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HISTORY OF THE GAME


ORIGINS


A statue next to the Melbourne Cricket Ground on the approximate site of the 1858 "foot-ball" match between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College. Tom Wills is depicted umpiring behind two young players contesting the ball. The plaque reads: "Wills did more than any other person - as footballer and umpire, co-writer of the rules and promoter of the game - to develop Australian Football during its first decade."There is evidence of several unique forms of "foot-ball" being played in the Victorian Gold Fields which may have shared a range of influences. The Geelong rules began to take shape around 1856, although they were never codified. The Melbourne rules were formed through a series of experimental matches and eventually became dominant.A letter by Tom Wills was published in Bell's Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle on 10 July 1858, called for a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during winter.  This is widely regarded as the most significant milestone in the organisation of Australian football. It was during 1858 that references to the first "foot-ball" clubs in Melbourne began to appear, including Richmond Cricketers, St Kilda and Melbourne. His letter attracted football players to an experimental match, at the Richmond Paddock (later known as Yarra Park next to the MCG) on 31 July 1858. Few details of the match have survived, though it is known that Wills both played in and umpired the game.On 7 August 1858 a famous match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College began at Richmond Park, which was umpired by Wills and McAdam and also involved Scotch headmaster Thomas H. Smith.. A second day of play took place on 21 August and a third, and final, day on 4 September. While the full rules that were used is unknown, the match was played with a round ball, the distance between the goals was approximately half a mile (approximately 4 times longer than the modern MCG playing surface), there were 40 players per side and one goal each side was scored with the game being declared a draw. The two schools have competed annually ever since for the Cordner-Eggleston Cup.Some regard these early matches as the first matches of Australian Football, however to many it is clear that the game was still in the process of evolving.Gradually the game – known at first as "Melbourne Rules" became "Victorian Rules" and then "Australian Rules" following its spread from Victoria into other Australian colonies, beginning with South Australia (1860), Tasmania (1864), Queensland (1866) and New Zealand (1876). In 1877, the sport's first governing bodies, the South Australian Football Association and the Victorian Football Association were formed on the 30th of April and the 7th of May respectively. The game began to be played in New South Wales in 1877, in Western Australia in 1881 and the Australian Capital Territory in 1911. By 1916, the game was first played in the Northern Territory, establishing a permanent presence in all Australian states and mainland territories.

DEVELOPMENT


By 1980 in the space of just 25 years, the way the game was played had changed dramatically, with the phasing out of many of the game's kicking styles, changing rules and the influence of the handballing game and television.[28]In 1982, in a move which heralded big changes within the sport, one of the original VFL clubs, South Melbourne, relocated to the rugby league stronghold of Sydney and became known as the Sydney Swans. In the late 1980s, strong interstate interest in the VFL led to a more national competition; two more non-Victorian clubs, the West Coast Eagles and the Brisbane Bears began playing in 1987. The league changed its name to the Australian Football League (AFL) following the 1989 season. In 1991, it gained its first South Australian team, Adelaide. During the next five years, two more non-Victorian teams, Fremantle and Port Adelaide, joined the league. The AFL, currently with 16 member clubs, is the sport's elite competition and the most powerful body in the world of Australian rules football and continues to seek further opportunities to expand into new markets.

INTERNATIONALLY


Aussie Rules is played at an amateur level in countries around the world. At least 20 leagues that are recognised by the game's governing body, exist outside of Australia.[29] Although semi-professional players have come from outside of Australia, and there have been several players in the VFL/AFL who were born outside Australia, no player to learn the game overseas has yet played a game in the Australian Football League.

FOOTY TRADITIONS


Before the start of each AFL games, players run through a banner constructed by supporters.Australian Rules is a sport rich in tradition and Australian cultural references, especially surrounding the rituals of gameday for players, officials and supporters.As part of their uniform, players wear shirts called guernseys. Guernseys are similar to basketball shirts, but of a more robust design, often referred to in Australia as "jumpers". In the early period of the game's development players often wore sleeveless lace-up tops which gradually disappeared between the 1960s and early 1980s. A few players choose to wear a long sleeved variation of the modern guernsey design. Players wore full length pants, before adopting shorts in the 1920s. Tight-fitting shorts were a notable fashion trend in most leagues in the 1980s and some players began to wear hamstring warmers. A brief experiment with lycra by the AFL in the State of Origin series was quickly abandoned for more traditional wear. Long socks (football socks) are compulsory and boots with moulded cleats or studs for gripping the ground are worn (screw-ins have been banned from most leagues since the 1990s). Some players wear headbands or hair ties to keep the hair out of their faces when playing, though this is rare. Players will sometimes wear arm bands around their mid bicep and tricep, typically of electrical tape, in honour. Black arm bands are typically worn in memorial to someone related to the player or their club who recently died.Traditionally, umpires have worn white and were sometimes referred to as "white maggots" amongst supporters. AFL umpires now wear bright colours to also avoid clashes with the player guernseys and AFL goal umpires now wear t-shirts and caps, rather than the traditional white coat and broad brimmed hat (similar to what was worn by many cricket umpires) which they wore before the 1990s.Cheersquads at Australian rules football matches behind the goals wave giant Pom-pons or floggers to signify a goal Meat pies are a tradition at Australian football games.Typical supporter wear includes the team scarf and sometimes beanie (particularly in cooler climates) in the colours of the team. Team guernseys are also worn by supporters. Team flags are sometimes flown by supporters at the start of a game, when a goal is scored, and when their team wins.Before AFL matches, it is traditional for teams to run through a crepe banner constructed by the cheersquads of each team. These often feature messages and slogans for the team in the context of the match, such as congratulating a player on a landmark number of games and more recently also sponsorship messages. The banners and sometimes also streamers are used in important local football matches such as finals. As players run through the banners, the team's song (or fight song) is sometimes also played or sung. The fight song is also sung by the winning team.Australian rules supporters don't use the word 'root' for support (the word 'root' is Australian slang for 'sex'), but instead "barrack" for their team. Though other cultures have had an influence at various points in its history, Australian football tends to have different atmosphere to sports like soccer and American Football. Partly due to Australian culture, Australian rules spectators are generally more solitary animals. With the exception of small official cheersquads, spectators at Aussie Rules matches will rarely engage in support for their teams with organised chants. Instead, each individual spectator will most often shout their own support using the nickname of their team ie. "Carn the Crows !" or "Carn the Maggies". In contrast, cheersquads are highly organised, have their own rituals and almost always congregate behind the goals during games. Most professional clubs have official cheersquads which will sometimes wave enormous coloured pompoms known as floggers after the umpire has signalled a goal. American style cheerleading is very rare.Meat pies and beer are popular consumables (sometimes noted as a tradition) for supporters at Australian rules matches. At AFL matches mobile vendors walk around the ground selling such pies, yelling out the well-known call of "hot pies, cold drinks!"At the end of the match, it is traditional for a pitch invasion to occur. Supporters run onto the field to celebrate the game and play games of kick-to-kick with their families. In many suburban and country games, this also happens during quarter and half-time breaks. In the AFL in recent years, this tradition has been more strictly controlled with security guards to ensure that players and officials can safely leave the ground. At the largest AFL grounds, this tradition has been banned completely, to protect the surface, much to the discontent of fans. But smaller grounds (Skilled Stadium, for example) still allow fans onto the field after the game. Sometimes a mid-game pitch invasion is expected for various highly anticipated landmark achievements (such as a player kicking a record number of goals).