English involvement in the game's establishment in Australia According to the AFL, the
sport's origins were in England with
public school football games being adopted by Australians in the 1850s leading to the creation of what is now known as Australian Football in
Melbourne in the British
Colony of Victoria in 1859. Several of the sport's founders were English including
J. B. Thompson,
William Hammersley and
James Bryant, with
Tom Wills having been educated at and played
rugby football with the
Rugby School. (standing, third from left),
J. B. Thompson (seated, second from left),
Jerry Bryant (standing, second from right) and
Tom Wills (seated, far left), each having strong connections to England, met in 1859 to establish what is now known as Australian football. Writing to Wills in 1871, Thompson recalled that "the Rugby,
Eton,
Harrow, and
Winchester rules at that time (I think in 1859) came under our consideration, ... we all but unanimously agreed that regulations which suited schoolboys ... would not be patiently tolerated by grown men." The hardness of the playing fields around Melbourne also influenced their thinking. Even Wills, who favoured many rules of Rugby School football, saw the need for compromise. While the game found its way to Ireland in the 1870s and there was also some awareness in England of the popularity of the game in Australia, it was not established locally until much later. This is primarily due to the growing popularity of locally developing football codes including rugby football and later British Association (soccer) which, like Australian Football, were also developing from public school football games. The English were also heavily involved in the development of the code in the 1860s and 1870s.
George Metcalfe was instrumental in introducing at
Newington College in
Colony of New South Wales in 1867, the first school in the colony to known play football in any form. the
2nd Battalion of Fourteen Foot (Buckinghamshire) played in the first known match in the
Colony of Western Australia in 1868.
James Henry Gardiner founded the North Melbourne Football Club in 1869 which was later instrumental to unifying football rules in the
Colony of Tasmania.
John Acraman and
Richard Twopeny were the key players in establishing it in the
Colony of South Australia.
Early efforts to introduce the sport 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. A
Lancashire paper from 1881 mentions a local initiative to introduce "Victorian Rules Football" to England as an alternative to rugby and Association football. In 1883, during a visit to Australia, English journalist and rugby player
Richard Twopeny wrote of the game: 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. In 1884,
H. C. A. Harrison, then known as the "father of Australian Football", visited London where he proposed unifying Australian rules with Rugby under a set of hybrid rules and suggested that rugby clubs adopt some of the Victorian Rules. English football officials expressed their insult at the suggestion that they "abandon their rules to oblige an Antipodean game". Nevertheless, when first proposing a football tour of Australia and New Zealand in March 1887,
James Lillywhite,
Alfred Shaw and
Arthur Shrewsbury posited that the best way to ensure the success of the venture would be to play under the Australian rules where the sport was most popular. Australians studying at
Edinburgh University and
London University formed teams and competed in London in 1888. Spurred on by the upcoming English football team's tour of Australia, a scratch match between Edinburgh Australians and London Australians was planned to be held at
Balham on 14 April 1888. However the match was postponed citing lack of player numbers and suitability of the venue. There was little interest in the match outside of the Australian expat community. However the game was poorly organised and the selected ground was so out of the way that most spectators failed to find it, proving to be lost opportunity to promote the game. 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 the city of
Ballarat:
Ballarat Football Club and
Ballarat Imperial Football Club, as well as two teams from the city of
Bendigo:
Bendigo Football Club and
Sandhurst Football Club as well as playing against clubs from other regional towns including the
Castlemaine Football Club,
Maryborough Football Club,
Horsham Football Club and
Kyneton Football Club. 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 Valley 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.
First Competitions 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. In 1894, a dramatic costume football match was played at the
East Melbourne Cricket Ground involving prominent English celebrities
Jennie Lee,
Wallace Brownlow and
Harry Musgrove. There were reports from Australia that the game was being played in England between two clubs in 1903 and in 1904. By 1906 there were three clubs holding regular competition two of which were in London. The
Oxford University Australian Rules Football Club was founded in 1906. As early as 1911 the game was being played regularly at
Oxford. The
Cambridge University Australian Rules Football Club is believed to have been founded around 1911. In 1911 Oxford University captained by
Alfred Clemens defeated Cambridge University captained by
Ron Larking 13.9 (87) to 5.12 (42). In 1914, H C A Harrison reported that the game was being played regularly at both Oxford and Cambridge universities though few records exist of contests between 1911 and 1921.
