Rugby League Merchandise – A History of the Australian Football League

The origins of the Australian Football League (AFL) can be traced back to 1896 when 8 teams decided to split from the Victorian Football Association (VFA) to form the Victorian Football  League (VFL). The VFA had been formed in 1877 but organised Australian Rules Football had been played in Victoria long before that with the first documented game taking place in August 1858 between Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar. In 1897 Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, St Kilda and South Melbourne contested the first VFL season with Essendon winning the first premiership.

St Kilda struggled in the new league losing their first 48 games before finally breaking through in the 1st round of the 1900 season defeating Melbourne by 1 point.  The game finished with the scores deadlocked on 68 points apiece but St Kilda successfully argued that one of Melbourne’s points had been scored after the three-quarter time bell so the game was awarded to St Kilda. Success for the Saints was short-lived though with St Kilda losing their remaining 13 games in 1900 and their first 12 games in 1901 before posting another victory.

Round 1 of 1903 saw Geelong defeat St Kilda by 50 points meaning that St Kilda had managed to win only 2 of their first 100 League games.  But by round 6 that same year something had changed.  St Kilda started winning and finished the year in 5th position on the ladder with 6 wins just missing out on the Final Four.  Read more... (1595 words, estimated 6:23 mins reading time)

September 2nd, 2010 by admin
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Ancient Kicks: A History Of Soccer

Soccer is one of, if not the most popular sports in the world today.  Regardless of age, location, or race, soccer fans across the globe cheer on their favorite clubs with signature obnoxiousness and hooliganism.  But the real question is, where and when did such a sport actually come to be?  It is uncertain as to soccer’s actual time and place of invention, but it is well known that variations of the sport existed as long as 3000 years ago!

One such variation of the sport is recorded as being played in Japan around 1000 B.C., and there are even ancient texts from China describing a game resembling soccer between Japanese and Chinese teams in 50 B.C..   The Chinese conducted their variation of the sport with a leather ball filled with hair, and there was an actual soccer game played in Kyoto, Japan in 611 A.D.  The Romans even had a variation of soccer in their Olympics, in which each team had 27 players, two thirds of which had to be hospitalized after a 50 minute long match because competition was so fierce and brutal!  Although there are records of certain incidences of the game occurring, people of the time were not as concerned with recording soccer history as that of religion or war, and thus it is quite difficult to determine just how the sport spread across the globe.    Read more... (481 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)

August 25th, 2010 by admin
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A History of the Australian Football League

The origins of the Australian Football League (AFL) can be traced back to 1896 when 8 teams decided to split from the Victorian Football Association (VFA) to form the Victorian Football  League (VFL). The VFA had been formed in 1877 but organised Australian Rules Football had been played in Victoria long before that with the first documented game taking place in August 1858 between Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar.
In 1897 Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, St Kilda and South
Melbourne contested the first VFL season with Essendon winning the first premiership.

St Kilda struggled in the new league losing their first 48 games before finally breaking through in the 1st round of the 1900 season defeating Melbourne by 1 point.  The game finished with the
scores deadlocked on 68 points apiece but St Kilda successfully argued that one of Melbourne’s
points had been scored after the three-quarter time bell so the game was awarded to St Kilda.
Success for the Saints was short-lived though with St Kilda losing their remaining 13 games in
1900 and their first 12 games in 1901 before posting another victory.

Round 1 of 1903 saw Geelong defeat St Kilda by 50 points meaning that St Kilda had managed to win only 2 of their first 100 League games.  But by round 6 that same year something had changed.  St Kilda started winning and finished the year in 5th position on the ladder with 6 wins just missing out on the Final Four.  Read more... (1587 words, estimated 6:21 mins reading time)

July 16th, 2010 by admin
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A Short History Of Football

Football also known as American Football is a sport played between two teams competing for territory on a football field using a ball and set play. The objective of the game is getting the ball to the opposing team’s goal line by either scoring a running touchdown or by kicking the ball over the post and between the uprights of the goal. It is not like soccer which has a goal keeper; instead it is more similar to Rugby and Australian Rules football.

Rugby which was the predecessor of Football was invented in England during 1860s. Its forerunners are similar to soccer and dates back to the middle ages when groups of rival villages competed to score a goal against each other.

In England during the 1860s, some schools, universities and clubs got together to form a set of rules allowing different teams from different schools and districts to play with each other. The published rules were the predecessor of modern soccer. However, every teams did not accept them and chose make their own code known as rugby.

