World Footy News

Australian Rules football has a long and successful history in Australia. Around the world the game has been much slower to take hold, but is now clearly doing so in several countries, with over 20 others starting to show promise too. The United States is one nation where the game has gone beyond the tenuous year to year situation in which an exodus of expat Australians could see the game disappear. But behind all the growth in the last 10 years, for any given city it usually (but not always) takes a keen Aussie to get the game started. Many such fledgling clubs start brightly but what next? In some cases they will become powerhouse clubs, the foundation from which large metro leagues emerge and support strong sides competing in interstate leagues. But in other cases they will slowly fade away. In hindsight we can look back and speculate where a club went wrong, or just wonder what could have been. No one knows in advance.

World Footy News has decided to follow the journey of a new club right from its very beginnings. In an ongoing series, we'll follow the highs and lows of a new team in US football, based in one of California's less famous cities. Check back periodically for updates. Will they get off the ground, where will they play, will they last, what help will they get?

Welcome to the Bakersfield Experiment... (also linked under Resources).