Australian rules football in England

History of Australian rules football in England

In 1883, during a visit to Australia, English journalist and rugby player Richard Twopeny wrote of Australian Football:

A good football match in Melbourne is one of the sights of the world... The quality of the play... is much superior to anything the best English clubs can produce... there is much more 'style' about the play.

British Tours to Australia (1888-1914)

Australian rules football was played by a British representative rugby team which toured Australia in 1888. The team arrived in Hobart, Tasmania on 18 April. They attended a social function with the Southern Tasmanian Football Association, before going to New Zealand for a series of rugby matches.

After they returned to Australia they again trained in Australian rules in Sydney, before leaving for Victoria in mid-June. The tour included 19 matches. They played against several of the stronger football clubs from Melbourne including the Carlton Football Club, South Melbourne Football Club, Essendon Football Club, Fitzroy Football Club and Port Melbourne Football Club. Additionally, they played against some strong regional Victorian clubs including two teams from Ballarat, the Ballarat Football Club and Ballarat Imperials, as well as two teams from Bendigo (Bendigo Football Club and Sandhurst Football Club) as well as playing against the Castlemaine Football Club, Maryborough Football Club (of Maryborough, Victoria), Horsham Football Club (of Horsham, Victoria) and Kyneton Football Club (of Kyneton, Victoria).

The team also played against several of the stronger South Australian teams including South Adelaide Football Club, Port Adelaide Football Club, Adelaide Football Club (no connection to the later Adelaide club), Norwood Football Club. The only club from outside of Victoria or South Australia which played against them was the Maitland Football Club (from the Hunter Region in New South Wales). The British team won six matches, including a win over Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on 10 July 1888, and drew one.

The reigning Victorian premiers, Carlton defeated Great Britain at the MCG 14.17 to 3.8. At this stage goals and points were recorded but only goals counted in the score; for example, when Great Britain played Castlemaine under very heavy conditions they kicked 1 goal 2 points and the locals kicked 1 goal 4 points, but the match was declared a draw. Great Britain also played 35 games of rugby, making a total of 54 games in 21 weeks. A star of the team's Australian rules games was Andrew Stoddart, who captained the team for part of its tour and also captained England in cricket.

The 1888 tour had been organised by the English cricketer Arthur Shrewsbury but his involvement with Australian Rules football did not end there. He planned to have an Australian team sent to the United Kingdom to play a series of demonstration matches and to that end he looked to Scotland where he had identified possible opponents. Shrewsbury’s plans are outlined in his correspondence with Alfred Shaw and Turner, the Nottingham Cricket Club Secretary.

Introduction of the game in England

Between 1870 and World War I many overseas students studied medicine in Scotland, and some went down to England to play the Australian Rules teams in that country. On 14 April 1888, the Edinburgh Australians played an Australian Rules game against the University of London at Balham, a match which drew considerable praise in UK newspapers such as the Times and the Scotsman.

Shrewsbury suggested that the 'Edinburgh Australians' team at Edinburgh University should travel down to England to meet the Australian team in a series of demonstration matches in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Unfortunately his bold plan did not eventuate as the authorities in Australia aborted the venture and a possible expansion of Australian Rules in the UK was lost.

World War I

In 1916, a match was held at the Queen's Club in London between Australian Army teams, representing the Combined Training Units and the 3rd Division, in which many senior Australian rules footballers from all over Australia took part. However, the end of World War I put an end to organised Australian rules competition in England.

Varsity matches between Oxford and Cambridge

After the war, in 1921, the annual Oxford University-Cambridge University Varsity match was played for the first time between expatriate Australian students. This game is still played, and is the longest running Australian rules fixture outside Australia. The match is an official Varsity competition. Over the years, some distinguished Australians to have played in the match include Mike Fitzpatrick, Chris Maxwell, Joe Santamaria, Sir Rod Eddington and Andrew Michelmore.

Second World War matches

RAAF (Sunderland) vs RAF Mount Batten was played in 1943 in Plymouth. In November of the same year, a game was played in Sussex between No.11 Personnel despatch and Reception centre team based in Brighton vs RAAF Headquarters from London.

Teams representing RAAF, Headquarters vs Sunderland, met in Hyde Park in 1944 in front of a sizeable crowd. Headquarters defeated Sunderland 12.7 (79) to 5.4 (34).

The first local league

In 1967, a charity match was played in Regent's Park in London, attracting a crowd of 1,000 spectators. it was followed by matches arranged against Royal Australian Navy personnel and local school sides and rugby clubs. A league was formed which by 1970 had six teams, including two English rugby sides which used the sport to keep fit in the off-season. Among the supporters were Rolf Harris, Barry Humphries and Michael Cyril Hall. Clubs included the Kensington Demons, Earls Court Magpies, Oxford University Blues, Australian Dentists and Australian Navy (based in Portsmouth). This league had disappeared by 1973.

