World Footy News

WFN recently spoke with the founders of a new footy club in Manchester, joining the BARFL for 2006. Since then, a draft BARFL Regional league draw has been circulated, featuring no less than 9 clubs - these being the four teams who competed last year, three new clubs from regional England, and Glasgow and Edinburgh from Scotland. WFN takes a sneak preview of the regional league, and talks to players from another of the new clubs - the Thanet Bombardiers.

The Isle of Thanet is in Kent, east of London. Not an island, rather a peninsula jutting into the North Sea, the main city in the area is Margate if you're trying to work out where it actually is. It's in Margate that the new Thanet Bombardiers club is located, a fresh team made up of Englishmen and one Brazillian.

The Bombardiers leader is Joe Rixon, a rugby player who first got into footy watching it on TV. Says Rixon "Basically the group started with a couple of us english guys stumbling across aussie rules on TV. Being rugby players, aussie rules has a special status as the only game better than rugby and we wanted to give it a try. We got a few of us together and eventually the Bombardiers were born.

Rixon got into the game in 2000 (Essendon's year) and describing himself as a glory-hunter decided he was to support them. For this reason, the club originally was called the Thanet Bombers - until the club struck up a sponsorship arrangement with Bombardier Beer brand and changed the name as part of the deal. The beer company however backed out after all the publicity had gone out, and it was too late to change back.

Speaking of playing numbers, Rixon says "This year's (BARFL regional) competition is 12-a-side so I'd love to have at least eighteen regulars in the team. Unfortunately poor take-up makes this unrealistic and at the moment we have around thirteen confirmed regulars. Every single one of our players (except the Brazillian) is born and bred British. I've scoured the local area for Australians, and found only one - a 54-year old woman. We do have a Brazilian on the books, I'd expect he's probably the only Brazilian Aussie rules player in the world!" (For the record, there are/were a few in Catalonia, but Brazillians are a small circle among Aussie Rules players). "Most of our recruitment has been through word of mouth so far. We're just about to start a massive poster campaign, through football and rugby clubs, universities, pubs, etc. And we did find a few players through articles in the local press. Hopefully we'll get our last few regulars!"

Rixon has played a few games as a guest of the Reading Roos and reckons the Bombardiers will probably struggle a bit in their first season up against more experienced opposition. They won't be alone in being newbies though - with Manchester and now Middlesbrough/Durham (towards Newcastle in north-eastern England) confirmed as starters for the season.

The regional draw at the moment looks likely to be divided into two broad groups, north (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Durham/Middlesbrough) and south (Bristol, Reading, Swindon, Thanet) with Nottingham and Manchester playing across both groups.

If the draft draw goes ahead, the northern group would play each other 3 times and Nottingham and Manchester once each. The southerners will play the other southern clubs and Manchester and Nottingham twice each. A mid-year tournament will be held to even out travel and allow far-flung teams to play against each other. Including the tournament, Manchester, Nottingham and Thanet will play 10 matches each, with the other clubs playing 11.

Update: March 25th - I have been informed all teams will play the same number of matches, most likely 10. Again, the draw remains at the draft stage, expected to be finalised shortly.