Australian rules football: An international game

Just to note that the European Cup (18s) and Euro Cup (9s format) cannot be entered by Expats. It is solely European nationals for their respective country.

I am in Pakistan in ditrk of chghi Here the golkeeper any time want Helo can play in the ground and any other player which is playing He can take is player......

I've got to joke about comments made by ignorant people towards people with more knowledge. To state the actual position of Australian Football in every country would be exhaustng. Suffice to say that position ranges ranges from ex-pat driven clubs to sophisticated leagues run by nationals. Depending where you focus, you can get the totally wrong impression but the facts are that Australian Football is growing overseas in all measures.- investment, participation, clubs, leagues, tournaments, internationals, women's football, youth football, school football, college football, sponsorship, facilities, media coverage, game TV coverage and game radio coverage. That statement is totally true and encouraging BUT it does give the wrong impression. Even though there a number of tremendous developments in Australian Football overseas it is not universal and most is still at a modest rate and far from a critical mass that the media and general population deem to be important. Only the areas that the AFL have invested in to a reasonable degree - RSA, PNG and NZ have the potential in the short term to change the sports horizon. Australian Football has come a very long way on a short timeline. To ignore that fact is ridiculous but so is interpolate those developments without moderation.

Nonu League and its supporters have for a long time been in the frame of mind that the rugby of the sporting world should assist League in its development and growth, give up their market share and just roll over and allow the so called "Greatest game of all" to rise like a titan and crush all beneath it. When other sports resist, or move to protect there market share League and its supporters huff and puff about how afraid everyone is, and how if only League was given its fair share 100, 50, 25 years ago (you pick) it would be the biggest sport in the world now. basically League supporters are hypocrites of the worst order they scream and howl whenever another sport starts to get some growth in one of there areas and demand RL administrators work to stomp the competition into the ground. Most sports are have a protective nature about them. I'm a rugby supporter from New Zealand and I don't particularly want the AFL buying up all our top sporting talent I recognize that the NZRU simply can not compete with the millions commanded by the AFL - Professional sport is about money and money speaks. I do not fear Rugby becoming a second rate sport in my homeland but New Zealand has only so much talent and its already split between England, France, the NRL and Australian Rugby without having to compete with the AFL as well. So there is fear and its a fear that New Zealand will end up being strip mined of all its natural rugby resources, which will weaken the All Blacks, the nations pride and finally rugby in New Zealand itself. Personally I'd like to see the AFL grow bigger in New Zealand.. just not at the expense of New Zealand rugby. and I just went on a unrelated rant ... ok back to discussing international football again everyone

Is it fear when you are in stitches every time you see them failing in their latest attempts to win over Western Sydney ?

Got to joke about the International game of AFL.

very poetic

For anyone curious about domination of expats or otherwise check out the Euros tournament team of the tournament : Axios Euro Cup 2014 Team of the Tournament - Men's Anders Thomt - Norway Michel Van Eijk - Netherlands Micheal Larsson - Sweden Micheal Douglas - Scotland Pierre Etienne Dandaleix - France Myles Hudson - England Kevin O'brien - Ireland Bernhard Plank - Austria James Clayton - Crusaders Josip Habljak - Croatia Mikkel Kjoge - Denmark Aleix Ferrer - Catalunya Florian Neuman - Germany Juan Jose Martin - Spain David Saunders - Wales Andrea Lorenzi - Italy Golden Whistle - Oscar Ayaddi Team Manager - Martin Schittegg Coach - Morten Ensbye Now - I might go out on a limb here - but, that looks pretty well indicative of not being expat dominated.

Cheers JohnL. I agree, but my honest observation is that the AFL seems to be mentioned in comments on other tabs almost relentlessly by some posters - usually in terms of comparitive ratings, crowds, fans or even social issues/stigmas allegedly connected to "eggball". That stuff baits the mono-sport diehards. My observation is that Association football is not really brought up in football discussions on the AFL tab. To explain further, I even noticed that the NRL website referred directly to the comparative AFL GF tv ratings. The ARLC referred specifically to the AFLs broadcast deal during its own press conference when annnouncing its own deal! The FFA website has mentioned the AFL in articles, and even Frank Lowy had a harmless dig the other day. By contrast, there is no way in hell the AFL would refer directly to another sport on its website or in a press conference. Does it matter? Of course not, and its probably got a bit to do with being the market leader, but its just my honest observation. Utimately though, I agree with you that the insecure sniping from both sets of fans seems to be diminishing, but you'll never eliminate it altogether. And that's probably ok - free speech should provide for the kids, crazies and contrarians alike. As for the ALeague, expect another big season of growth. I'm intrigued to see how Melb City go.

