Australian Rules Football Enters A Golden Age In Queensland

In March 2005, I decided to take a two week holiday and travel around various parts of Northern Australia I had not yet visited: Ayers Rock (my heart skipped a beat when I first saw it from the plane), Alice Springs, Darwin, Townsville and Cairns. I ended the holiday with a few days in Brisbane, …

Footscray Football Club Marks 100 Years In The VFL/AFL

For Friday night’s game against Collingwood, my beloved football club temporarily resumed its actual and traditional name, Footscray. The reason for this was to mark 100 years since the Footscray Football Club (Western Bulldogs since 1997) entered the AFL’s predecessor league, the Victorian Football League. At the time, in 1925, the entry of Footscray, the …

Why Teams Need Their Rivalries

The AFL does not do ‘Rivalry Round’ anymore, or at least not at the moment. When they did do them, typically we would see the interstate clubs would each play their local rival, Carlton Vs Collingwood (obviously), Essendon Vs Richmond (mostly because of the Kevin Sheedy link, but possibly because of that infamous melee in …

Brisbane Versus Sydney: Australian Rules Football Wins!

Over thirty years ago, I spent many months working in Dandenong. I was not really much of a beer drinker yet, but many people around me were, and the attitude was that products brewed by Carlton and United Breweries in Melbourne were the only acceptable beers we should consume. Times move on, and whilst the …

Brisbane Olympics 2032 – A Missed Opportunity?

I first visited Brisbane in July 1989, and I happened to go along to see the Britain – Australia Rugby Union Test (I think these days Rugby Union in the UK is so well developed that they have four separate teams instead of one, but I am not one to pay close attention to Rugby …

Reflections on being a Footscray / Western Bulldogs Supporter

About 8 months ago I rather reluctantly joined Facebook, mostly because it was a relatively painfree way to make contact with an intricate web of second cousins in Reggio Calabria during my imminent visit. Since then, the number of fake profiles and would be scammers I have encountered have given me renewed cause to lament …