Followers of the sport of Australian football might be surprised to learn just how unpopular the game was before being adopted by state associations in the 1880s.
In almost every territory outside of Victoria, the matter of which rules to play was up for considerable debate.
South Australia might have ended up a soccer state if one of the delegates hadn’t been so persuasive. Western Australia might have ended up a rugby state if three clubs hadn’t banded together.
Tasmania could have gone either way, and only took up the Victorian game by the narrowest of margins – and even then evidently voted to include a crossbar for reasons the media reported as bizarre.
Likewise survival appears to have been tough outside of Victoria for many of the WA and SA founding clubs no longer exist, and while there appears to have been something of a revolving door in the early VFA years, most of the early clubs still exist, even at country football level (many in the Geelong and Ballarat competitions).
Of the teams existing at the time of the VFL and VFA split, every single team remains active (yes even Fitzroy still exist at VAFA level).
In those early days, football as we know it now, was almost certainly Victorian in nature.
Media reports in the Advocate in 1926, mention that in 1875 there were 96 clubs in Melbourne alone, and a further 42 clubs in the state with more than 3,000 players. At the same time, there were barely 20 Australian football clubs across the rest of the country.
South Australia (April 30th, 1877)
In 1910, the Adelaide Daily Herald remarked that prior to the formation of the South Australian Football Association forming that there were three different codes of football being played around the city of Adelaide.
Matches between sides were played with general confusion over rules, and so in 1877 a meeting was called with the aim of forming a body to oversee football matters and to draw up the rules.
The meeting was held on April 30, 1877 at the Prince Alfred Hotel and resulted in the formation of the South Australian Football Association.
It included Port Adelaide (est 1870), South Adelaide (1877) as well as other team like Victoria, Woodville, Kensington, South Park, Bankers and the original incarnation of Adelaide.
The meeting is notable for also deciding on playing Victorian Rules, including the bounce, adopting the Melbourne code ‘almost in toto’ according to The Register.
Victoria – May 17th, 1877
In Victoria there appeared to be no such uncertainty over the rules, which had been originally written in 1859 and then modified in 1866. Umpires were introduced in 1872 and Uniforms in 1873. Just over two weeks after the South Australians, the Victorian Football Association was formed on May 17, 1877.
The original VFA sides included Melbourne (1859), Geelong (1859), Carlton (1864), St Kilda (1873).
It also included Albert Park (later merged with South Melbourne), Hotham (later known as North Melbourne), Ballarat (later in the Ballarat Football league), and Barwon (later merging with Belmont and still alive in the Geelong Football league). Still other clubs including Essendon and Richmond were listed as junior clubs in the new Association.
The same year, Carlton would travel to Sydney to play the Waratah at the SCG in Australian football and rugby. Carlton lost the rugby game, but evidently did well in the Australian game.
Tasmania – June 21, 1879
The Australian game was introduced into Tasmania in the 1870s prior to this rugby and soccer were played in the colony, as well as a hybrid of the two known as the Tasmanian game.
At a meeting on June 21, 1879, the Tasmanian Football Association was formed, and the decision to play the Australian game was passed by one vote. There are today no known clubs still existing from that Association (that I was easily able to find anyway, I’m happy to be corrected)
New South Wales – 1880
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that at a meeting on the 18th August, 1880 the New South Wales Football Association voted to play Australian football on the grounds that the rules were an improvement on those used by the English Association, and very different to rules used by the rugby code.
Western Australia – 1885
The Western Mail reported in 1939, that when the Western Australian Association was formed in 1885, the dominant game in the colony was rugby. It was noted that of four football clubs in the colony, only one played the Victorian code.
In 1885, delegates from the Fremantle, Rovers and Victorian clubs voted to move as a body to Victorian football. They would be joined a year later by another Fremantle club, Unions. Today, only Victorians survives, now known as West Perth.
