Gabba clash a preview for the Shanghai Showdown
Columnist By Melanie Dinjaski, 31 Jul 2010 Melanie Dinjaski is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- 2010 Shanghai World Expo, AFL, Brisbane Lions, Gabba, hanghai Showdown, Melbourne Demons, University of Queensland
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Tonight, the Gabba will host the Round 18 clash between the Brisbane Lions and the Melbourne Demons. But it will also be a preview of what China can expect on October 17 when the two clubs meet again at the Jiangwan Sports Centre, for the Shanghai Showdown.
One of the main events of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, the Shanghai Showdown – officially known as the Kaspersky AFL Cup – will be the first AFL exhibition match held in China.
In celebration of this historic event, the Brisbane Lions have been drumming up interest for tomorrow night’s preview match at the Gabba.
At the University of Queensland earlier this week, Lions midfielders Justin Sherman and Michael Rischitelli were teaching the fundamental skills of AFL in a free clinic for international students.
Though their finals hopes have been dashed, Rischitelli says he’s looking forward to what the future holds.
“It’s all over, but now we’re just looking to build from here, into next season.”
He’s certain that not only will they perform against the Demons, but they’ll also finish the season on a high, against the Sydney Swans in Round 22.
“Oh yeah, we’re going to smash ‘em too!”
At the clinic, Auskick official Ellie, a former AFL player herself, was walking some international students through the rules of the game, and the all important drop punt. She says there’s plenty to look forward to at the Melbourne vs Brisbane clash on Saturday night.
“It’s all about promoting the game overseas, especially in China.”
But the match is sure to be something special for all AFL fans.
A Chinese theme will see a number of exciting activities taking place throughout the night. Chinese students will receive a ‘Welcome Pack’ and free Sherrins to kick on the field after the match.
Pre-game activities will include a handballing clinic and from a stall laced with Chinese lanterns, Chinese ambassadors of the game will explain the rules to new-comers. There will be plenty of entertainment on offer too, with Chinese lion dancers and Shaolin Kung Fu Guan performers (Shaolin Warrior Monks) entertaining the crowd.
And Chinese students will be personally greeted in the stands by Lions mascot Bernie ‘Gabba’ Vegas.
The aim of tonight’s game is to give Chinese people a better understanding of Aussie Rules, in the hope that they will take up the sport and share their positive experience with others, ahead of the Shanghai Showdown in October, which will once again showcase the Brisbane Lions and Melbourne Demons.
If it’s anything like what we can expect tonight at the Gabba, there will be few left disappointed in the 30,000 capacity Jiangwan Sports Centre.
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You can follow Melanie Dinjaski on Twitter @MelanieDinjaski.
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July 31st 2010 @ 5:41pm
Territory Terry said | July 31st 2010 @ 5:41pm | Report comment
AFL people are funny, you love talking up your game but you’re just a big fish in a smal pond. If AFL wasn’t popular in Melbourne it wouldn’t exist. No one else in the world cares and neither does a fair chunk of this country. Instead of sticking teams in places where Australians don’t want them why don’t you put one in China?
July 31st 2010 @ 5:55pm
Melanie Dinjaski said | July 31st 2010 @ 5:55pm | Report comment
Love the U-ma, Territory Terry.
August 1st 2010 @ 6:49pm
Michael C said | August 1st 2010 @ 6:49pm | Report comment
Terry -
no one else cares……except, you seem to.
strange that!
July 31st 2010 @ 7:55pm
Mister Football said | July 31st 2010 @ 7:55pm | Report comment
Melanie
good article, it’s great to see an Australian organisation having a crack, even if it’s against the odds, not sure why any other Australian would knock that to be honest.
Related to this story, many AFL fans might be interested in knowing that the inaugural European championships kick off this weekend (nicknamed EC2010).
These are the groups:
Pool A – Denmark Pool
Great Britain
Denmark
Finland
Iceland
Pool B – Sweden Pool
Ireland
Sweden
Germany
Croatia
This is a 16-a-side, full field version. For two or three countries, it will be their first attempt at playing the fuller version of the game.
