World Footy News

 The Greater Western Sydney GIANTS have topped 10,000 members on the eve of their first 2013 NAB Cup matches at Blacktown International Sportspark this Sunday.

As they prepare for just their second year in the AFL, the GIANTS membership now stands at 10,026, compared to 4,671 at the same time last year.

The announcement came as the club unveiled a new membership package, the Global GIANTS, for AFL fans around the world.

GIANTS Head Coach Kevin Sheedy said the club was on track to surpass its 2012 membership total of 10,241.

It's been a while since we have had an Aussie rules movie doing the rounds. On March 7 around Australia the film Blinder will be released. No details are available yet on any international release. The trailer for the movie can be seen below.

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The following is from the the Blinder movie website. Legendary actor Jack Thompson reprises his role as a football coach three decades after The Club, in new film Blinder which explores our country's love affair with the greatest sport in the world. Shot around Torquay, Victoria, the story follows an ex-footballer who, embracing the life lessons his coach once taught him, reignites an old flame after a long absence away from his home town.

Footage from Australian TV station NITV covering Game 1 between the South African Lions and the Flying Boomerangs played in Potchefstroom last month.

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When Tayo Cafarella, the current Regional Development Manager for AFL Northern Territory in the town of Galiwinku, first reported for work he was surprised. The local oval was closed for cultural reasons, which seemed to put a stop to his work before it even started.

Not so, according to the kids in town. Oval or no oval the footy must go on. As Tayo says, “this did not stop the juniors who were at my door every day pleading for footy [so] we played 10 rounds of our U13’s competition in the local park. The boys were running around barefoot, dodging trees, dogs, a sandpit and the odd pig. Not once did they complain of the conditions, they were just stoked to be playing footy!”

So, welcome to the spirit of Elcho Island, and Galiwinku, its largest town. A quick search of the map will show that Elcho Island is located near the north-eastern tip of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. The island is long and narrow, surrounded by the Arafura Sea to the west and Cadell Strait to the east. It is one of the southernmost islands in Wessel Group and Galiwinku sits roughly in the cenre of the island.

Fledgling USAFL club, the Cleveland Cannons have released a promo video as they head into the 2013 season.  You can watch the Youtube video below and you can hookup with the club on Facebook here. 

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In part two of our look at the local footy scene in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, we take a look at the Hawks from Haslach, a suburb of the small city of Herrenberg.

Along with the Ludwigsburg, the Haslach Hawks are one of the two local footy clubs that have grown out of players from the Stuttgart Emus bring footy closer to home.

Driving force behind the Hawks is Jakob Jung, who spent a year as an exchange student in Bribie Island, Queensland, in 2009-10.

I am very lucky that I can travel the stretch of road between Cairns and Townsville many times a year. The drive takes in some of the finest scenery in Australia. Along the way there are the imposing twin mountains, Bartle Frere and Bellenden Ker, with their luxuriant rainforest canopies.

There is the beach at Cardwell with its views across to majestic Hinchinbrook Island. Mile upon mile of sugar cane farms surrounding the towns of Gordonvale, Innisfail, Tully and Ingham in the valleys of the Mulgrave, Johnston, Tully and Herbert Rivers.

Then there are the detours to Mission Beach, Wallaman Falls, Paluma and more. It truly is an amazing part of the world.

At either and of the drive are two growing cities. They are rivals in many ways - complementary in others. Some believe that Cairns is the “tourist capital” of the north and others see Townsville as the “administrative capital”. These descriptions are too simplistic, and are an argument for another day. What is becoming clear, however, is that these two northern cities in tropical Australia are about to become locked in a battle to see an AFL team franchise based there by 2030.

The German state of Baden-Württemberg, located in the country's south-west, has been represented in the AFLG by the Stuttgart Emus for a number of years now. Besides the Emus however, there are also a number of regional towns where interested German and Australian footy fanatics are working on the creation of new clubs, with the possibility that this year may see a local league start play.

The most active of the regional teams are the Taipans, founded in the medium-sized city of Ludwigsburg around 15km north of Stuttgart. Ludwigsburg has been home to a number of Stuttgart Emus players over the past few years, including local Kevin Kilger and Aussie expat Chris Robertson, a native of Williamstown in Melbourne's inner-west who has played with the Emus since 2009 and coached them in the second half of the 2011 season.

The West Perth Football Club was much like other historic football clubs that find themselves at the mercy of changing demographics and now classified as "inner city".

In 1994 West Perth bit the bullet and moved from their traditional Italian community based Leederville to the populous new city of Joondalup. It was a major upheaval, with clashes between the members wishing to remain “West Perth” and the club’s desire to appeal to the new and wider community of Joondalup.

In 2012 the club successfully promoted the idea of a WAFL International Round with the West Perth F.C. donning Union Jack style jumpers and appealing to the large English immigrant community. The club also undertook an energetic campaign of attending all 65 schools in the area and engaging the media. 6044 people attended, the second largest WAFL H&A of the season against poorly supported Subiaco F.C.

A new club on the German scene will enter regular play this year, with long time Rheinland Lions stalwart Chris Odenthal having built up a club in the eastern city of Dresden over the past 10 months.

Chris played seven seasons with the Rheinland Lions and has also represented the German Black Eagles on the European stage - now he's hoping to apply his experience to a new club.

LEFT: The Dresden Wolves in 2012 (wearing old Düsseldorf Lions jumpers until their own arrive)

This is a media release from the AFL Northern Territory sheds a new light on the importance of the Northern Territory to Australian Rules football nationally in terms of how many kids are making it through the talent pathways to AFL teams.

“AFL International and National Talent Manager Kevin ‘Shifter’ Sheehan has released some statistics which shows the Northern Territory is in the top three of AFL talent producers between 1997-2011.

“The NT has been a steady contributor to the AFL system over a number of years and these statistics put them in the top three behind Vic Metro and South Australia,” advised Sheehan.

The study conducted by Griffith University, has the Northern Territory producing on average 12.08 players per 1000 participants aged between 13 and 18 as compared to Vic Metro 14.13 and South Australia 12.35.

“When you break it down on comparison and based on population the Northern Territory are clearly doing the right things to foster and develop talent and with a little more refinement I think we can get that number higher.”

“If you look at 2012 the NT had three players drafted which is above the 2.5 average they have had between 1997-2011.”

Sudanese born Majak Daw speaks about the preseason how he sees his season ahead.

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