Which, heading towards 2015, and a season the AFL has unofficially dubbed "the year of the fan", is an example the indigenous code needs to study very carefully. Soccer has always had it over the indigenous game for the quality of its crowd chants and singing, but this wasn't just about clever quips and taunts to opposition fans. There were banners and waving flags aplenty, mass twirling of coloured scarves, and a constant wall of noise generated by the fans, not by ear-splitting and intrusive advertising booming across the PA system at the breaks, a staple of AFL on this occasion thankfully absent. It was a salient reminder for us older football types of how AFL used to be as a live experience, and perhaps the extent to which the commercialisation and homogenisation of our own code has chipped away at it. Watch any clips from the old VFL days and you're reminded again. For starters, there were up to eight or nine different venues, each with their own character and quirks, compared with just two in Melbourne now.

Have a look at any home-and-away game from the 1970s or '80s, let alone finals at the MCG or Waverley, and you'll see grounds decked out in club-coloured banners stretching around most of the stands. They were works of art, slogans that borrowed from old verse or simpler rhymes, the lettering bold or in some memorable cases in Old English script. Then there were the cheer squads, whose floggers stretched around the fence further than you'd ever see today. They threw copious amounts of crepe paper streamers and ripped up phone directories. Each week, the area behind each team's goals resembled a sea of colour and movement. The reason you don't see these things any more is in most cases the same: overly draconian health and safety measures and corporatisation of the game to within an inch of its life. First it was players tripping on streamers and a couple of silly escapades where floggers caught on fire, which led to restrictions on their size. Then came the complaints from sponsors about the streamers covering up the perimeter advertising that began to encase grounds. Good luck finding a square inch of an AFL ground these days not sold off to sponsorship.

There are a lot more AFL games per season than there were 30 years ago. But a lot less differentiation, too, as will happen when roughly 100 games are scheduled for just two multipurpose stadiums that a large contingent of clubs all call "home", though the term regarding Etihad and the MCG should be used loosely. Social clubs remain anchored at the old suburban bases of those still retaining some connection with them. The grounds of today may have post-match function rooms for the clubs hosting games there, but there's a transient feel, the lack of club culture palpable. Even beyond that, I hear consistent complaints from football fans about the "nanny state" intruding on their football-going experiences. Signs any more provocative than "Go Pies" being frowned upon or confiscated. And, believe it or not, supporters being warned by security staff for barracking too loudly. The AFL has had enough trouble this year, amid confusing ticketing systems and unfriendly scheduling, convincing followers to actually turn up to games. The last thing it can afford is to make them feel like naughty schoolchildren when they do. Which is why, for a hard-core AFL supporter, last Saturday night felt something like a trip back in time. Real passion and involvement, unstymied by over-officiousness. Loads of colour and movement. And lots of noise actually generated by fans rather than speaker stacks.

Of course soccer has its own cultural nuances, its own vibe. But occasions such as the Melbourne Victory-Melbourne City derby just serve to reinforce that, at this critical juncture in the AFL public's relationship with the game, it's a feel those running the show could do a lot worse than reacquaint themselves with. Vote: Sport in October