Aussie Sport - Australias Very Own Footy

"Get a bag bluey!" "Make a yard Robbo" "RYa Blind Umpie?"

The Original Football League Australian Rules Football

Australia Rules Football "Ya got chewy on ya boot ya mug"

Yes, there is no other sport in Australia, or perhaps the world, that evokes the emotions like Aussie Rules. It is the second fastest open field game in the world behind Ice Hockey, which competively is mostly played indoors anyway, and is, some argue, the most talented game in the world.

A game of speed, kicking ability, ball control and fierce tackling, it is played right across Australia and now has a national league involving nine games each week of the season that are watched by over a quarter of a million people live each week. The grand final of the competition is played on the last Saturday of September each year and is watched by close to 100,000 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, lovingly called "the G".

"Did he really just do that?"

A classic and extremely exciting feature of Aussie Rules is the high marking; tha above being heard from an American spectator watching a Canadian player jump on top of a USA opponent in a video of a recent match between the two countries. Yes the game is catching on overseas in a big way!

The term 'mark' comes from the Aboriginal word 'memarka' which means 'to catch'.

In the photo above Essendons Gary Moorcroft jumps over his own height to stand on the shoulders of Western Bulldogs opponent Brad Johnson to claim Mark Of The Year for 2001.

Based partly on an Indigenous Aboriginal game called Marn Grook Aussie Rules was devised by Thomas Wills and his associates around 1857 in Victoria. Thomas had been educated in England where he played the developing game of Rugby (Union) but had grown up in the Western District of Victoria where he watched, and possibly played, the Indigenous game. Coming home from England he declared to his friends that they should create a game "we can call our own".

The group of four then organised the first game of Australian Rules Football in 1858 between two colleges in Victoria - Melbourne Grammer School and Scotch College - and soon after the first two registered football clubs in the world were established - Melbourne Football Club in 1858 and Geelong Football Club in 1859.

A TIMELINE OF AUSSIE RULES FOOTY HISTORY

The game quickly spread to South Australia and the rest of Australia and before the First Would War was played also in Scotland, Holland, South Africa and New Zealand as well as possibly other countries. The war and then a social separation from Victoria by New South Wales saw the game diminish overseas and in the northern states but now the game is again gaining a stronghold both all over Australia and overseas.

World Footy News is a group who brings you the latest news of the progress of Aussie Rules around the world and is a great place to link up to a number of websites of the countries now playing Aussie Rules.

VISIT WORLD FOOTY NEWS WEBSITE

Aussie Rules has long been played by women in a male dominated arena, with young girls being allowed to play alongside the boys up till around 12 or 13 years of age before being effectively banned from the sport.

That is now changing though with the advent of stronger local leagues and state leagues and more recently since 2016 the beginning of AFLW, the top league for Womens Aussie Rules footy in Australia.

VISIT AFL WOMENS WEBSITE