Full details of the comp and format can be found here: http://www.ec2010.info/
They look pretty well organised – and good luck to them all.
WFN will be running regular reports and latest scores.
July 31st 2010 @ 8:02pm
drifter said | July 31st 2010 @ 8:02pm | Report comment
You know, I do notice a lot of supporters of AFL teams of Chinese descent at the games.
Look at a Sydney game, maybe it’s feeding back to the homeland.
July 31st 2010 @ 8:08pm
Mister Football said | July 31st 2010 @ 8:08pm | Report comment
There have been a few reports in the Melb media on this AFL site set up in the mandarin language , and they attracted 12,000 hits within a very short space of time.
July 31st 2010 @ 11:55pm
Territory Terry said | July 31st 2010 @ 11:55pm | Report comment
European AFL Championships will be huge, I don’t see why the AFL shouldn’t be thinking about a couple of teams in Europe. If they could lure the likes of Wayne Rooney and David Beckham (sure he’s a bit old but he has massive marketing appeal) to make the switch it would really take off! Imagine Judd, Beckham and Folau in a blockbuster at the G or even Old Trafford!
August 1st 2010 @ 1:00am
Mister Football said | August 1st 2010 @ 1:00am | Report comment
The G is a much, much bigger ground than Old Trafford, in every respect.
Why waste a blockbuster at Old Trafford?
Also, there’s some footage floating around of Becks trying to kick a leather footy. I woudn’t get too excited.
August 1st 2010 @ 9:37am
Michael C said | August 1st 2010 @ 9:37am | Report comment
Realfootball -
no idea why you feel compelled to constantly chime in on the AFL tab without anything constructive to add.
Let’s look at the ‘short man’s complex in the Australian market…..okay, let’s not, because, it’ll be a book dominated by whinging soccer types.
The ‘European Championships’ is organised and hosted by the European Australian Football Association. Hosted by Denmark (the oldest continuously running continental league and Sweden.
It has stuff all to do with AFL in Australia or AFL HQ in Docklands.
As we’ve pointed out before – - international AFL has been happening anyway, without the efforts of the AFL – - it’s actually been displayed as a natural consequence of the youtube, facebook and footy club websites.
It is via such means that ‘provincial’ is able to service global markets……y’know, like how an ebay seller in Coffs Harbour can sell directly to Moscow, New York, Paris, London and Shanghai all at the same time without ever having left NSW………..fancy that!!
August 1st 2010 @ 9:56am
Mister Football said | August 1st 2010 @ 9:56am | Report comment
Realf
It’s inconsistent to call the AFL provincial, and then lay into them for trying to grow the game.
Regarding the European Championships – this has been organised by the Europeans themselves, with minimal input from the AFL – so why have a go at the AFL for that?
These guys are using up their Summer holidays to travel 1,000 or more kilometres to compete, all at personal expense – so why would anyone want to have a go at them?
Good luck to them.
There are hundreds of sports played to various degrees throughout hte world – are you going to attack the 100+ that aren’t fully professional across the world?
Then why attack the AFL? (who is barely involved in the first instance)
I would think Australians would have a fair bit of interest in watching the Europeans undertaking such an initiative at their own expense – to play our national game.
August 1st 2010 @ 4:40pm
Westcoast929406 said | August 1st 2010 @ 4:40pm | Report comment
Here is an article on the upcoming AFL Chinese TV deal which, has the support of very high level Chinese Govt hierarchy.
The coverage will include this years Finals as well. The Shanghai Media Group sent a TV technical crew to Melb earlier this year for training on how to cover our game for TV.
Link —
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/afl-to-beam-live-into-china/story-e6frf9jf-1225899515012
Really like QLD Premier Anna Blighs comments in the article .Obviously tongue in cheek.
