 Brief Australian football description
Added: 02/27/2006 |
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Each continent and nation have their own most popular sports. For instance, in England the most popular game is football (soccer); in the United States of America the most widespread game is American football; while hockey is very fashionable in Finland and Sweden. This brief Australian football description features some facts about the Australian football competitions.
Soccer, or football, is one of the most popular sports in Australia. It is noteworthy though that the Australian football popularity is less than other football codes.
Let us begin our Australian football description from the historical background of the game. In the 1860s, the English immigrants were the first to play football in Australia. Afterwards the Football Association was set up in 1863 in London. Wanderers was the first recorded club, which was founded by John Walter Fletcher (a school teacher) in 1880, at Parramatta. The first match recognized under FA rules in Australia took place in 1880, when the team of Kings School rugby football played Wanderers on August 14, at Parramatta Common. Nevertheless, Balgownie Rangers is the oldest existing club, which was founded in 1883 and still participates in the regional league of Illawarra.
Our Australian football description is followed by some facts about the historical governing bodies of Australian football. The early Australia's leading bodies had to differentiate Australian football competitions from rugby football and Australian rules football. These are rival sport that had great popularity in various Australian colonies during the period from 1860s till 1870s. The association of NSW (New South Wales) was formed in 1882 by Fletcher. The association of Victoria, the AAFA (Anglo-Australian Football Association) was formed in 1884; in 1889 the QBFA (Queensland British Football Association) appeared; in 1896 - the WABFA (Western Australian British Football Association) emerged, which was soon renamed into the WASFA (Western Australian Soccer Football Association); in 1902 the SABFA (South Australian British Football Association) appeared; and during the period of 1910-1912 the Tasmanian association was set up. The Commonwealth Football Association was the first Australia-wide body, which was founded in 1912.
It is a very interesting fact in the Australian football description that the native-born Australians overpoweringly watched and played Rugby or Australian Rules; soccer had a great popularity among the various Southern European and British immigrant communities. All these communities expanded quickly during the period of the 1950s - 1960s: the English, Croatian, Italian, Greek, and Scottish communities stimulated the largest clubs rise off. At that time, the Australian football served as a bonding bridge among various ethnic communities. A correspondingly growing British migrants' number also aroused great interest in that sports. It is a very interesting fact in the Australian football description that in 1974 Johnny Warren (who was a national team member at their first appearance in the World Cup) named his memoir "Poofters, Wogs and Sheilas" giving a suggestion of how in the 1970s the Australian community saw "wogball".
Thus, the brief Australian football description has featured the most interesting historical facts in the development of Australian football.
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