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Ozzie Rules Football was 1st played at Melbourne in 1858. The game is still centred in Victoria. The professional league is the AFL. The top clubs are Carlton and Essendon, with 16 Grand Finals, which are played every September. In 2013 Hawthorn beat Fremantle 11-8 on goals before 100 000 fans. The league currently has 18 clubs, 10 from Victoria and 2 each from NSW, Qld, SA & WA. The Sydney Swans used to be North Melbourne. 2/2014

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  • Australian rules football
  • Australian Rules Football
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  • Ozzie Rules Football was 1st played at Melbourne in 1858. The game is still centred in Victoria. The professional league is the AFL. The top clubs are Carlton and Essendon, with 16 Grand Finals, which are played every September. In 2013 Hawthorn beat Fremantle 11-8 on goals before 100 000 fans. The league currently has 18 clubs, 10 from Victoria and 2 each from NSW, Qld, SA & WA. The Sydney Swans used to be North Melbourne. 2/2014
  • Australian rules football, or footy is a sport more complex than both soccer, as it involves more body parts and umpires, and rugby, as it involves running in multiple directions. In most instances there are more stretchers involved than in cricket.
  • The dominant football code in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. Rugby League is more popular in New South Wales (north of Wagga Wagga, which has been described as the "border" between Aussie Rules and Rugby territory) and Queensland, although there are AFL teams based there. In Victoria, especially Melbourne, Aussie Rules is not a religion, it's more important than that. Go ahead, try getting a taxi on Grand Final night. The eighteen teams of the AFL are: In the media:
  • Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, footy or Aussie rules (and in some regions is marketed as AFL, after the Australian Football League, the only fully professional Australian football league) is a sport played between two teams of 18 players on the field on either an Australian Football ground, a modified cricket field or similar sized sports venue. Australian football is the major participation and spectator sport in Australia. The sport is also played at amateur level in several countries and in several variations.
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  • Football, footy, Aussie rules
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  • Australian football
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  • (A ball-up in a game between and during the 2007 AFL season.)
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  • Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, footy or Aussie rules (and in some regions is marketed as AFL, after the Australian Football League, the only fully professional Australian football league) is a sport played between two teams of 18 players on the field on either an Australian Football ground, a modified cricket field or similar sized sports venue. The game's objective is to move the ball downfield and kick the ball through the team's goal. The main way to score points is by kicking the ball between the two tall goal posts. The team with the higher total score at the end of the match wins unless either a draw is declared or a tie-break is used. During general play, players may position themselves anywhere on the field and use any part of their bodies to move the ball. The primary methods are kicking, handballing and running with the ball. There are rules on how the ball can be handled: for example, players running with the ball must intermittently bounce or touch it on the ground. Throwing the ball is not allowed and players must not get caught holding the ball. Possession of the ball is in dispute at all times except when a free kick or mark is paid. A distinctive feature of the game is the mark, where players anywhere on the field who catch a ball from a kick (with specific conditions) are awarded possession. Australian Football is a contact sport, in which players can tackle using their hands or use their whole body to obstruct opponents. Dangerous physical contact (such as pushing an opponent in the back), interference when marking and deliberately slowing the play are discouraged with free kicks, distance penalties or suspension for a certain number of matches, depending on the seriousness of the infringement. Frequent physical contests, spectacular marking, fast movement of both players and the ball and high scoring are the game's main attributes. Details of the game's origins in Australia are obscure and still the subject of much debate. Australian football became organised in Melbourne in May 1859, when the first laws of the game were published by the Melbourne Football Club. Australian football is the major participation and spectator sport in Australia. The sport is also played at amateur level in several countries and in several variations. The most prestigious competition is the Australian Football League (AFL), culminating in the annual AFL Grand Final, currently the highest attended club championship event in the world. The rules of Australian football are governed by the AFL Commission with the advice of the AFL's Laws of the Game Committee.
