Mr66 wrote:'Victorianisation'?
The game was INVENTED in Victoria!
So they sometimes claim, but:
http://www.sanfl.com.au/the_sanfl/history_of_the_sanfl/ Football in South Australia has a long and colourful history. The first official record of Australian Rules being played in SA dates back to 1843. Originally established as the South Australian Football Association on April 30, 1877, the South Australian National Football League is not only the oldest surviving football league of any code in the nation but is also one of the oldest competitions in the world.
A VFL/AFL history site says:
The Victorian Football League was established in 1896 when six of the strongest clubs in Victoria – Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne and South Melbourne – broke away from the established Victorian Football Association to establish the new league.
And from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of ... s_footballPre-1858 accounts of "football"
Some form of football was played in Australia dating back to the period before European colonization. With the arrival of Europeans, a form of football was played very early on with matches being played in by 1829 in Sydney, Melbourne by 1840, Brisbane by 1849,[4][5] and Tasmania by 1851.[5][6] Most of these early games took part at local festivals, with no clear set of rules being used, and no codifed version of any game being played.[5] Regional versions of football were played in places like South Australia using house rules predating Victorian codification of the game. The versions played locally in this period borrowed elements from the various codes that are present today including Australian rules, soccer and rugby league with the rules played being decided prior to the start of the match.[7][8]
1858 – Earliest documented clubs and matches
Football became increasingly organised and ingrained in the colony of Victoria in 1858, particularly in the capital Melbourne and surrounds.
The first written mentions of a football club in St Kilda appears in April 1858, however historians recognise it to be an informal version of the game.[9]
On 15 June 1858 the earliest known record of Victorian football match was played with modified rules between St Kilda Grammar School (now defunct) and Melbourne Grammar School on the St Kilda foreshore.[10][11]
There are also reports from 1858 of "football" clubs in Albert Park and Richmond.[citation needed]
Media reports cited by various sources claimed that a man named George Bruce is alleged to have played for a team known as Richmond Cricketers and also for the Colony of Victoria and, in 1858, was allegedly voted by newspaper writers as the Champion Player of the Colony. The claim has dubious historical merit. The story is of him playing wearing an iron hook in place of a missing hand.[citation needed]
The first recorded club in South Australia was the Adelaide Football Club, in 1860 (This club has no link to the current Adelaide "Crows" Football Club in the AFL)
Although reports from the media of the time indicate that senior football was played and that some early clubs may have been formed no records from the clubs themselves are known to exist. It is typically assumed that they played by their own rules.
Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 4:06 pm
I thought they all