ORIGINS

• Basically confined to the southern states of Australia, where it was founded in Melbourne in 1858, the game came about as part of the nation’s search for its own identity.

• It started out as a mixture of Gaelic Football, brought in by lrish soldiers, and the British games of soccer and rugby. It soon developed a role of its own and now attracts crowds of over 100,000 and has 400,000 participants of various age brackets.

• The big annual game of the year is the VFL (Victoria Football League) Premiership Cup played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

SPACE REQUIRED

• The pitch has no definite size, but there are minimum and maximum requirements. The game is played on oval grounds, normally cricket pitches out of season, and must be a minimum of 120 yards wide and 170 yards long, with a maximum of 170 yards wide and 200 yards long.

• The pitch has a white boundary line, and two tall and two single goal posts at each end of the pitch.

PLAYING APPARATUS

• An oval ball of 74x57 centimetres is used. The participants wear jerseys of club colours, with short, socks and studded boots.

• Anything that could cause injury to other players is banned, so no protective clothing is worn, unlike in many other contact sports.

RULES AND REGULATIONS

• There are few rules in this fast and furious game. Each side has 20 players, two of whom are interchangeable substitutes.

• The game is divided into four quarters lasting 25 minutes each.

• A goal giving six points is scored by a player kicking the ball cleanly through the two tallest goal posts (the inner posts) which his team is attacking.

• One point is scored by notching a ‘behind’, between the small outer posts, which does not fulfil the rules of scoring a full goal.

• The players move the ball by running with it and bouncing it about every 10 yards. They are also allowed to kick the ball and punch it, but not throw it.

RECORDS SET IN THE GAME

• Haydn Bunton and his son Haydn Bunton Jr. provide a unique link in the game of Australian Rules. Bunton senior was born, ironically, in the non-Australian-Rules-playing state of New South Wales in1911 and died in Adelaide in 1955. With his speed and stamina he was the ideal Rules player. In the 1930s he played for Fitzroy in the VFL for the both rules and cricket. In 1931, 1932 and 1935 he won the Brownlow Medal, awarded to the best VFL player of the year.

• His son, playing in Western Australia, won the Sandover Medal, equivalent of the Brownlow, when playing for Swan Districts.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Probably one of the most dangerous games of Australian football ever was played by Australian troops at the north end of an airstrip on the banks of the Spreew river, New Guinea, in June 1945; only 300 yards from the Japanese positions!