Victoria splits – 1896
The rumblings began when inner Melbourne clubs began to feel that they were carrying the outlying regional clubs, and so in 1896 six clubs Carlton, Melbourne, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy and South Melbourne broke away from the Association, persuading Geelong and St Kilda to go with them.
This left the VFA with just five clubs – three of whom would later join the VFL – Richmond (1908), North Melbourne (1925) and Footscray (1925). Williamstown and Port Melbourne remained, and have done so until now.
Queensland – 1903
A governing body for the game in Queensland didn’t take place until 1903, the game in the country was essentially run from Victoria before that.
Notes: I am heavily indebted to the National library for the articles and source material used for this article.
Chocco
Roar Rookie
Not at all, how much have you personally researched the story, or have you,just gone with a particular historians version, i am willing to bet you learnt more about Wills from my posts than you already knew, i am not asking you to believe me, but if you are fair dinkum in your belief that Wills and marn grook are just romantic myth, seek out the story and prove it, or disprove it. Some FACTS about his upbringing, his actions, and beliefs point to the fact that he was undoubtedly very close to Aboriginal culture.
Mal
Guest
Fairly ironic statement that Chocco.
Chocco
Roar Rookie
I believe it is calculated, it is passion, but not blind faith, blind faith in this instance would be to totally disregard the Marn Grook theory , and believe what you have been told, and not question.
Mal
Guest
I admire your passion Chocco and if you wish to believe the legend go for it.
Floyd Calhoun
Guest
Offended by the fact that the Australian Football League that plays Australian Rules football is somehow an 'Australian' game?!! Which planet are you visiting us from?
Chocco
Roar Rookie
One more thing if i may :) , after Wills father was killed by Aboriginals, he later took the Aboriginal cricket team that was due to tour England, to see his Mother, ....... they probably would have been the first Aboriginals she saw after her husbands death. Unless he was incredibly cruel, you would have to say that Wills thought so highly of them, and was looking to bridge the gap between black and white, and respected their culture so much, he was prepared to do this. Wills was of the generation of first contact between black and white Australians, it had never happened before or since, Aboriginals were still practicing customs, rituals etc in their pure form, unchanged for probably thousands of years, it stands to reason that a young impressionable only white child in the midst of traditional tribal Aboriginals learn things most white and Aboriginal people these days would have no idea about. Gillian Hibbins and other academics won't read about this in any Colonial Newspaper archive from the 1840/50's.
Chocco
Roar Rookie
Common sense tells us that newspaper archives in the 1850's mentioning Wills playing Marn Grook or indigenous games don't exist, therefore professional academic historians conclude that indigenous people and culture had no influence on the games rules. Gillian Hibbins in particular as a professional historian requires her to mine the historical archive: to locate the paper trail of written and ‘confirmed’ documentary evidence to which her academic discipline confers objective claims to ‘truth’. The primacy of paper evidence leaves little or no room for Indigenous remembrance of the past. In that time and place, no white man in his right mind would have admitted that he had been influenced by black culture. Especially if some of that influence had rubbed off on a game he was pretty keen to promote. In that time, an association with Indigenous culture could very well have killed Melbourne Rules Football. There is only one real fact in this argument. Nobody now alive ever met Tom Wills, shared a beer with him, and asked him to explain the major influences on his idea of football. What troubles me most in this argument is the violent opposition to the possibility of indigenous influence on the game .
