How did the aggrieved fans respond? Well, a sizeable "loud and clear" minority continued to boo one of the game's greatest footballers, to the point that he wouldn't appear at the grand final for a send off or accept a potential award from his peers. One drunken lout hounded Alastair Clarkson, who took the bait and gave the yobbo a shove in view of the cameras outside an Adelaide hotel. A man was charged with assaulting a woman, who was with her children, at the Fremantle-Hawthorn preliminary final. Perth's Domain Stadium became the epicentre of a virulent new form of "fan engagement". The motivation of booers was again widely debated. Some players are booed because they've done something unsociable - such as belting or corking an opponent. Some are booed because they're too good. Only one is booed because he's Goodes. Plenty has been said about the treatment of Adam Goodes, who ends his career in a manner that is unprecedented for a champion of his stature – virtually hounded into seclusion. There will always be denialists who cannot accept that race played a role in the hooting of Goodes, who, as the Swans observed, was never booed until he was Australian of the Year. To borrow from Julia Gillard, speaking on the role gender played in public hostility to her prime ministership, race doesn't explain all of what happened to Goodes, but it doesn't explain none of it, either.

Obviously, the booers don't represent the sum of most supporters, and the men who behaved badly in Perth - and elsewhere - are a small portion of the footy public. The fans who are loud and proud, but never lout and foul, are still an overwhelming majority. But there was another collective failure of fan-dom this year when you consider the numbers who attended games. The 2015 home-and-away figures showed a tiny decline in average attendances of 93 persons a game. If the Adelaide-Geelong game had not been cancelled following Phil Walsh's death, the AFL might have posted an equally tiny increase. Crowds, thus, were virtually unchanged from 2014, despite a vastly superior fixture, cheaper food and a series of measures that viewed the fan as if he was a swinging voter. Where were the crowds? Well, the AFL can rightly point out that the Blues were diabolical, the Bombers merely awful and that while pies were cheaper - and, according to the AFL chairman, eaten in far greater numbers - the Pies had another embarrassing second half of the season, winning only three of their last 11 games to finish 12th. We could add that, collectively, fans are suffering from what a colleague called "Hawthorn Fatigue". Then, consider that three of the top four teams were non-Victorian clubs, which have limited capacity stadia.

Many Essendon supporters, in addition to tiring of losing, were justifiably worn down by the never-ending story of ASADA and had turned off. By season's end, Collingwood and Essendon could summon only 43,000 to their dreary dead rubber - less than half of the Anzac Day game. Of the heaviest drawing Melbourne teams, only Richmond created any kind of mass fervour among their tribe and, as we know, the Tiger balloon was dramatically deflated on the first weekend of the finals. The surprising Bulldogs provided the romance in the Melbourne market, but, without both a fixture to maximise crowds or a large following, their enticing brand didn't compensate for the big club followers who dropped off. The Dogs deserve a fairer fixture, with some prime times, for 2016. Typically, all that ails the game is slated home to the AFL hierarchy, or perhaps the clubs. Usually, it's the league that lets the fans down, often by displaying a tin ear. In 2015, it was the fans who didn't listen when the clubs, their own players and finally the AFL asked people to treat Goodes with a modicum of respect. It was a section of fans who overstepped the line at Domain Stadium. Today, the AFL regrets that the Goodes booing wasn't stomped on earlier, while McLachlan's initial comments were carefully calibrated and seemed mindful of not disenfranchising all booers.

It was the fans who didn't turn up, despite a nicer fixture. Unfortunately, the league cannot legislate a competitive Carlton or Essendon. Mostly, we remember seasons by the premiers, sometimes for the grand final. But our remembrance of years past can also focus on an overpowering story or event. In 1996, North were premiers and Plugger Lockett kicked a ton, but the season sticks in the mind as one of mergers and near mergers (nearly Melbourne Hawks, and almost North-Fitzroy Lattes until Brisbane Lions happened). In 2013, year of the Hawk morphed into year of Essendon's Dankest days. In 1987, the Blues beat the Hawks on a hot afternoon, but the year is most remembered as the first in an expanded competition, as West Coast and the Bears arrived. This football season ended like 2013 and 2014 in that the happiest team was Hawthorn and with the Bombers still mired, though with a finish line in sight. Otherwise, AD 1 was a year in which, despite the AFL's preparedness to listen, too many fans covered their ears or turned away. Trouble bubbled up from underneath, rather than trickling down.