Post-war exhibition matches

In 1972, the first exhibition match of the AFL was played at The Oval in London. By 1987, the game had become an annual event, missing only some years. With a large number of ex-patriate Australians, interest in the game grew and small crowds of up to 10,000 were in attendance for the event in some years. Interest and crowds grew further with the change of the VFL to the Australian Football League. Highlights during this time included large crowds for the Australian Football League's West Coast Eagles v. Collingwood in 1997 with an attendance of 14,000 and the match between Richmond and Essendon in 2002 which drew 13,000.

The British Australian rules football league

In 1989 the British Australian rules football League (BARFL) was formed. Serious competition began and the competition became more popular, with the local BARFL Grand Finals becoming a large event attracting attendances in the thousands, including a record crowd of 1,500 in 1999.

In 2002 a national team represented Great Britain at the Australian Football International Cup for the first time, finishing the tournament in 6th place. 2005 saw the British Bulldogs again compete in the International Cup, again finishing 6th overall.

Following the 2005 International Cup, promising 22-year-old British Bulldog Luke Matias began playing with the Port Melbourne Football Club in the Victorian Football League.

Also in 2005, the first Western Derby to be played outside of Australia, the West Coast Eagles v. Fremantle game was played as a pre-season test at The Oval in London, drawing a record crowd of 18,884.

In the 2005 Oxford vs Cambridge match, held at Oxford, the Oxford dark blues triumphed 99-22 over the light blue tabs, despite the loss of their inspirational full forward, whose finger was snapped off in a freak brawling accident.

Emergence of Aussie rules UK

In 2005 the first junior development program, Aussie Rules Schools, commenced. The program, co-ordinated by the new development body Aussie Rules UK, part of Aussie Rules International was kicked off. This project has seen up to 10 English schools adopt Aussie Rules as part of the school curriculum to combat obesity. Juniors teams have competed at the London Youth Games.

2006 was a big year for Aussie Rules in England, with the admission of new clubs in Manchester, Middlesbrough and Thanet.

On 17 September 2006 history was made in Denmark when the England Dragonslayers took on the Denmark Vikings in Europe's first fully-fledged international junior Aussie Rules match. England claimed the King Canute Cup, with England 6.10(46) defeating Denmark 0.6(6).

In July 2007, the AFL announced that the annual London exhibition match was likely to be abandoned for the year, after only the Western Bulldogs had expressed interest.

In a first in 2007, the GB Bulldogs including several past and future England players, soundly defeated Ireland in Dublin 11.15(81) to 2.9(21), holding high expectation for the upcoming 2008 International Cup.

AFL Britain

In 2008, a resolution to the divide between the two competing leagues saw a single national body, AFL Britain form, which formally affiliated to the AFL. The BARFL was dissolved and became AFL London, while regional leagues including the Scottish Australian Rules Football League and the Welsh Australian Rules Football League affiliated with the new national body.

Participation

In 2004, there were a total of around 435 senior players across 18 clubs in England. The local league has a higher number of ex-patriate Australians compared to other countries that participate in the sport, however the league recently put in place caps on the number of expatriate players in certain divisions to improve the mix and encourage more local players.

By the end of 2007, the game had experienced substantial growth due to the placement of permanent development officers. AFL International Census figures indicate over 3,600 participants

Television

Since the demise of the Setanta Sports channels in Great Britain, the new ESPN UK channel has picked up the broadcast rights for the Australian Football League.

As of Friday 7 August 2009 ESPN and British Eurosport are the holders of the British and Irish rights to the Australian Football League (AFL).The new ESPN UK channel is available in Standard Definition via Sky Digital on channel 417 and in High Definition on channel 442. The channel is also available to Virgin Media, TalkTalk TV, BT Vision and Top Up TV subscribers. For the remainder of the 2009 season and for the entire 2010 season, ESPN UK will show three live games each round of the season including selected finals games and the AFL Grand Final in September. Eurosport shows one game a week but the coverage is delayed. The AFL will re-negotiate a future television rights deal sometime in 2010/2011.

Local competitions

1,500 (1999). BARFL Grand Final. West London Wildcats vs Wandsworth Demons. London

Exhibition match

18,884 (2005). West Coast v. Fremantle (The Oval, London)

National teams

The official British national Australian Rules football squad is known as the British Bulldogs and has competed in all of the AFL International Cups in Melbourne. The squad is made up of players mainly from the London clubs, although regional clubs including the Reading Roos and Nottingham Scorpions in particular have provided large numbers of players in recent years. The Bulldogs squad for the 2008 International Cup was the first to include players from the Welsh Australian Rules Football League (WARFL).

A separate English representative team was organised by Aussie Rules UK under the name England Dragonslayers. The Dragonslayers squads have so far been almost exclusively drawn from the ARUK Regional leagues, although some players from the Great Britain Bulldogs have also played for the Dragonslayers.

There has been speculation that England will eventually field national sides at the International Cup, but this has not been officially stated by AFL Britain.

Leagues and Clubs

Leagues in England are administered by the AFL London and the Aussie Rules UK regional leagues.

Juniors

English-born players in the AFL

Current players are highlighted in bold.