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Australian Rules Football: Main Article: Australian Rules Football See Also: Origins of Australian Rules Football

The document discusses the evolution of football codes, highlighting the innovations that influenced association football and the establishment of Australian rules football in the mid-19th century. Tom Wills played a key role in organizing early matches and forming the Melbourne Football Club, which helped standardize the rules of the game. Over time, Australian rules football evolved with distinct features and gained popularity, leading to the formation of the Australian Football League as the premier competition.

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29 views2 pages

Australian Rules Football: Main Article: Australian Rules Football See Also: Origins of Australian Rules Football

The document discusses the evolution of football codes, highlighting the innovations that influenced association football and the establishment of Australian rules football in the mid-19th century. Tom Wills played a key role in organizing early matches and forming the Melbourne Football Club, which helped standardize the rules of the game. Over time, Australian rules football evolved with distinct features and gained popularity, leading to the formation of the Australian Football League as the premier competition.

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in.rekhapatil
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The code was responsible for many innovations that later spread to association football.

These included free kicks, corner kicks, handball, throw-ins and the crossbar. [108] By the
1870s they became the dominant code in the north and midlands of England. At this
time, a series of rule changes by both the London and Sheffield FAs gradually eroded
the differences between the two games until the adoption of a common code in 1877.

Australian rules football


Main article: Australian rules football
See also: Origins of Australian rules football

Tom Wills, major figure in the creation of Australian football


There is archival evidence of "foot-ball" games being played in various parts of Australia
throughout the first half of the 19th century. The origins of an organised game of football
known today as Australian rules football can be traced back to 1858 in Melbourne, the
capital city of Victoria.

In July 1858, Tom Wills, an Australian-born cricketer educated at Rugby School in


England, wrote a letter to Bell's Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle, calling for a "foot-
ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during winter. [109] This is considered
by historians to be a defining moment in the creation of Australian rules football.
Through publicity and personal contacts Wills was able to co-ordinate football matches
in Melbourne that experimented with various rules, [110] the first of which was played on
31 July 1858. One week later, Wills umpired a schoolboys match between Melbourne
Grammar School and Scotch College. Following these matches, organised football in
Melbourne rapidly increased in popularity.
Wood engraving of an Australian rules football match at
the Richmond Paddock, Melbourne, 1866
Wills and others involved in these early matches formed the Melbourne Football
Club (the oldest surviving Australian football club) on 14 May 1859. Club members
Wills, William Hammersley, J. B. Thompson and Thomas H. Smith met with the
intention of forming a set of rules that would be widely adopted by other clubs. The
committee debated rules used in English public school games; Wills pushed for
various rugby football rules he learnt during his schooling. The first rules share
similarities with these games, and were shaped to suit to Australian conditions. H. C. A.
Harrison, a seminal figure in Australian football, recalled that his cousin Wills wanted "a
game of our own".[111] The code was distinctive in the prevalence of the mark, free
kick, tackling, lack of an offside rule and that players were specifically penalised
for throwing the ball.

The Melbourne football rules were widely distributed and gradually adopted by the other
Victorian clubs. The rules were updated several times during the 1860s to
accommodate the rules of other influential Victorian football clubs. A significant redraft
in 1866 by H. C. A. Harrison's committee accommodated the Geelong Football Club's
rules, making the game then known as "Victorian Rules" increasingly distinct from other
codes. It soon adopted cricket fields and an oval ball, used specialised goal and behind
posts, and featured bouncing the ball while running and spectacular high marking. The
game spread quickly to other Australian colonies. Outside its heartland in southern
Australia, the code experienced a significant period of decline following World War I but
has since grown throughout Australia and in other parts of the world, and the Australian
Football League emerged as the dominant professional competition.

The Football Association


Main article: The Football Association

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