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The plaque reads that Wills "did more than any other person – as a footballer and umpire, co-writer of the rules and promoter of the game – to develop Australian football during its first decade." [1] The origins of Australian rules football date back to the late 1850s in Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria.
These two clubs were the foundation clubs of Australian Rules Football in Victoria. The first documented match between clubs was in Richmond paddock on 25 September 1858 with 26 (or 27 [49]) players on each side. [50] It is recorded in a letter to a paper St Kilda Football Club formed from members of the St Kilda Cricket Club in April 1858. [51]
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.
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 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.
In 1881, the first Australian rules game between NSW and Victoria was played in Sydney. [31] The NSWFA only had a few clubs, including Waratah which switched codes in 1882. A splinter University club from the rugby club, the Sydney University Australian National Football Club also formed in 1887 to join the competition. From 1889, clubs ...
Graeme Atkinson, writing in Everything You Wanted Know About Australian Rules Football ... considers it likely that these Geelong rules were drawn up prior to the first rules of the Melbourne Football Club which were drafted on 17 May 1859.: [12] [page needed] 1. Distance between goals and the goal posts to be decided by captains. 2.
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 ...