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In Australia, Australian rules football is the most popular spectator sport and the second most participated code of football.Since originating in Victoria in 1858 and spreading elsewhere from 1866, it has been played continuously in every Australian state since 1903 plus the two major territories since 1916.
Australian rules football is known by several nicknames, including Aussie rules, football and footy. [9] In some regions, where other codes of football are more popular, the sport is most often called AFL after the Australian Football League , while the league itself also uses this name for local competitions in some areas.
Australian rules football was codified in 1859 by members of the Melbourne Football Club.The first rules were devised by the Australian-born Tom Wills, who was educated at Rugby School; Englishmen William Hammersley and J. B. Thompson, fellow students at Cambridge's Trinity College; and Irish Australian Thomas H. Smith, who played rugby football at Dublin University.
The laws of Australian rules football were first defined by the Melbourne Football Club in 1859 and have been amended over the years as Australian rules football evolved into its modern form. The Australian Football Council (AFC), was formed in 1905 and became responsible for the laws, although individual leagues retained a wide discretion to ...
[2] [3] The following year, four members of the newly formed Melbourne Football Club codified the laws from which Australian rules football evolved. Professional historians began taking a serious interest in the origins of Australian rules football in the late 1970s, and the first academic study of the sport's origins was published in 1982.
Australian rules football is popular amongst indigenous communities. Australian rules football has attracted more overall interest among Australians (as measured by the Sweeney Sports report) than any other football code, and, when compared with all sports throughout the nation, has consistently ranked first in the winter reports, and most recently third behind cricket and swimming in summer.
These rules were based on school football rules, but made simpler. The earliest official formal leagues were the South Australian National Football League, originally called the South Australian Football Association, and the Victorian Football Association, both formed in 1877. The first intercolonial matches were played in 1879. The game was ...
Australian rules was the most popular football code for participation and spectators in the nation's capital Canberra between 1978 and 1982. At its peak popularity in 1981 it was the first state or territory outside of Victoria to make an official bid to start a national league now known as the Australian Football League (AFL).