Chocco
Roar Rookie
You may call it romantic myth, but i call it common sense, Historian Gillian Hibbins sees it one way, and that is fine, but historian Col Hutchison sees it the other, Col was the AFL's official historian from 1990 till 2005. Have an open mind, and think about Wills circumstances in life, and tell me that Aboriginal culture, sport and customs had no impact on his life, or throughout his life. The man took the first cricket team to England, a all Aboriginal team. This is really worth a read, if you are interested ! http://australianfootball.com/articles/view/Why%2BTom%2BWills%2Bis%2Ban%2BAustralian%2Blegend%2Blike%2BNed%2BKelly/133 And i quote ....... "I’m going to tell you a story, former Collingwood champion Nathan Buckley told me. One of the critical years in Buckley’s career, the period when he began to discover himself as a player, was spent with the Port Adelaide under 19s. When that season ended, he went up to Darwin, where his parents lived, and continued playing in a competition strongly influenced by Aboriginal players. When he returned to Port Adelaide the following season – or, to put it another way, when he returned to playing it the whitefeller way – he suddenly found it much easier, because the whitefeller game was so much more predictable. I’m saying Nathan Buckley was, to some extent, influenced by Aboriginal football, by the Aboriginal game. I believe Tom Wills was influenced by the Aboriginal game – indeed, by Aboriginal culture in general."
Storm Boy
Guest
So Choco how did Wills use marn grook to create the first rules if the others ignored him about rugby and he said nothing about Aboriginal games anyway?
Mal
Guest
Sorry Chocco but what you say is pure romantic myth. Historians have researched the subject and there is not a scintilla of evidence that Wills or any of the other codifiers of Australian Rules were influenced by indigenous games. The rules were basically an amalgam of many sports in Britain that Wills and others had seen and played, plus local variations by the codifiers to suit the local conditions.
Chocco
Roar Rookie
No white man considered in his right mind in that day and age would suggest playing a Aboriginal game.
Chocco
Roar Rookie
No need to be sorry, just MO, but i think you and Mal are wrong, his family has testified he played football ( marn grook ) with the locals, just as his days at Rugby and England were pivotal to his life, so were his days as the only white child in the Western district of Victoria. Whether he realised or not ( Just MO of course) admitted it or not, he had a close bond with Aboriginals, it goes without saying they impacted greatly on his life, the death of his father by spearing, their sports, culture and customs would have no doubt rubbed off on him, and IMO rubbed off on him in ways he probably did not even realise, or in that day and age openly admit. There is no doubt in my mind the very existence of Australian Football owes something to the Aboriginals of the Western District of Victoria and Marn Grook.
Storm Boy
Guest
None of which matters much as Wills didn't invent the Melbourne club's rules. John Harms http://www.footyalmanac.com.au/general-footy-writing-may-17-1859-and-the-codification-of-footy/ says it was a committee and they dissed Wills as he suggested rugby rules. No mention he then suggested marn grook.
Floyd Calhoun
Guest
Sorry Chocco, but I think Mal is right. The Aussie Rules - Marn Grook link is fanciful at best.
Chocco
Roar Rookie
Rubbish, are you trying to tell me the only white kid in the district who spoke fluent aboriginal and according to testimony of family members Wills played marn grook, was not influenced by it. Noted historians are sometimes wrong. That experience must have had profound influence on his life.
Australian Rules
Guest
fishes: "I’m not at all surprised “just how unpopular the game was”. It still isn’t very popular beyond the MCG." Average attendances for AFL matches in 2013, by state: Vic – 37k WA – 35k SA – 30k NSW – 23k QLD – 17.5k TAS – 12.5k NT – 8k I reckon most other codes would kill for that level of "unpopularity".
Mal
Guest
Chocco, The idea that Australian Rules was in any way influenced by Marn Grook or any other indigenous game has been totally debunked by several noted historians. The myth began in the 20th century many decades after the game had been codified and has no basis in truth.
millane
Guest
nicely played chocco - gave me a giggle
clipper
Guest
If you follow the Barrassi line, you'll find it will be more 50% to 50%, which is a bit of a moot point anyway, as there is more AFL played and watched north than league played and watched south, hence the Swans being the most attended team in Sydney and the Storm being the least attended team in Melbourne
Chocco
Roar Rookie
"@Allan, yep GWS are sure not looking to the future !, i guess those new faclities are just a waste of time. http://www.aflnswact.com.au/index.php?id=5&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=2347&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4&cHash=f39275fbbe