AFL's fussing is a compliment to football

Thanks KB, Merry Christmas Sunshine and to all on the RSL Committee.

100 years ago horse racing was the most popular sport in the country. 20-40 years ago it was cricket. 20 years ago AFL was the sport with the most participants, now its football by a margin of about 30% and still growing. 5 years ago the Soceeroos games averaged about 12K, now they average about 45K and the most watched team in the country. Yes, AFL and NRL supporters are fairly rusted on and are not likely to go to a football game, no matter how good it is, but the sporting landscape is changing and won't be like this forever. What point are you trying to make anyway?

a better one from a British author (Graham Hughes from Chester - - - not Kim Hughes' brother from Tassie!!), is "A Develyshe Pastime: A History Of Football In All Its Forms" The book takes its title from a 1583 pamphlet in which a Puritan, Philip Stubbes, described football as one of the “develyshe pastimes” that were corrupting England. Football, said Stubbes, was more “a friendlie kinde of fight than a play or recreation, a bloody and murthering practice than a felowly sporte or pastime”. And he never saw Leeds play. Hughes has certainly done his research. This weighty book opens with an account of every kind of “football” known to have been played, almost back to the time when Adam was a lad. According to Hughes, sports such as soccer, both codes of rugby, Gaelic, American (and Canadian) football, and Australian Rules all have their roots in the type of game still played each Shrovetide in the Derbyshire town of Ashbourne, when the Up’ards and the Down’ards try to goal the ball on a “pitch” about three miles long (sometimes they can play from 2pm until 10pm and still no one has scored).

Thanks, Matty. I'll look for it next week in Dymocks and Abbeys when I head into town (Sydney) for their post-Christmas sales. I'm not really after a comprehensive history, rather on what initial struggles, if any, that soccer overcame in obtaining its toeholds in so many countries. So I'm more likely to have a quick browse than actually buy it, especially if it's 1,000 pages.

Matty1974, sorry mate, but I want the HAL to be the best football league in the southern hemisphere of any code and I make no apologies for that... In fact I want it to be the best football league in the world that would be my goal... Of course, I will most probably in my life time won’t see it... However, I would love to join the late Johnny Warren in heaven and say "I told you so" ... ;) PS... great article Jimbo

Jimbo - " It was not like AFL, buying their way into each country" ???? Such as??? and your last point is the most correct - because, before that, there was no organised sport. That'd be a 'vacuum'. So - you've gone around in circles to actually agree with Geoff. Even MVDave has. Do you guys actually read and comprehend the points people make?? If you guys agreed with Geoff in the first place......then why argue it??

Well said BigAl - a reminder to all that we are working hard to cut-out the tedious code-v-code comments. Please report any inappropriate comments and refrain from taking the bait. Thanks and merry Christmas to all. Zac The Roar

Football was spread throughout the world by British sailors in the early 1900s It was not like AFL, buying their way into each country - the sport just became popular and each country established their own leagues and competitions. It became particularly popular in Europe and South America. Before that Butt Shaking was the most watched sport.

In Sydney the AFL is bottom of the TV ratings - Iron Chef is more popular. Man U avge home game attendance is 75K and they play up to 60 or 70 matches a year. games are sold out within hours and there is a long waiting list for season tickets. Which city do you live in Anand?

The majority of football fans are not interested in displacing the dominant code/s in Australia. Football fans accept that the A league will always be a second tier league and that the very best players will always go overseas. What most football fans want is a domestic league of good quality, a strong national team and the opportunity to read, listen to and watch informed football media without having to listen to the tired old arguments about the game and it's popularity seen on this site and in the mainstream media. We are close to reaching those goals and the WC coming to Oz will be the icing on the cake. If any of this results in Aussie rules or league falling down the pecking order in the future, then those codes are not as strong as their supporters believe them to be. Geoff, if you're genuinely interested in reading a comprehensive history of global football, i can recommend "The Ball is Round", author, David Goldblatt. A very interesting book, but at almost 1000 pages it takes a while to get through.

