Banner (Australian rules football)
It is hoisted before the start of a match, and typically shows an encouraging or celebratory message to the team; then, as the players take to the field, they run through the banner, breaking it.
Tracing its origins to the 1930s, the concept of the Australian rules football banner is unique in world sport, and has become standard at all AFL matches.
With extra tape on the edges and at the pole, this makes the banner a fairly sturdy construction which the players have no trouble breaking through.
Essendon's VFL Grand Final races of 1947 & 1949 show the difference: the former is a looser tapestry, the latter tightly woven.
[1] In 1961, a "Magpies" banner was affixed to the fence directly between the goal posts at an MCG finals game when Carlton Football Club player John James was presented with his Brownlow Medal.
An example of this is a prominently mounted Collingwood banner during the 1966 Essendon v St Kilda VFL Preliminary Final.
By 1984 and 1985 grand finals, advertising filled the fence, and although space remained available at grandstand level, only a few banners were erected.
Cheer squads also evolved the size of "floggers"—crepe streamers attached to sticks in club colours and waved in support of their team, which were banned in 1978.
Because they were cumbersome and tedious to construct, they were reserved only for special occasions, such as finals games and player milestones.
Inspirational, or anti-opposition, messages were replaced by advertising slogans, creating an insipid feel to the banner.
In 2014, Collingwood Football Club banned the cheer squad from creating or holding the team's banner.
As it is a double-sided construction, which the cheer squad usually hoists in all four directions to allow all fans to read each side, most of these are seen each week.
It is common for junior clubs to prepare small banners when one of their players is playing a milestone game.
It was created by Richmond Cheer Squad, in recognition of retired VFL player Jim Jess, who was then playing for Balranald.
As crepe paper and sticky tape is not renowned for its strength, banners will often rip in places, or even be completely de-poled if the weather is very windy or wet.
In 1971, St Kilda's Cheer Squad mocked their poorly performing opposition in a match against South Melbourne when the St Kilda run-through read "South Melbourne the Invincible Masters and Supreme Conquerors of..." and on the reverse side, "the wooden spoon".
Later that year, Collingwood derided former player, and then Essendon captain-coach, Des Tuddenham with a banner that read, "Sgt Tuddy's Lonely Tarts Club Band", a play on a Beatles song title.
In protest at their club's imminent relocation to Sydney, South Melbourne Cheer Squad made an all black 'mourning' banner in 1981.
Their captain and several players ran around the banner, as it was not in South Melbourne's red and white team colours and did not realise it was theirs to run through.
[9] Carlton's Cheer Squad were denied permission to use a social club room to make one of their banners in 1984.
[10] During a dispute with their club in 1985, Collingwood Cheer Squad refused to make a banner for a game against St Kilda.
A year later, after the Brisbane Bears and West Coast had been admitted, the Saints ran through another banner that read "VFL not NFL".
In response to this, the cheer squad banner retorted: "Barassi we love our Western Oval + our ethnic + Asian community.
Other players, notably Matthew Richardson and Brendan Fevola, avoid touching the banner altogether.