  • The dominant football code in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. Rugby League is more popular in New South Wales (north of Wagga Wagga, which has been described as the "border" between Aussie Rules and Rugby territory) and Queensland, although there are AFL teams based there. In Victoria, especially Melbourne, Aussie Rules is not a religion, it's more important than that. Go ahead, try getting a taxi on Grand Final night. Aussie Rules is ... umm ... what's the word? ... violent. Very, very violent. It's like Rugby turned Up to Eleven. In recent years, the AFL has been trying to clean up the game's image and counteract this - certainly, the actions of players such as Robbie Muir, David Rhys-Jones and Jack "Captain Blood" Dyer would be unacceptable today. Still, even when they play by the rules, it's hard to watch without wincing. Those sissies in Mixed Martial Arts should give this sport a try. The game is played on an oval field you could land an Airbus on, with 18 players per side (plus a four-player bench - three of whom can freely enter and exit the game, while the fourth is a designated soccer-style substitute whose entry ends the replaced player's day). It is divided into four quarters of twenty (formerly 25) minutes each, not including stoppage time. A match begins in the centre of the field with an umpire bouncing the ball high into the air, at which point a player from each team (the "ruck", who is usually very tall) will jump up and try to punch the ball towards their own players. Players can run with the ball, but must bounce it on the ground every fifteen metres; they can pass the ball by kicking or handballing (i.e. tapping away with the side of the fist) but not by throwing. Catching a ball that has been kicked over a distance of fifteen metres or more without bouncing is called a mark, and automatically earns a free kick. A goal is scored when the ball is kicked between the two central posts by the attacking team, without being touched by another player or hitting the post -- this is worth six points. A "behind" is scored if the ball goes between the central and outer post, or hits a player or goal post on the way through, and is worth one point. Hitting the outer posts is worth no points. The biggest Australian Rules league by a massive margin is the Australian Football League, with the result that the game itself is commonly unofficially called "AFL". The AFL grew from the interstate expansion of the Victorian Football League, and currently has ten Victorian and eight interstate teams (two each from South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, and New South Wales). Of the interstate teams, one (the Sydney Swans) was a Victorian club that was forced to relocate, and another (the Brisbane Lions) was the result of another Victorian team merging with the Brisbane Bears. This setup has sparked significant conflict between the Victorian and interstate teams, with some Victorian teams (especially the smaller, poorer ones) feeling that the league is attempting to force them out to make way for more interstate teams), while those interstate accuse Victorians of thinking they own the league. Below the AFL, there are a number of state leagues, the most important being the VFL (formerly the VFA, who took the acronym after the original VFL became the AFL), the SANFL, and the WAFL (pronounced "waffle". Mmm, waffles). Below that, there are a number of local leagues. The eighteen teams of the AFL are: * Adelaide Crows (SA) * Joined League: 1991 * Colours: Navy blue, red and gold * Premierships: 1997, 1998 * Supporter stereotype: Rich, chardonnay-drinking snobs, which doesn't prevent them from being yobbos. Never give the opposition credit for doing well. The Rival of Port Power, not that anyone else cares. * They've built a fanbase among Aussie Rules fans in the USA thanks to their use (with club-themed lyrics) of the Marine Corps Hymn as their theme song. * Brisbane Lions (Qld) - Formed by the merger of the Brisbane Bears and Fitzroy Lions. * Joined League: 1897 (Fitzroy), 1987 (Brisbane Bears), 1997 (clubs merged) * Colours: Maroon, blue and gold * Premierships: (As Fitzroy) 1898, 1899, 1904, 1905, 1913, 1916, 1922, 1944 (As Brisbane Lions) 2001, 2002, 2003 * Supporter stereotype: Fair-weather fans who don't know much about the game, and only pay attention in years when Brisbane are doing well. * Unless they're actually Victorian. The club has a loyal fan base in Melbourne, mostly people who followed Fitzroy before the merger. Most fans attend the few games Brisbane have in Victoria (usually five or six), and an amateur team picked up the Fitzroy name. Fitzroy supporters were legendarily (read: insanely) loyal (before the merger, that is - a lot of them gave up in disgust at that point), and the team was generally well-liked by supporters