"One defective feature has been prominent of late. When scrimmages occur ... players fall upon the leather and thereby stop all play till the ball is thrown up. This not alone occupies a great deal of time in the match, but makes the game wretchedly slow, and it is to be hoped that players will make a slight effort to do away with the practice."

And this:

"The system of detailing one player for the express purpose of hanging on to an opponent, and preventing his getting the ball by fair or foul play, is most undignified for the watcher and contemptible on the part of the side resorting to such tactics, and altogether so unsportsmanlike that ... the offender should be disqualified from playing."

These are extracts respectively from The Ballarat Courier and The Sportsman in 1885, unearthed by Mark Pennings in volume 2 of his compendious Origins of Australian Football. Its release this week is timely; it shows what has changed out of all recognition about Australian rules football, but what also is eternal, and universal. All codes, all sports, tend to self-correct, which is why I would argue against the introduction of a send-off rule in response to Ty Vickery's felling of Dean Cox. It would be a knee-jerk reaction to a flailing arm, which at very least is biologically messy.

I also doubt that spectacle is a significant factor in this season's downturn of crowds in Melbourne. Or, for that matter, free agency. Also from Pennings: "Your letter desiring an allowance per Saturday was duly considered by the committee. I am instructed to inform you that while greatly regretting the loss of your valuable services, they are unable to entertain the matter, as it would be a very undesirable precedent to establish." The year was 1881. The club was Carlton. The player had asked for five shillings. The fact is that players moved between clubs more often then even now, and with similarly base motives, and the game grew and flourished.

The trendsetter, then as now, was Geelong, whose open and fast way of playing revolutionised the game, set a precedent for future Geelong teams and won a string of premierships that current Geelong president Colin Carter understandably wants to annex to the records. Evidently, Geelong was a pacesetter off the field, too. As long ago as 1880, the Geelong Advertiser recorded that "good accommodation was afforded to the fair sex, who witnessed the match, the grandstand having been swept clean and the seats neatly carpeted, a convenience which was greatly appreciated''.

Which brings us with a Jeremy Howe leap to this week, and new AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan's confession that the AFL might have failed fans, and his vow to redress that failure. If the many issues here could be summed up in one word, it would be "neglected". Fans cannot depend on a time or price if they can go, a TV timeslot if they can't, or a fair crack at a grand final ticket when their time comes. Anecdotally, some now prefer park football, with its keynote of intimacy.

Some of this tinkering, you suspect, is the outcome of focus groups. Focus groups are obliged to come up with something, and so are liable to drive change for change's sake. This has led football down cricket's garden path. In an effort to attract non-fans, it has run the risk of ostracising fans. Non-fans, by definition, care little for the game, so are offered gaudy distractions - coloured lights, white noise, toys, racket and tinsel - which irritate and disaffect fans.

Some so-called innovations, you also suspect, evolve from lavishly funded study tours, to which football officials are as partial as politicians. The US is a favourite destination. Football officials come back with dollar signs in their eyes, but blind to their own constituency. Dynamic ticketing and Monday night football are examples. Australia is not America, and for that matter, Victoria is not Queensland. Cultural roots and resilience cannot be underestimated.

As an organisation, the AFL still projects arrogance, the way some political parties do, certain that it knows better than the people what is best for them. A small, but telling example emerged this week when the AFL sought to reinforce a ban on media tweeting from the tribunal. "It's our hearing," said an official. But it's our game, we, the football public. This is appropriation of our common wealth on a scale even a mining company would not attempt.

Thitherto, the AFL has been dismissive of the Fans Association, treating it as an extremists organisation. It might be a small minority, but it represents possibly a silently seething majority. Moreover, it knows its remit, making no point either of standard of play or free agency, but concentrating on amenity. Fans are not complex characters. Writing in The Footballer in 1880, Follower observed: "There is certainly a fascination belonging to the game, to which causes many a heart - manly and womanly - to throb more wildly while watching the strife, than do even those of the players themselves." Fans want only that their passion is respected, and within reason accommodated. In his honeymoon period, McLachlan appears to intend to listen.