World War I During World War I, Australian troops organised matches across Europe, in countries with the highest profile matches been played in the United Kingdom since 1916 but also one-off matches in other countries including Belgium and France (1919).
Pioneer Exhibition Game in London On Saturday 28 October 1916, the former Olympic champion swimmer and the later
Lord Mayor of Melbourne,
Lieutenant Frank Beaurepaire, organised an Australian Rules football match between two teams of Australian servicemen in aid of the British and French
Red Cross. The match was promoted as a "Pioneer Exhibition Game of Australian Football in London". It was held at
Queen's Club,
West Kensington before an estimated crowd of 3,000, which included the (then)
Prince of Wales (later
King Edward VIII), and
King Manuel II of Portugal. The members of the competing teams,
Australian Training Units and
The Third Australian Divisional Team, were all highly skilled footballers, the majority of which had already played senior football in their respective states. A news film was taken at the match. In order to celebrate the match Beaurepaire commissioned a set of team photographs that were inserted into a mounting board decorated with a
British Union Jack and an
Australian Red Ensign, that had "Australian Football in London. Pioneer Exhibition Game. At Queen's Club, West Kensington. Saturday 28th Oct. 1916" at its head, and "Organizer of Match & Donor of Photos to Club Lieut. Frank Beaurepaire" at its foot.
World War II During World War II, exhibition matches were played by servicemen in several countries, especially in South East Asia and also in the United Kingdom. Countries included Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. Each of these matches drew a number of interested local spectators.
1960s – 1990s After the 1960s, the
Victorian Football League, realising that finding new markets were essential to the prosperity of the competition began to belatedly pursue a series of international exhibition matches to raise the profile of the game overseas. The longest and most persistent of these was Great Britain, which was seen as an opportunity primarily due to the high number of ex-patriate Australians living there, and the availability of
cricket grounds. The most notable series of exhibition matches was staged by the
Carlton Football Club in 1972. Club president
George Harris organised for Carlton and an All-Stars team of players from other senior teams around Australia to go on a three-week
World Tour, which saw matches played in London,
Athens and
Singapore. Serious efforts to grow the game were not realised until the 1980s. Games played in this decade began to spawn infant leagues in Japan named the "Aussie Bowl", the United States of America and Canada, which have been represented at the
Australian Football International Cup since 2002. During the 1990s, regular exhibition matches became part of the growth strategy of the renamed
Australian Football League, which began to realise that the effects of globalisation would threaten the future of the sport in the face of world sports like
soccer. The focus of the AFL in this decade was New Zealand and South Africa.
2000s – present Exhibition matches have been regularly scheduled for
The Oval in London, which has in the past been an event for ex-patriate Australians. The event has been annual as the "AFL Challenge Trophy" since 2002 and although it has not always been annual event, a small amount of interest in the games has grown amongst locals. Since sell-out game in Los Angeles, United States in early 2006, club officials of the
Sydney Swans have called for regular games (similar to the London matches) including the possibility of a premiership match. The
WAFL announced intentions to play an exhibition match in
Mumbai, India in late 2006 between the grand finalists. However this match did not go ahead. In November 2005, AFL club
Melbourne made an announcement that it was investigating playing an exhibition match in 2006 or 2007 in the
Chinese metropolis
Tianjin, with
Beijing or
Shanghai possible alternative hosts. The match was delayed by the Melbourne Football Club's CEO. In February 2006, AFL club
Essendon's CEO indicated the possibility of an exhibition match in Japan in 2007 to mark 20 years since the last
Aussie Bowl between the Bombers and Hawthorn. In August 2008, the AFL announced it intended to schedule two games in India with
Feroz Shah Kotla in
New Delhi and
Wankhede Stadium in
Mumbai being considered as well as one game in Miami, Florida USA in early March.
List of official Australian rules football exhibition matches played outside Australia Additional references: International Australian Football Council, SurreyCricket.com, Matchday programmes, VFL/AFL ==Exhibition matches played outside Victoria==