Agree with Geoff. Once a code is established it is very difficult to conquer (read 'convert'). The reason is that football is in many aspects like a religion. A key point is tribalism. Religions in reality draw their strength from tribalism and nationalism. So do the entrenched sporting codes. Catholicism is the dominant 'code' among Christian religion in the world. Still it cannot displace the other Christian sects from their strongholds. Same argument applies for football. The only exception may be Rugby (except in NZ). Rugby is different from AFL, League/Soccer in that it does not appeal to tribalism. Probably that is why soccer is fast replacing soccer in the pecking order here.

You would not know how to argue you are to preoccupied with having a go to either read what people are writing, construct an argument or have a discussion. A site like league unlimited would better suit you.

re the NRL - that is of course with 2 full rounds of extra matches plus the SoO thrown in......so.....it's a bit of a shallow victory, I'd be surprised if the 'regional figures' quoted actually included those outside of the RegTam regionals of Nth and Sth NSW, QLD and Vic/Tas.....as, no doubt, NRL would win that. Normally, Roy Masters doesn't pay much heed as to whether or not the diarised regional ratings from WA/SA/NT are included or not. However, the NRL has definitely benefitted from running the 2 Friday night matches - broadcasting the most appropriate one into each of NSW and QLD and then replaying the other afterwards. I've long thought the AFL should run dual Friday night matches - perhaps running an Adelaide/Melbourne twin city swapsies.....of course - Adelaide is far from a Brisbane when it comes to impacting national scale ratings figures.

Again an AFL fan in a Football forum resorts to personal attacks on someone who doesn't fancy their underachieving sport. That is usually a sign of someone who is losing an argument and obviously has no bullets in his debating gun left. See you. Have a nice day!!!!!

How many Australians migrated to Britain taking their code of choice with them, how many migrated to South America taking their code of choice with them and how close was Melbourne to continental Europe when football codes were becomuing more popular in the UK, brush up on your history. Do you even understand the big rivavlry between NSW and VIctoria dating all the way back to when Melboune was the capital of Australia and when Victoria seperated from the colony of NSW. But mate go ahead and take your pot shots, you are just proving yourself a real (*&%*()

ok- it was the first and only code of football on the Australian MAINLAND. You make a pedantic point but it does not address the thrust of my argument that it is the world's biggest SPORTING UNDERACHIEVEMENT. The yanks call their game American Football and it is universally popular in ALL the United States. The AFL calls its game Australian Football yet NSW and Qld (where the majority of the Aussie population lives) won't have a bar of it to any meaningful degree. Perhaps we should call it Victorian Rules or Southern Australian Rules to better represent where it is popular.

To MV Dave : that is precisely the question I am asking! Did soccer "conquer" any widely-played-and-watched codes in its very successful expansion across the world. And a follow-up question would be why soccer rather than some other code? I have heard from my tango-dancing Argentine and Uruguayan friends that soccer became established there following its introduction in the 19th century by the British workers exporting that country's railway network knowhow around the world. Maybe that happened in a lot of other countries too. I think it's a reasonable proposition that once a football code, any code, has become firmly established as part of a state/country's culture then it is very difficult for a later entrant to "conquer" it. So unless a soccer historian can show some evidence that soccer has achieved a conquering of other widely-played-and-watched codes in other countries on a consistent basis, I think there is little reason to believe that things are going to be any different in Australia.

If your product is good enough it would have sold, it's not like Football or Rugby were orgnised in their will to spread the game.

Do you even realise what population Melbourne town had in the 1850s? The settlement was only turning 20 odd, no sport was going to eminate there and take on the world.......least of all, a British colony on the far side of the earth subject to large scale immigration from.....Britain. That the game even exists today is somewhat of an achievement.

Country????, 'twas not federated until 1901. Twas not a country.