Will the average "non-Northie" fan stomach it if City coach Robbie Waters and his captain Jason McNamara - a decorated, respected dual Henderson medallist - hold the Ballarat Football League's most coveted prize aloft?

Does this mean the average Ballarat football fan will barrack for Sunbury today?

Is Sunbury really an alternative that will sit well with most Ballarat-based spectators? (Most say, they are that powerhouse from the east with a history of unsavoury tactics).

Do we really have to get this petty about the whole game?

Ballarat's football fraternity really needs to grow up.

In all great stories, particularly those of impressive sporting feats, there is a good camp and a bad camp.

You can hardly help but mentally align yourself with a team, even if only for the game's duration, to add interest to the game. Maybe even cheer.

But the BFL has a dilemma with two teams traditionally jeered in today's senior football final.

It all comes down to culture, tradition and deep-seeded pride - kind of like a Shakespearean tragedy - from the BFL's Ballarat-based clubs.

And North Ballarat Football Club.

The league's epicentre has torn itself apart this week with Ballarat clubs getting far too precious.

One incident set it all off.

North Ballarat Roosters coach Gerard FitzGerald went to the BFL preliminary final last Saturday as an interested onlooker - FitzGerald, a Victorian Football League master coach is the figurehead for the region's football development - and got cooked when spotted offering advice to City coach Robbie Waters.

He was offering advice that Waters sought from his long-time mentor and friend.

Speculation and public perception of an alignment got nasty, featuring classic high school-style bickering.

About the VFL, FitzGerald is renowned for working hard to promote the Ballarat region's football and the city AS A WHOLE.

Ballarat clubs have painted him as a villain because of what he represents.

FitzGerald has done nothing against BFL rules - just as Sebastopol coach Shawne Dummett could have rightly drawn on advice from St Kilda coach Scott Watters if the Saints' general visited a Burras' huddle. (The Burras have a public partnership with the AFL club).

North Ballarat says it does not care what people think.

Maybe all levels of the club should care just a bit, instead of just biting back, because of what it represents as a football pathway for the region.

Ballarat football culture dictates to be wary of North Ballarat.

The Roosters won 15 BFL premierships before stepping up to the VFL (success draws jealousy and it does not help the club's reputation as the Collingwood of the league that they wear black and white).

The the club's junior arm rebuilt a senior BFL pathway, bit-by-bit, and via a two-year stint in Bendigo ranks, North Ballarat City entered the BFL in 2008 with strict sponsorship and player recruitment restrictions to allay fears they would draw on the Roosters to rebuild as a BFL powerhouse.

It sounds like an action film with the bad team gathering forces in a new form.

But City is a club - just like Redan, Lake Wendouree, East Point or Ballarat - that draws on volunteers to work the gates, cook up a sweat in the canteen, and run water to players.

City has worked into its first grand final with two-third of players fostered by its junior ranks under a football savvy coach.

If North Ballarat City wins today, it should be a celebrated moment for the club and force other clubs to be more proactive in trying to match them in the future - perceived alignment or not.