World Footy News

Australian football was first introduced to Japan in 1910 by a Mr. A. W. McLean from Melbourne. He was successful in introducing it as a sport to four large high schools in Tokyo by having the rules translated into Japanese.

It is uncertain what happened to Aussie Rules for the next 80 years but it is known that the spread of "the good word" went into hibernation somewhere during this period.

Then, in 1986, Hawthorn and Carlton played an exhibition match in Tokyo in front of a mix of expats and locals.

The curtain raiser for this match was played by make-shift teams of Japanese university students. The nation's two most famous private universities scraped together teams of inexperienced Japanese boys to play Japan's first "real" footy match of the 1980s. The two teams, Keio and Waseda, are arch rivals in almost every sport - creating for a classic rivalry along the lines of Carlton v. Collingwood.

That match was the birth of the Japanese Australian Football Association (JAFA). Those two universities still play a large part, together with another private university, Senshu University. Together they came to form the "Japan Samurais."

Not wanting to miss the opportunity a group of ex-pat Australians formed the Tokyo Goannas in November 1991. Their aims were to publicise and promote Australian football in Japan and to arrange games on a regular and more organised basis.

There is a league competition and regular one-off games, including the Qantas Cup (a Goannas intra-club, Victoria vs. The Rest Of The World match) and the Ned Kelly Cup (a "Combined Rules" match against the Irish ex-pats). JAFA has sent a national team to take part in the Arafura Games in Darwin in 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2001.

The three JAFA teams are:

The Samurai - A team of Japanese students from Senshu, Keio, Waseda and other universities. What they lack in size and experience, they make up for in determination and sheer courage. They are totally fearless. (Perhaps not having grown up with the game, they are, for the most part, blissfully ignorant of the severity of injuries that can be incurred...) All aged under 22, they are speedy and fit and highly entertaining.

The Goannas - The expats - old and cunning. "Training" is a word vaguely remembered from the mists of time. A true blue group of Aussies who regard our national code as the greatest means of working up a thirst ever devised. They have consistently dominated the Australian football scene in Japan due to skills built up over a lifetime such as reading the play, body work and the short, sharp nudge behind the play.

Gokongs - Made up of "Samurai graduates" (upon leaving university, they are also obliged to leave the Samurai). They have some very impressive individuals, but they have yet managed to come together as a team. They are, however, most impressive in the employment division, where many of them are rising stars in MITI, Jetro, Itochou, Panasonic etc.