World Footy News

We have regularly provided an annual summary of Australian football's international progress. Since beginning this website in 2004 we have had the good fortune to be able to report that each year has been an improvement on the last. Perhaps a day will come when this is no longer the case, and certainly throughout the 20th century the sport's expansion had its peaks and troughs, its false dawns.

Yet we are clearly seeing a run of good news, with growing playing numbers and quality. Even just focussing on the last two years, 2008 saw a record number of teams at the International Cup, including bringing in China and India, the two nations that represent over a third of the world's population. The tournament was at its highest standard ever come the finals, justifying the new International Scholarship Lists which were made easier for clubs to use. AFL clubs also began looking more closely at Samoa and Fiji. Other highlights included continued progress in South Africa, France, England and Canada (amongst others), a NAB Cup match in Dubai, commencement of work on an oval in Tianjin (China), and domestically the AFL bullish towards expansion into the Gold Coast and Western Sydney.

So how could 2009 top that? And what chance for 2010 to continue the trend?

As the new year begins we present below the club premiers and provincial champions from across the world of Australian football for 2009. This is the fourth year in a row that we've compiled the list (see Club Premiers 2006, Club Premiers 2007 and Club Premiers 2008).

It was a year that once again saw powerhouse clubs dominate some leagues. At Australian state league level, former strugglers Central Districts made it an incredible 8 out of the last 10 in the SANFL in South Australia (well deserved but perhaps becoming an unhealthy dominance for the league).

The West London stranglehold on London premierships was loosened, with the Shepherds Bush Raiders finally losing their grip on London's Conference, going down to the Clapham Demons. But West London's Wildcats racked up their 6th straight London Premiership title, maintaining the club's run of silverware.

North Beach won their sixth straight in the WAAFL (Western Australian amateurs) A grade and the Goodwood Saints won their fifth straight in the SAAFL (South Australian amateurs) A grade and the Logan Cobras made it four in a row in Brisbane's women's league

Three-peats went to Rheinland in Germany's top division, and the same for the Darebin Falcons in the Victorian Women's Premier Division and the Eastern Suburbs Bulldogs in Wellington.

Australian rules football may be expanding internationally at an ever increasing rate, yet in most countries where amateur clubs and leagues exist, footy is still struggling to get a foothold at university level.

At universities in the United Kingdom if a student wants there to be a new sports team, it is up to the student to create it. With this in mind, Tim Smith has penned the following article, based on his experiences founding the Birmingham University Sharks with some tips and pointers for others in the same position.

WFN has now completed its Country Snapshots section for Oceania, the Middle East and North, Central and South America. They are available from the pulldown menu above titled Countries, and add to the previously completed section on Africa.

Over the coming months we hope to do the last two regions - Europe and Asia.

As always, let us know if there are any significant errors or omissions.

Dozing off watching an agonisingly slow session of Australia v Pakistan Test cricket, one wonders (although some of the best cricket still comes from Test matches) where would cricket be today without the money, participation and new fans brought to the game since the 1970s World Series Cricket revolution championed the one-day match format.

In an increasingly time and space poor world, most team games have their smaller or shortened versions which encourage wider participation and are used to promote those sports in new markets. In comparison Australian Football, the big game on a big field, has been slow to embrace smaller formats.

One Australian Football enthusiast behind a stall at the University of Birmingham Sports Fair last September has led to the establishment of the United Kingdom's fourth active university-based club. The University of Birmingham Sharks now boast a squad of 22 players, ready to take on the other university sides and local senior UK teams in fixtures throughout the spring.

In a recent book titled Soccernomics, the authors, a finance writer and an economist, stated that sporting leagues like the NFL and the AFL were likely be overwhelmed by soccer. “But Aussie rules can exist side by side with soccer. We said in the book that it may be a subsidised folklore festival so it is not my bet but I do think it is a distinct possibility," says one of the authors according to SBS's Matthew Hall. One must worry at the outset that people who love soccer enough to write a book about it might be slightly biased in their opinion, but be that as it may. Does such an idea make sense? Does the economics of it make sense?

Pictured at left is Papau New Guinea as it celebrates winning the 2008 International Cup

The Western Cape Province of South Africa has quickly risen from having no Aussie Rules players to recently winning the 2009 National Provincial Championships (see Western Cape - new chiefs of African footy?). With all four of the country's active football provinces now benefiting from AFL and AFL club support, how is it that Western Cape has leap-frogged the more established regions of North West and Gauteng, along with fellow newcomers KwaZulu-Natal? worldfootynews.com poses a simple theory.

The Wellington Australian Football League Grand Final has been played and won by the all conquering Eastern Suburbs Bulldogs on what was a shocking day for football in Wellington. As the well known local song goes “You can’t beat Wellington on a Good Day” but I would beggar to argue that it is a shocking place to play footy on a suburban ground when the weather isn’t kind!

New Zealand’s third place finish at the inaugural Oceania Cup may have made some believe that they had underachieved but AFLNZ CEO, Rob Vanstam, had clearly stated beforehand that the team the NZ Hawks would be represented by would be exceptionally young with many able to return for next years’ tournament. As such there are many positives to spring from their involvement in the tournament.

One of these is that New Zealand have announced, while at the Oceania Cup, the opening of an AFL New Zealand Academy in March 2010. Newly appointed chief of AFL's High Performance, Jason McCartney, was supportive of the initiative. AFL New Zealand has targeted 100 first choice athletes to become part of the academy by the end of 2012 with the hope of preparing suitable candidates for AFL International Scholarships. The new academy will assist AFL clubs with easy access to both monitor development and provide input towards potential stars at a minimum outlay.

Last week's rookie draft featured several selections with international ties, one of whom was Sean Yoshiura. Yoshiura was born in Japan, where he spent the first seven years of his life; ethnically he is half-Japanese and half-Australian. On top of being a footballer, Yoshiura is a talented Cross Country runner who last year partook in the World Schoolboy Cross Country Championships.

His story can be read in articles in the Herald Sun and Courier Mail from before his signing and again in the Courier Mail following the draft.

The Japan AFL are aware of Yoshiura and perhaps as his career develops he will become a figurehead for the game in Japan, much like Aaron Edwards and David Rodan are for Samoa and Fiji respectively.

Aussie Rules players the world over have a reputation for being a rugged breed, taking no prisoners on the pitch and accepting the hits that life and the opposition dish out. So early in December, a group of players from across England decided to test themselves against the elements in the final date of the 2009 GRIM calender - the original GRIM Challenge - combining off-season training with charity and squad fundraising.

An 8-mile cross country on Ministry of Defence tank and vehicle test land in Aldershot, the course features gravel tracks, mud slopes, thigh-deep puddles, shin deep mud and several thousand enthusiastic competitors. With torrential rain the night before, the course was even more daunting and 'running' largely turned into 'wading' for significant stretches, sapping the muscles and weighing down the feet right from the start.