of other teams in a perpetual underdog kind of way. As the bard of Aussie Rules, Greg Champion put it: "deep in our hearts, we all barrack for Fitzroy". * Carlton Blues (Vic) * Joined League: 1897 * Colours: Navy blue (with white monogram) * Premierships: 1906, 1907, 1908, 1914, 1915, 1938, 1945, 1947, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1987, 1995 * Supporter stereotype: Rich snobs, usually of Italian background. Possibly have mafia connections. * Also seen, these days, as fair weather fans - as the Grand Final tally demonstrates, Carlton enjoyed a long season of fair weather prior to 1996. Since then, the team has frequently failed to even make the finals, and many of the less stalwart fans have deserted it. * Collingwood Magpies (Vic) - The most hated team in the league. * Joined League: 1897 * Colours: Black and white * Premierships: 1902, 1903, 1910, 1917, 1919, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1935, 1936, 1953, 1958, 1990, 2010 * Supporter stereotype: Loud, obnoxious yobbos with an IQ in single digits, who don't know the rules of the game and leave early whenever their team looks set to lose the match. Being in the presence of said supporters is likely to result in severe IQ loss. Yanks, think Oakland Raiders supporters. Brits, think Liverpool supporters. * The 2010 Grand Final between St. Kilda and Collingwood has been described by some as "Australia vs. Collingwood". * Nearly any game played by Collingwood, but especially Grand Finals, will see supporters of pretty much every other team barracking for whoever is playing Collingwood to win, on the basis that whoever they are, at least they're not Collingwood. * Essendon Bombers (Vic) * Joined League: 1897 * Colours: Black and red * Premierships: 1897, 1901, 1911, 1912, 1923, 1924, 1942, 1946, 1949, 1950, 1962, 1965, 1984, 1985, 1993, 2000 * Supporter stereotype: Arrogant, even when they're near the bottom of the ladder. Also very rebellious, occasionally claiming that the league is in a conspiracy against them. * To be fair, there were actually at least a couple of years around 2000 where Essendon were nailed, bolted and hard welded to the TOP of the ladder... In effect, the Bombers had a golden age and now it has passed. This helps to explain the arrogance... * Fremantle Dockers (WA) - The only side to have finished a season without winning the premiership. * Joined League: 1994 * Colours: Purple and white, formerly purple, red, white and green. One of their club presidents is quoted as saying, "Our colours don't clash with any other team's. They just clash with each other." * Supporter stereotype: Lefties, whether they be trades unionists or the chardonnay socialist crowd. * Geelong Cats (Vic) * Joined League: 1897 * Colours: Navy blue and white * Premierships: 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011 * Supporter stereotype: Farmers and other people who live in the countryside or bogans from Geelong's seedy ghetto-like suburbs, almost every single person you will ever meet from the city of Greater Geelong, unless they support Collingwood * Extremely touchy about being the only non-capital city team (until the Gold Coast got going). This has led to their supporters becoming almost as fanatical as the Collingwood supporters, only orders of magnitude more popular with Australian society. * Extremely violent when the team is not doing well. Marginally less so when they are. Cats posters in G-town shop windows are disturbingly reminiscent of "no Jews or dogs allowed". Hilarity Ensues when an obnoxious loud-mouthed Collingwood fan... does anything or says anything about football during the season, when the signs are up all over the place, it's probably one of the few cases where being Too Dumb to Live results in the police intervening because from a legal standpoint the Collingwood fan is committing An act that no person, sober and sound of mind, would partake in. * Extremely everything football; the social scene of the whole city revolves around the sport and their club, just about everyone supports the Cats and the few exceptions to this rule are almost always Collingwood supporters. The club itself is an exception to the binge drinking, substance abuse, brutal nightclub assaults, brutal leaving-the-party-with-someone-else's-barely-conscious-partner assaults, brutal hotel-room assaults and brutal on-field assaults. Seriously though, the Geelong Football club has a complete absence of these incidents that are dogging other clubs in the league, probably because these acts are considered an average night on the town for their supporter base. In truth, part of the reason for the sobriety of the players is the bizarre (and prevailing) view amongst the (tragically) large bogan population of Geelong that bashing a Geelong football player in a nightclub or any other nightlife venue