don’t realise matters until it’s gone.

This is one of those moments.

The AFL might see this as just another expired contract that didn’t get renewed. For the rest of us, it’s the end of something that’s been part of the furniture since before half the current playing list was even born. Forty years doesn’t come around twice.

Carn the Pies, and here’s hoping whatever replaces these cards actually respects the history instead of just chasing the next quick buck. I won’t hold my breath though. This league should of protected this stuff a long time ago.