World Footy News

Australian Football in Europe has been relatively slow to develop. The United Kingdom has seen its fair share of the game over the last one hundred years, so it is no surprise a number of solid leagues have been established. Denmark then took to the game in the 1990s and has made slow by steady progress since, bringing in southern Sweden at the same time. Ireland were the obvious next choice to flex their footy muscle, but after them, there was a period where few leagues developed and a number of nations were stuck in the one-country-one-club situation.

There are signs this limitation is starting to be thrown off, and at the same time there are an increasing number of internationals being played. Clearly it's high time Europe was able to crown its own champion nation, but any undisputed mechanism to achieve that is far from settled.

The New Zealand National Provincial Championships were played in Wellington at Martin Luckie Park on Saturday the 29th and 30th of September. Auckland continued their dominance at Representative level and were successful in taking out the title for the third successive time. According to NZAFL CEO Rob Vanstam "Every one of the six games played on the weekend was in the balance at some stage. The big improvers were Waikato and although yet to find their first NPC victory, they gained the respect of all competitors." For more from the NZAFL CEO see Auckland Takes Triple Crown, or read on.

At the recent BARFL AGM there were several interesting changes in personnel. President Remon Gazal stood down as he is returning to Australia, and long time committee member Donald Eastwood did not stand for re-election. Also departing is Chris O'Neil. Taking on the top job is Sam Percy of the Wandsworth Demons - reprising a role he held for three years from 2002 to 2004. Other notable changes were the addition of Kat Conner from the Manchester cliub, and Glen Ocsko, who readers may recall was the author the UK Footy plan discussed in UK Footy unity plan being debated and BARFL respond to UK Footy plan. The other committee members are Daniel Bussau (Treasurer), Martin Smith and Luke Shaw. Comments from the new President suggest that the mood is now right to push through significant structural changes.

On Saturday, September 22nd the AFL Canada held its 2007 Ontario Australian Football League annual Best & Fairest Awards presentation at the 130 Event Center in Toronto, Ontario. The League also announced its All-star team, and it's always interesting to see the mix between expatriate Australians and Canadian players. The full line-up is shown below.

Over 150 players and coaches attended the gala event and witnessed one of the closet vote counts in OAFL history. At the conclusion of the count, it was Broadview Hawk’s rover John McGrath who finished on top with 26 votes closely followed by Lachlan McDonald of the Toronto Eagles with 25 votes. Both players have had fantastic seasons and both polled well in each of the 15 rounds.

The USFooty National Championship Tournament takes place in Louisville, KY this weekend (October 13 and 14). The tournament will see over 30 mens teams and three womens teams competing in 5 divisions, plus junior clinics, a junior game, and a match between the US Revolution and the Convicts. It will be one big weekend of footy!

USFooty is hosting two AFL legends during the weekend. Former Essendon Coach, Kevin Sheedy will be there as well as former Carlton star, Steven Silvagni. Son of George, Rod Grljusich will make the calls on Field 1 which will host all Division 1 games, the finals from Divisions 1, 2 and 3 and the Revo/Convict game.

The San Diego Lions go into Nationals as the undisputed favorites with 6 wins and no losses this season. Looking to take them on are the Denver Bulldogs and the Baltimore Washington Eagles, both of whom will be fighting to represent Group 2 in the Grand Final on Sunday afternoon.

Check out the radio advert playing on Louisville station "1570 The Zone" here.

WFN and USFooty News will provide updates over the weekend.

The Beijing SiShen Bombers - all-Chinese expansion team of the Beijing Bombers - took on the Tianjin Normal University Demons in a 10-a-side match in the Chinese capital last weekend.

The match was the first domestic fixture in China to be played between two 100% Chinese sides, the SiShen Bombers running out winners 6.13.49 to 5.10.40 in wet conditions at the Beijing Science and Technology University.

In several countries Australian Football has moved beyond what could be considered the first and second phases of game development - expatriate Australians playing the sport and local adults then learning the game. With junior development beyond small groups now taking place in countries such as PNG, New Zealand, South Africa, Samoa, Tonga, China, the UK and Canada, budding young talent needs to be exposed to the highest levels of competition and training if they are to reach their full potential and attract the eye of AFL scouts. For the past couple of years there have been signs of some positive moves in this area but there hasn't been a breakthrough yet. We look at what's on the cards but by no means confirmed.

Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper reported this morning that the AFL's Demons will pick two Chinese teenagers for training scholarships in its upcoming 10-day China tour. Melbourne's connections with the city of Tianjin, as well as junior programs and/or clubs in Beijing, Suzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong have been a regular feature on WFN and elsewhere over the past few months. Maybe this could be the start of something big?

The AFL has released its first ever international census for 2007 on their International Leagues page.

Regular readers might recall that World Footy News was the first organisation to undertake a census of footy worldwide back in 2004.

The AFL's figures are maybe less conservative than these early estimates, as the WFN estimates used the criteria of players needing to take part in at least four matches during that year to be counted. However the current International AFL figures indicate a growing base of 34,845 players outside Australia, which represents outstanding growth over WFN's estimate of 26,183 in 2004.

worldfootynews.com has unveiled its new World Footy Atlas. The new Atlas makes use of Google Maps and displays a small icon at each club or league location. Users can click on the icon to bring up the organisation's web address (if available), and the map automatically centres on the location too. You can use the zoom feature at the left of the map to have a look at the clubrooms or ground they generally play at, toggling between map, satellite image or hybrid of both. Please note a "feature" of the Google Maps is that to do a large zoom step and keep the map centred it is best to keep the info bubble open.

Of course, any such tool is only as good as the data in it, so we welcome (and need) submissions from Australia and around the world. We need your Australian Football club or league's name, web address and location (such as clubrooms, headquarters or usual field for playing or training).

Location should be in latitude and longitude, to 4 decimal places. You can use the map to find your location - when you are satisfied you're centred over it, use the coordinate readout below the map. Google Earth is another method - under Tools / Options / 3D View set the "Show Lat/Long" to Decimal Degrees. Send your information to us by email or login to WFN and add a comment to this story, and we will periodically update our database. Note that currently we are only displaying locations that also have associated websites, but if you do not have a website for the organisation you can still submit the details as we will build an equivalent database allowing that also.

Initially we have mainly entered some Australian clubs and some from the BARFL as their website provided the initial inspiration and their website administrator kindly provided some initial data. Over time we hope this will become a great tool for seeing the spread of Australian Football across the world.

Update 10 Dec 2007 - Our Atlas has been tested and should work under Internet Explorer 7, Firefox and Safari. It is not fully compatible with Internet Explorer 6.

The Thailand Tigers Australian Football Club recently conducted a workshop for the Thailand Institute of Physical Education (IPE Bangkok campus) about the game of Aussie Rules. Attended by around 70 students, the workshop was a great introduction to the game, and included the history, the skills and rules, and the people involved in the Australian Football League.

An important highlight was the current growth of the game in Asia, particularly in Thailand, and the potential for expansion into the Thai sporting community beyond the traditional playing base of expat Australians.

This report courtesy of the Tigers' president Ryan Collett.

Ireland's Green Machine made the trek to Denmark this weekend, hoping to regain some prestige after last week recording their first-ever loss to the Great Britain Bulldogs - the first time they've failed to defeat any European national team.

This week saw a much tighter contest in the Danish city of Århus, with the Irish running out 70-50 winners. The Danes reportedly led the inside-50s all game, but struggled to convert and were ultimately unable to peg back a three-goal lead Ireland had built in the first quarter.

Full report to come, scores to come at the Footy Record.