World War I In 1915 a Victoria vs South Australia match was played at Portland Canteen ground at
Weymouth, Dorset. In 1916, one of the highest profile matches in the history of the game outside of Australia occurred when 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. The match drew a large crowd and significant press coverage. In 1917
HMAS Australia's Australian Football team played against a team of soldiers in London which drew significant attendance and interest. In November 1917, the Australian army and navy played a rugby match against each other in London, however the seconds played a match under Australian rules. As a celebration of Australia Day January 1918, a match was held at Cambridge between London Headquarters and Australian Cadets, with London winning 80 to 63. However, the end of World War I saw the game outside of the universities go into hiatus.
Varsity matches between Oxford and Cambridge After the war, in 1921, the
Oxford University–
Cambridge University Varsity match between
expatriate Australian students became an annual contest. This game is still played, and it 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 The AIF played a match in 1940 between the "Impossibles" and the "Improbables". When the returned to England after 1941 it played in advertised matches at
Portsmouth.
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). In 1945, defeated RAAF at
Dulwich 11.12 to 10.5. In 1948, Australia's champion axemen team announced its plans to introduce Australian rules football into England. featuring HMAS
Vengeance and the "Wombats" (in the stripes) at
Old Deer Park in 1952 In 1952, a match was played at
Rosslyn Park F.C. in South West London between and English-Australians ("the Wombats"). The Wombats also organised a match at Cambridge.
The first local league In 1967, Australian expatriates including Michael Cyril Hall and Ted Ford attempted to organise Australian Football in London. Ted engaged high-profile expatriate Australians including
Rolf Harris,
Alan Freeman,
Barry Humphries,
Neil Hawke,
Keith Miller and former Australian prime minister
Sir Robert Menzies to support the venture and raise publicity for it. Ford organised a charity match was played in
Regent's Park in London, between local club Kensington Demons and established out of town club Oxford University.
Athol Guy (who had played VFL reserves with St Kilda) also made a special appearance as a player. The match also featured England's first all-women's match between Aussie Girls and Wild Colonial Girls as a curtain raiser. The match attracted a crowd of 1,000 spectators. A follow-up match between Earl's Court Magpies and Australian Dentists attracted 700 spectators. In July,
Royal Australian Navy (RAN) personnel played against a combined side drawn from the Earls Court Magpies; Kensington Demons and Australian Dentists in front of a crowd of 1,200 at Regent's Park. RAN personnel would go on to play against local school sides and local rugby clubs. After some time finding its roots, the Australian National Football League (UK) was formed which by 1970 had six teams, Victorians; Rest of Australia; Portsmouth Naval Base; Plymouth Naval Base; London Gaelic Football Club and Hampstead Rugby Club with matches played in the summer. The later inclusion of two English rugby sides was helping them keep fit in the off-season. Later clubs to play in the league included the Kensington Demons, Earls Court Magpies, Oxford University Blues, Australian Dentists and Australian Navy (based in
Portsmouth). In 1972, the first
exhibition match of the
VFL was played at
The Oval in London as part of the Carlton Football Club
1972 preseason World Tour. The match attracted 9,000 in a carnival-like atmosphere. However, the arrival of the spectacle of elite-level VFL also saw the end of the game at the grassroots in England with no further organised competition.
The VFL/AFL annual exhibition Between 1987 and 2006, VFL/AFL exhibition matches had become an almost annual event, but the only game since then being in 2012. 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 and
Australian Football League match between
West Coast Eagles and
Collingwood in
1997, with an attendance of about 14,000, and a match between
Richmond and
Essendon in 2002 that drew about 13,000.
The British Australian Rules Football League: 1989–Present In 1989, the
British Australian rules football League (BARFL) was formed by John Jelly, Andrew Zweck, Steve Poulsen and others. Serious competition began. A schools program was launched in 1991. One of the key people in the establishment of the competition was former professional Australian player
Darren Ogier, who helped introduce a balancing rule whereby at least half of the club's on-field players must be non-Australian. From 1992, the AFL began contributing AUD $6,000 a year to the league; however, it withdrew its financial contributions in 1994, expressing a preference for grants to be spent on junior programs and school projects instead of the senior competition. Despite the lack of AFL support, local BARFL
Grand Finals become 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.
Junior Development programs 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).
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.
AFL England In 2012, AFL England was formed as the national governing body for Australian rules football in England, separate to AFL Scotland and AFL Wales. hybrid match being played at the University of Birmingham 2014 ==Participation==