Australian Rules Football
Australian rules football, originally known as “Victorian rules football” because it was established in Melbourne in the state of Victoria, is a form of football that is popular particularly in southern and western Australia. Its first rules, dating from 1859, make it one of the world’s oldest forms of football. A handwritten copy of these rules was discovered only in 1980.
Rules, Playing Surfaces, and Equipment
Australian rules football is played on a ground roughly oval in shape—although the size and shape can vary— between two teams of eighteen players. Four vertical goal posts—large central posts flanked on each side by smaller posts—are used. No horizontal bars are used. A goal (six points) is scored when the ball is kicked between the two central posts without being touched. If the ball is touched, hits the central posts, is rushed through by the defending side, or travels between the smaller posts, a behind (one point) is scored. No offside exists, and the sport is primarily a kicking, catching, running, and hand-passing game—players can run a maximum of 10 meters before they either pass or bounce the ball. A game is played over four quarters of approximately thirty minutes each and with intervals lasts almost three hours. A game begins when an umpire bounces the ball in the center circle, and players attempt to tap the ball to their side’s advantage.
Australian rules football is a high-scoring and fastmoving sport with some similarities to basketball—play moves rapidly from one end to another, and scores frequently fluctuate. It is an expansive and crowdpleasing sport with less measurement and standardization than other sports, making it closer to folk football. Margaret Lindley has noted that Australian footballers “run, dodge, leap, spin and slide; execute a variety of kicks which place their bodies in arabesques and attempt marks which see them in every conceivable airborne position.”
Creation Myths
Some people believe that the sport was derived from an Aboriginal game played with stuffed opossum skins. Others have claimed an Irish origin, although Gaelic football was codified at a much later date. A more plausible and orthodox explanation is that seven men who were educated at British public schools created the 1859 rules in the absence of any agreed model of football. A letter from colonial sportsman Thomas Wills to a local newspaper, suggesting the need for a winter sport, some schoolboy games, and the formation of the Melbourne Football Club in 1858 added to a growing interest in football.
Although Victorian rules football combined the rules of various English public schools, it soon developed a distinctly Australian ethos (distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs) that valued improvisation and spontaneity. Initially played in the parklands of Melbourne the sport expressed the brash self-confidence of the colonial culture of gold-rich Victoria. The founders of the Australian sport wanted to create a “game of our own.”
History
The simplicity of the original rules allowed fluidity in the evolution of the sport. H. C. A. Harrison, a notable player and administrator, was prominent in revisions of the rules in 1866 and 1874. In 1877 eight Victorian teams joined to form the Victorian Football Association (VFA) to regulate the sport and to promote intercolonial contests. A similar association was formed in South Australia in 1877, and suburban football competitions also emerged in Hobart, Launceston, and Perth. Intercolonial rivalry and long distances were two reasons why the northeastern states of New South Wales and Queensland eventually opted for the British sport of rugby.
With the onset of professionalism during the 1890s eight clubs split from the VFA in 1897 to form the Victorian Football League (VFL), which remained the dominant body in the sport for almost a century. In 1906 a national body, the Australian National Football Council (later the National Football League), was formed to control interstate player exchanges and to develop interstate competition.The first national carnival was held in August 1908 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with teams from all the Australian states and New Zealand competing.
When a national competition emerged during the 1980s, it was under the aegis of Victorian rules football. The South Melbourne Swans relocated to Sydney (and became the Sydney Swans) in 1982, the Brisbane Bears and the West Coast Eagles joined in 1987, followed by the Adelaide Crows (1991), the Fremantle Dockers (1995), and the Port Adelaide Power (1996). The VFL changed its name to the “Australian Football League” (AFL) at the end of 1989.
Key People
With the high mark a spectacular feature of Australian rules football, fans have admired full forwards such as Roy Cazaly, who played from 1910 to 1927. Cazaly gave rise to the phrase “Up there, Cazaly,” which was reputedly the battle cry of Australian soldiers inWorldWar II as they stormed trenches.The song ”UpThere, Cazaly” later became an anthem of the AFL. Some notable players, such as Norm Smith, Ron Barassi, and Leigh Matthews, have been equally prominent as coaches.
Although Australian rules football was a demonstration sport at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, and although clubs were formed in New Zealand and South Africa, it remains almost exclusively an Australian sport. Similarities between Australian rules football and Gaelic football led to the development of a hybrid sport —international rules football—and occasional international contests between Australian and Irish teams from 1967. Since the 1980s a number of Irish footballers have been recruited to play for Australian clubs.
From its inception Australian rules football has been accessible to the community. The passionate attachment of Melburnians to their clubs is the subject of David Williamson’s play and film, The Club, based on the Collingwood Football Club, with approximately forty thousand members. The community support for the battling Footscray (now Western) Bulldogs is the subject of another film, The Year of the Dogs. Women have comprised 30 to 50 percent of Australian rules football spectators since the late nineteenth century, a markedly higher proportion of spectators than those of other types of football. Women played football only sporadically during the twentieth century before formation of the Victorian Women’s Football League in 1981.With seven thousand players by 2004, women’s football is one of the fastest-growing sports in the Victorian school system.
An Aboriginal presence in Australian rules football became more notable during the 1960s, and by the 1980s clubs recruited Aboriginal players in larger numbers. Some became stars. A dramatic gesture against racism by Nicky Winmar at the end of a game in 1993, when he raised his jersey and pointed to the color of his skin, encouraged the AFL to develop a player code to reduce racial incidents.
Although the future of Australian rules football is secure in Australia because of its popularity, Matthew Nicholson noted that the AFL is “awkwardly perched between its Victorian suburban traditions and its national aspirations.” The national competition of sixteen teams includes nine Melbourne suburban teams, one regional Victorian team, and six teams from four other states.
Richard Cashman
Categories: Sports-Field