August 1st 2010 @ 6:21pm
BigAl said | August 1st 2010 @ 6:21pm | Report comment
I wonder who is providing the commentary ?
August 1st 2010 @ 7:18pm
MattS said | August 1st 2010 @ 7:18pm | Report comment
Quite funny I was at UQ that time and the AFL people were going around campus literally dragging foreign looking students for the paper/TV photo shoot. Out of the thousands of foreign students at UQ they were embarassed less than a dozen turned up and frantically went around looking for bodies.
August 2nd 2010 @ 7:29am
Redb said | August 2nd 2010 @ 7:29am | Report comment
Good article.
This is an interesting exercise for the AFL. China is such a massive market, yet its size and culture make it seem an un-natural choice for our game.
Government, sponsors, teams on board – there is obviously an opportunity to drop an acorn and see what happens.
August 2nd 2010 @ 3:49pm
Beaver fever said | August 2nd 2010 @ 3:49pm | Report comment
Very big article in the West today about the Australian football European champs, basically the whole of page 9, in short the countries who are participting in the champs were started up by expats ( of course) but the growth has been excelerated by locals, no Australians are playing in the European champs and the AFL (read … governing body) has very little to do with it, in fact American footballs quite big multi million $ German body offered to support and represent the German AFL
The games are timed to take advantage of post soccer WC and tour de France.
For anyone, and on this board their are many Australian football knockers and haters, they state that no-one, i repeat no-one thinks that Australian football will flourish and boom in the next couple of years, so (no naming names) you can all sleep safe in your beds tonight.
Here is a link to world footy news regarding the champs, but no link to the Wests article ( sorry)which was quite in depth and interesting.
http://www.worldfootynews.com/
August 2nd 2010 @ 4:52pm
Michael C said | August 2nd 2010 @ 4:52pm | Report comment
found a link to theWest story here Aussie rules scores historic win in Copenhagen.
interesting comments from the article:
And the AFL’s helping hand is being viewed cautiously after years of staying at arm’s length.
and
Sweden’s Joerg Pareigis said “Those eight countries who are coming this week have all got stories in their own right. They’ve got players there who one day walked the dog and saw two guys kicking a ball and they joined in.
“And a couple of years they are playing for their country in a European championship.”
August 2nd 2010 @ 5:02pm
Michael C said | August 2nd 2010 @ 5:02pm | Report comment
a related article AFL in bold bid to crack European market,
some extracts:
Fifteen countries have signed up to the newly-formed European Australian Football Association, uniting leagues from across the continent with the promise of a three-year funding commitment from the AFL and a goal which they admit may take a generation to achieve.
The aim is to tap into the massive European sport market, set up a professional league and establish a new talent pool which could potentially feed in to the Australian draft.
EAFA chairman Gerard Murphy said.
“I don’t think anyone is sitting back saying, ‘hey, AFL will flourish and boom in the next couple of years’.
“But what you’ll see is a systematic and strategic growth of the sport. It will be slow but it will be steady and hopefully it will be sustainable.”
Until now, Australian football has been kept alive in Europe by loosely-linked cash-strapped amateur leagues – most set up by expats – in various stages of development.
The AFL’s commitment comes after it was stung by criticism last year that it had neglected the struggling clubs, which had pleaded for years for help, and ignored the potentially lucrative Euro sport market.
It was also embarrassed when American football’s multi-million-dollar German body offered to step in and support and represent the German Australian football league.
A European regional manager was posted to London by the AFL last month with a three-year brief to secure funding and sponsorship and oversee the EAFA’s development.
It all looks pretty exciting that the AFL has finally, finally taken some steps to help. In the past it was always a sink or swim with minimal ‘real’ assistance,
which, to a degree created perhaps the level of self reliance and resiliance that has helped the various leagues grow organically. But, that’s the foundation in place that no amount of super expensive AFL advertising and ‘paid for coverage’ over 20 years would’ve probably achieved – - so, it might just be the AFL was right and now might be a good time to give it a serious crack!!
I hope so.