somehow entitles them to take their place in the team. * Gold Coast Suns (Qld) * Joined League: 2011 * Colours: Red, gold, sky blue * Supporter stereotype: TBA. They only started playing in the big league in 2011. * Greater Western Sydney Giants (NSW) * Joined League: 2012 * Colours: Orange, charcoal and white * Supporter stereotype: TBA. They make their big league debut in 2012. * Hawthorn Hawks (Vic) * Joined League: 1925 * Colours: Brown and gold * Premierships: 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008 * Supporter stereotype: Upper-middle class Liberal-Party-voting types. Run by a former Liberal state premier. * As well as Tasmanians. Well, they do play a few home games there... * Not a powerhouse like some of the other teams such as Collingwood or Geelong, but they're quietly capable of holding their own against them. * Jeff Kennett, the former State Premier who is President of the club, was a divisive figure as Premier and remains one today. Oddly, this has had the effect of making non-Liberal-voting Hawks fans more philosophical about defeat: sure, Hawthorn lost, but at least that means Kennett's unhappy. * North Melbourne Kangaroos (Vic) * Joined League: 1925 * Colours: Royal blue and white * Premierships: 1975, 1977, 1996, 1999 * Supporter stereotype: What supporters? * More accurately: Tough-as-nails, but not necessarily bright, football tragics. * Possibly The Woobie to non-Australians. Finding an Australian that is sympathetic to the club's plight is difficult because they'll either support another team, fanatically, or dislike the sport as a whole. * Melbourne Demons (Vic) - Oldest Professional Sporting Club in the world. * Joined League: 1897 * Colours: Red and navy blue * Premierships: 1900, 1926, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1948, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1964 * Supporter stereotype: Old money types who own Range Rovers despite never going out of the city, except to go skiing, which is what they do instead of attending games. * Port Adelaide Power (SA) * Joined League: 1997 * Colours: Black, white, teal (presumably to make Freo feel better about their ugly shirts) * Premierships: 2004 * Supporter stereotype: Much the same as Collingwood, except living in Adelaide. The club's state-league branch, which predates the national league by a century or so, is even called the Magpies. And its guernsey design there is usually described as "prison bars". The Rival of the Crows. * Considered a Joke Character or One Trick Pony after their humiliating hundred-point loss to Geelong in the 2007 Grand Final,and being the first team to lose to new side Gold Coast Suns, who up till that game had been losing by margins between 80 and 120 points. The club's, average at best, performance in recent seasons as done nothing other than help the club avoid being branded the league's Butt Monkey. * Richmond Tigers (Vic) * Joined League: 1908 * Colours: Black and yellow * Premierships: 1920, 1921, 1932, 1934, 1943, 1967, 1969, 1973, 1974, 1980 * Supporter stereotype: Working class "bogans" (for those in the US, think "white trash", for those in the UK think "Chav" or more precisely "Diet Chav-lite"). * St Kilda Saints (Vic) * Joined League: 1897 * Colours: Black, white and red * Premierships: 1966 * Supporter stereotype: Long-suffering. Kind of like Chicago Cubs supporters in the USA... * Once again, potentially explainable by the fact that the Saints are often nailed, bolted and hard welded to the bottom of the ladder. This was particularly true during Essendon's heyday around the year 2000... * It goes back further than that. The Saints have only ever won one flag, and hold the records for the longest losing streak and most wooden spoons (last-place finishes) in the league. * It gets worse. They have been playing since 1873. 1873. Their first premiership flag was won in 1966, by one point. These poor buggers average worse than one premiership a century. * Their chance at a second flag in 2010, has resulted in two games; the first was a draw. The second was a loss. * The rest of Australia (barring, of course, Collingwood supporters) offered their condolences on such a tragic occasion. * Sydney Swans (NSW - Formerly South Melbourne) * Joined League: 1897 as South Melbourne - Relocated to Sydney in 1982 * Premierships: (As South Melbourne) 1909, 1918, 1933 (As Sydney) 2005 * Colours: Red and white * Supporter stereotype: See Brisbane. Alternate type: Someone who's been following them for at least three decades and still thinks they're South Melbourne. * Possibly one of the least interesting and most ignored teams in the sport. Not that they suck much anymore, but because NSW has Rugby League which supplies arguably more interesting scandals involving sex, drugs and (too) masculine professional athletes. * West Coast Eagles (WA) * Joined League: 1987 * Colours: Blue and gold * Premierships: 1992, 1994, 2006 * Supporter stereotype: Similar to Hawthorn, but living in Perth. * Rarely receives much media attention unless it was Ben Cousins getting busted for drugs (before getting sacked), someone else getting busted for drugs or a sexual assault charge, which has led to an unfair perception in the Eastern States Victoria of the club as a mob of testosterone-powered fratboys who 'roid rage when they're not high on recreational drugs. Well, moreso than the rest of the league. * Western Bulldogs (Vic - Formerly Footscray) * Joined League: 1925 * Colours: Red, white and royal blue * Premierships: 1954 (as Footscray) * Supporter stereotype: Similar to Richmond, with St Kilda's "long suffering" element added. Also has a similar cliché of supporters in the Asian migrant community, although unlike the Richmond group, these ones seem to understand the game, or at least get worked up enough about losing to torch the odd car when things go worse then what is normal by the club's standards. * By "The Saints' long-suffering element", read "won exactly one premiership, longer ago than St Kilda did, and haven't played in a grand final in fifty years". * They did get to the preliminary final in 2009, but were knocked out by St Kilda. We take solace in the fact that Collingwood were knocked out in the same week. By Geelong. The fact that St Kilda then lost the grand final doesn't make it any better. * The prime minister, Julia Gillard, is a fervent supporter. Make of that what you will. * One other club, University, was part of the VFL from 1908 to 1915. Several clubs went into temporary remission during World War I, but University was the only one that never returned to the league. Sides representing Melbourne University now participate in the Victorian Amateur Football Association. The introduction of the GWS Giants and the Gold Coast Suns is part of an effort on the part of the AFL to increase their profile in the states of New South Wales and Queensland, which primarily follow rugby league as their football code. For a while, the Gold Coast team was going to be a relocated North Melbourne, but this fell through when they decided they didn't fancy moving after all (this came after years where the club had renamed itself simply the "Kangaroos Football Club" and were living in a limbo between representing North Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Canberra and Mars). After that particular debacle, the two new clubs were founded from scratch. Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory don't have full-time representation in professional football, despite the game being extremely popular in the former two. Tasmania has recently launched a campaign to get a team of their own in the AFL too, after decades of seeing all their best players have to move interstate to play at the top level. Even though Tasmania has produced some genuine AFL talent, the AFL doesn't take 'calls' for a Tasmanian team seriously. While no teams call Tasmania or the territories home, the AFL plays regular-season games in each area. Hawthorn plays about a third of its home schedule in Launceston (Tasmania) while North Melbourne hosts a couple of games in Hobart. Darwin (Northern Territory) gets about two games a year, and GWS has a second home in Canberra (Australian Capital Territory). In the media: * The Club - Play and movie * The Great Macarthy - movie * Australian Rules - movie * Specky Magee - book series * And The Big Men Fly - TV series * A commercial for Commonwealth Bank mixed this with making fun of Americans by showing an American marketing company confusing this with American football. * Tigers and Devils, an incredibly well-written Queer Romance by Sean Kennedy centring around a Rules footy player and his boyfriend-cum-long term partner as they struggle with publicity and coming out. * The Illuminati: New World Order card game has a card called "Australian Rules". The illustration shows a confused melee, with a player in (American) Football gear swinging a spiked baseball-bat.
  • Ozzie Rules Football was 1st played at Melbourne in 1858. The game is still centred in Victoria. The professional league is the AFL. The top clubs are Carlton and Essendon, with 16 Grand Finals, which are played every September. In 2013 Hawthorn beat Fremantle 11-8 on goals before 100 000 fans. The league currently has 18 clubs, 10 from Victoria and 2 each from NSW, Qld, SA & WA. The Sydney Swans used to be North Melbourne. 2/2014
  • Australian rules football, or footy is a sport more complex than both soccer, as it involves more body parts and umpires, and rugby, as it involves running in multiple directions. In most instances there are more stretchers involved than in cricket.
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