World Footy News

This Saturday 2nd September 2006, all roads lead to Clapham Common in London for the Grand Finals of the London BARFL Premiership and Conference competitions. The BARFL Premiership teams must have 50% players EU passport holders whilst the Conference teams can have more expat Aussies.

The action starts with the Conference Grand Final at 12.30pm with the Shepherds Bush Raiders (the Conference team of the West London Wildcats) playing the Clapham Demons (the Conference team of the Wandsworth Demons). In the Premiership GF at 3pm, the West London Wildcats take on the Wimbledon Hawks.

In another sign of growing sophistication emulating that of afl.com.au, the BARFL.co.uk website will post live quarter by quarter scores, though the Wildcats' website led the trend with live scores last year and will again this year.

Both matches are in fact replays of last year's respective thrilling Grand Finals - the Wildcats eclipsing the Hawks with 3 last-quarter goals to win by 7 points, whilst the Raiders took the Conference flag with a kick after the siren 3 point win over the Demons. An excellent array of photos of last year's matches are available from the left hand menu of the Wildcats' website.

This Saturday's games receive a good preview on the London based website Australian Times. As previously reported on WFN, in a sign of the growth and consolidation of footy in Britain, the regional BARFL Grand Final was recently won by Reading Roos over the Nottingham Scorpions.