@ reality ... knock yourself out http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/10/22/afl-not-indigenous-but-australian/

I don't trust humans to give accurate accounts of anything, let alone stories from people who weren't actually there. I won't respond from here, you can have the final word.

Australian (or at the time Melbourne) Rules Football evolved by necessity at a moment in time when there was a lack of uniform/standardised rules for A game to be played as Football. Unlike cricket or hockey at that time. Clearly the ancestry of most colonialists at the time was English/British, either directly or first generation local. That the influence upon the early participants and rule makers was via known variants of games that might be described as 'football' that had been experienced locally back in the UK generally at school/university (Rugby/Harrow, Eton, Cambridge) - is pretty well a given. That the original rules contained what appear to be some unique elements from the outset (goal had to be kicked, couldn't be deflected for instance) - the key notion was the intention which was to simply develop a localised variant of the concept of games loosely known as 'football'. However - what was pretty well unique (from the outset) was the development of the leading edge being community clubs rather than scholarly institutions. 20-30 years on and observers from the UK visiting commented about how the young men in England played until the finished at school - whereas in Melbourne in particular they played against men in the community games.

The AFL has no aim outside Australia. They won't even give international leagues a Sherrin or two to get them started. The only way the AFL could treat them any worse is to actively discourage these leagues from starting up.

The big difference is, I agree and have never disputed he was influenced by his boarding school days in England, no one disputes that, that is common sense 101. Quite worried myself that you can't see it works both ways. That is also common sense 101. So now you are suspecting things about Wills family .... nice !!

You obviously don't see all the Football tabs. Unlike some here I have to earn a living so can't spend all day on the Roar. Good luck to the AFL. If the aim is to be a niche sport played by expats and a few locals on borrowed fields then I don't see how they can fail. Look at all the tiny, niche sports that are played in Australia.

Let me put it another way Are you saying that Tom Wills was not influenced by his early years growing up whilst boarding at the Rugby school in England (which unlike your stories is actually a fact)? There is no basis to the aboriginal influence, you're quoting hearsay evidence "The 88-year-old revealed that his grandfather Horace told Wills-Cooke’s mother Rene that great-uncle Tom played a form of football with local Aboriginal children.," really I'm worried you think this is credible??. Collins says the features that are used as evidence for the aboriginal influence (jumping for the ball etc) were all laws introduced much later after Wills, I may be wrong but I think the original rules even banned it. This isn't in the Collins paper but interesting anyway, apparently a university in the US played a very similar game around the same time too, again based on English school games (couldn't run with the ball, could punch it though) Wills' family was obviously one of influence and empire (given he was sent to board at Rugby), I suspect the aboriginal interaction is a bit of a modern re-write of history especially given the attitudes of the day. Read the paper and if you still disagree we can agree to disagree.

conchie you need to check out the work of Collins mentioned above... and perhaps the mark twain quote somewhere else in this discussion. you are absolutely right to argue that a boy growing up with aboriginal kids would have had some of their culture wash off on him. unfortunately there is no record, apart from some chinese whisper style aggrandizing oral testimony of wills' family, that the aborigines in the area he grew up in played any sort of ball games at all. Wills was educated at Rugby school and was a noted footballer. That actually is documented. He also attended Cambridge briefly, at the very time when students there were attempting (and failing) to codify a version of football that old boys of all the schools could play. When he came back to Melbourne he attempted to do the same thing - and what resulted was a combination of rules that were already present in games in the UK, even if they weren't officially codified. Aussie Rules is rightly proud of being the first officially codified football. But there is a hell of a lot of myth making - and Flanagan, a journo first and foremost, is guilty of it, as academics like Collins have shown.

@reality, lets approach this from a different direction ... Are you saying that Tom Wills was not influenced by his early years growing up with aboriginal children ?, if you are that is a far fetched proposition. Inevitably it would have influenced his behaviours and attitudes in later life both conciously and subconciously in whatever he did. So for a English historian to debunk the myth, then I imagine he must have transported himself back in time to a different continent.

That analogy is completely different. A similar analogy for the Socceroos would be if their World cup team consisted of retired Brazillian players and Brazillian players that couldn't make the main competition in Brazil and who had once had a Vegemite sandwich or had a dip at Bondi.

Exactly JohnL!!!! Easily the best post on this thread.