The rules of football date back to the English parent games. American Football is also native to North America and old versions were played in the early 1800s in Princeton. The game was called ‘Ballown’ and it eventually became known as football but the rules kept on changing.

A similar form of game was played at Harvard University which was greatly enjoyed by senior students. The game was called ‘Bloody Monday’ as it was played on first Monday of the academic year.  Read more... (558 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

July 8th, 2010 by admin
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English Rugby ? History

Imbued in English culture is a love and creator of Sports of all kinds.

I have a website where I have listed and linked to the 100+ various sports and games created by us Brits. One of our favorite sports is Rugby Football which It is believed was first played in English villages up and down the country. There are stories that villager’s played against villager’s and the aim of the game was to get the ball passed the opposing village boundary line. The rules included kicking, punching, scratching the opposition over and above the running with the ball and kicking of the ball.

 

While it is true that such games as Rugby did exist for centuries, their may be a kernel of truth to the William Webb Ellis legend that a football match was being played when Web Ellis picked up the ball and created Rugby. As far as most historians can tell, the earliest form of football with much similarity to rugby as we know it today, did originate at Rugby School around Ellis’s time. Whether he was the actual creator of the game or the game simply evolved into something like the modern game during his time is still a point for debate.  Read more... (1247 words, estimated 4:59 mins reading time)

June 28th, 2010 by admin
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American Football History and Origin

American football emerged from the European game of Rugby in 1879. Walter Camp, a player and coach of Yale University, is recognized as “The Father Of American Football” as the early rules of the game was instituted by him. However, previous to that, the students of Princeton were already playing a game called “Ballown”. It was about fisting the ball and then using their feet to advance the ball past their opponents. There were no hard and fast rules that applied and could be stated as the easiest form of football at it’s early times. However, the physical aspect of the game was immense and often it turned violent.

At Harvard too, a football-type game was being played on the first Monday of the school year. This game was so much physical that the day it was played was often mentioned as “Bloody Monday”. The year 1865 was very important for American Football. The Civil War had ended and football started gaining popularity in the colleges. It was in this year that some basic rules for the game were established and the game got its patent for the first time. Thus on 6th November, 1869 the first inter-collegiate football was played between Rutgers and Princeton where Rutgers won by a score of six goals to four.  Read more... (529 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

June 13th, 2010 by admin
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The History of Football

For as long as football (soccer) has been around, football fans have also been around. The most significant consequence: it is appreciated that the football World Cup gathers the second greatest number of viewers, after the Olympics. For instance, the World competition of 2006 brought together more than three million spectators, and these were only those who got the chance of a seat in the stadiums. Just imagine the number of those who gathered around a TV in order to watch the matches; how useful free football online would have been! And the case of the World Cup is not singular; other football tournaments have their own faithful fans and viewers, many of whom would surely be grateful for the occasion of watching their favorite teams in action while the matches are broadcasted live. Fortunately, the latest improvements in live broadcasting allow football fans to watch live and free soccer online. Obviously, the reasons why free football online has been made possible are closely related to the popularity of this particular kind of sports event.

 Read more... (929 words, estimated 3:43 mins reading time)

May 29th, 2010 by admin
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History of Association Football

Association football is popularly known as football soccer and it is claimed to be the most popular sport around the world. However, we can trace back the history of football soccer back in time and find the first sources citing ball games with similar characteristics that were played by ancient civilizations.

During the third century BC a soccer-like ball game was played in Egypt as a fertility rite, although the rules of the game were similar to those of modern handball, although China invented a leather ball game the century before and it was credited to Fu-Hi, who was not only an inventor but one of the five great Chinese rulers from the ancient times.

The leather ball was made of several spherical roots in the form of hard bristles that was coated with rawhide, but once again, the game was played passing the ball from hand to hand. The leather ball was later adopted in India and Persia where it became the most popular game. In the New World, the ancient pre-Hispanic civilizations were also known by their ball games that once again resembled what we known today as football soccer, although some tribes added their own rules and variants to those games.

Aztecs practiced a game called “tlachtli”, that was probably the first real soccer game in the world because it incorporated actions similar to those of the tennis and basketball, but the use of the hands was prohibited, thus the ball was only touched with the feet. Of course, the end of the game was different to the end of a soccer match today. Aztecs sacrificed the captain of the defeated team, something that many people would like to do nowadays.  Read more... (521 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

May 29th, 2010 by admin
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