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 …

Does The Super Bowl Actually Matter?

Given that Super Bowl LIX kicks off at about 10.30am AEDST tomorrow morning, it has been making its way into my news feeds a bit lately. I don’t actually care that much about gridiron, and have never found the patience to watch an entire game, to be honest. Tomorrow will not be an exception. Apparently …

The Factory Of Sadness Remains Open

Why the Cleveland Browns? Why not the Dallas Cowboys (who have a famous team of cheerleaders) or the Green Bay Packers or the New England Patriots? If one is going to root for (to use that quaint American word they use instead of ‘barrack’) an NFL team, something which is not exactly normal for an …

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 …

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 …