World Footy News

Riley Brettell from AFL Europe reports on their website www.afleurope.org of the announcement that London will be the host of the 2019 European Championships. 

AFL Europe is thrilled to now be able to confirm the details for 2019’s premier international 18-a-side tournament, to be held in London from the 9th-12th October. 

The three-day event will bring together international sides from around Europe for the continents feature triennial football showpiece, to be hosted by Great Britain in conjunction with the Wimbledon Hawks Football Club and AFL Europe. 

Great Britain Head Coach, Dean Thomas, says that the 2019 Championships shape to be the most keenly contested and anticipated footy event in Europe to date. 

“London is the hub of footy in Europe and a fantastic city to be entertained in, and the European Championships are a must do event for any nation that harbours ambitions of playing in and doing well at the International Cup in 2020,” Thomas said.

 

From the desk of the AFL England writers, their column “Good Week/Bad Week” looks at the updates from the weekend footy from AFL London, AFLCNE and Southern England AFL. The original story can be viewed on the AFL England website at: http://www.aflengland.org/good-week-bad-week-4th-june-2018/

After a brief hiatus, ‘Good Week/Bad Week’ is back and ready to take a look at the latest round of fixtures across England. The leagues are really starting to hot up, so let’s see who’s in contention as we approach the halfway stage of the season.

 

GOOD WEEK

The Manchester Mosquitoes once again look like the team to beat in the Central & Northern England league. After racking up 130+ points against the Huddersfield Rams and the Nottingham Scorpions, the Mozzies were restricted to just over half that against the Wolverhampton Wolverines this weekend. However, they still extended their record to 3-0 as they won 11.18.84 to 6.10.46 in tricky conditions.

It has been a huge week for the Norrtälje Dockers in Sweden. Just days after having been officially announced as the hosts of the 2019 Euro Cup, the club has taken out the 2018 Swedish Cup. It was a day where their battle with host club, the Port Malmö Maulers, saw the teams equal on the scoreboard across the day with the Dockers winning at the right time.

The day saw a three-way men’s draw with the Dockers and Maulers joined by a combined team from the Eksjö Bulldogs and Helsingborg Saints. The women’s match featured the Port Malmö Lynx up against a combined Stockholm team.

The first game (Game 1) saw the women go into battle, with the Lynx proving too strong for the Stockholm team, winning by even points.

The Tyne Tees Tigers hosted the Edinburgh Bloods in Newcastle this weekend hoping to upset another unsuspecting traveller. But the Bloods were in no mood for distractions as they raised the temperature against the Tigers on their way to a powerful 172-point victory.

The win keeps the Bloods hot on the heels of the Glasgow Sharks in what is looming as the battle for first and second place.

The loss for the Tigers offers mixed blessings. Whilst the team would have much preferred a win to stay in the finals race, it is also true that the loss is a part of their learning curve in their first season as a SARFL club. They are still in a new environment and learning the pace and structure of the Scottish game.

On a dreary afternoon, ideal for playing wet-weather football, the Manchester Mozzies took another step towards a possible fifth consecutive premiership flag. This time, the Mozzies took down a gallant Wolverhampton Wolverines team by 38 points, adjusting to the conditions better and just playing a class above.

The worrying news for the rest of the AFLCNE teams is that their form since their first round bye has seen them play their most conceivable grand final opponents with wins against the Rams (62 points), the Scorpions (67 points) and Wolverines. The only opposition they are yet to play are the Merseyside Saints and they would be a long shot at best to change the scenario. It is hard now to see any team capable of stopping the Mozzie’s runaway train.

The final score saw the Manchester Mozzies 11 18 84 defeat the Wolverhampton Wolverines 6 10 46.

Riley Brettell from AFL Europe reports that the Swedish city of Norrtälje will host the 2019 Euro Cup. The city is home to 2016 SAFF premiers, the Norrtälje Dockers. The decision will be an enormous boost for the game in Sweden, but also neighbouring Scandinavian, Baltic and northern European nations. 

AFL Europe can today confirm the date and location for one of the feature events on the 2019 European football calendar, with the 9-a-side Euro Cup to be held in the picturesque city of Norrtalje in Sweden, hosted by AFL Sweden in conjunction with AFL Europe on Saturday, June 29th. 

 

The harbour city lies one hour north of Stockholm and is known for its small-town feeling, cobblestoned streets and buildings which date back to the 1700’s and will set an idyllic scene for the annual tournament, that will see men’s and women’s national teams from around the continent competing for the crown of European Champions in the heart of the Swedish summer.

As the most improved team in the AFL Middle East competition last season, the Abu Dhabi Falcons might have decided that the season was over and they had earned a rest. Not so. The team decided to have one last hurrah and travelled to Croatia to take on their national team - the Croatian Knights – for the general reason, as the club states (tongue in cheek), ‘because we can.”

As if taking on their own UAE teams – the Dragons, Bulls and Dingoes – was not challenging enough, the Falcons opted to test their strength on a truly successful championship team. The Croatian Knights finished in first place of their Division Two draw at last year’s International Cup in Melbourne. That is on top of having won the AFL Europe Euro Cup in both 2010 and 2015 as well as having been second three times and third three times since 2008. They are a powerful Australian Football nation.

The following press release from AFL England raises awareness of the upcoming event to fight Motor Neurone Disease. Hosted by the Wandsworth Demos at their home grounds at Clapham Common (the ‘C’), the event links to events here in Australia where former Essendon great and Melbourne Demons’ coach, Neale Daniher, is the brave face of the charity across the AFL world.

FightMND Charity Day ‘Big Freeze on the C’ Takes Place 9th June

Event features three AFL London fixtures, and Clapham Cubs Junior Session
June 1, 2018 – On the 9th June, the Wandsworth Demons are hosting their third annual ‘Big Freeze
on the C’ to raise money for Australian charity FightMND. The event will feature three matches,
with the Demons taking on the London Swans in the AFL London Women’s Conference, Men’s
Conference and Men’s Premiership.

Back in 2012, World Footy News interviewed four indigenous teenagers about their football journey and where they might want to be one day (see From Paradise To The Pinnacle Of Success). With the Sir Doug Nicholls Indigenous Round of AFL football to take place this weekend across Australia – at grassroots level and the highest in the and – one of those young men looks back at his journey: in football and life, through indigenous eyes.

Josh Kyle now lives and plays footy in Melbourne – seemingly a million miles away from his spiritual and geographical home. His journey has been fascinating, yet it is one that many young indigenous players take to live a dream, and many more want to.

He is a born and bred Cairns boy, from Far North Queensland, first playing Australian football for Pyramid Power in the AFL Cairns competition and being a part of their Under 16 premiership team in 2013. But there is a strong sense that his journey could yet take him further than he ever dreamed.

With the commencement of the AFL's Sir Doug Nicholls Indigenous Round this weekend, the following videos provide the perfect opportunity to be "standing together to celebrate indigenous excellence" - the binding statement that sums up the identity of the round.

This first video looks at highlights from some of the greatest indigenous footballers to have ever played the game. As a highlights reel, it is an absolute showcase of what makes our game so special. The second video looks at one of the legendary indigenous footballers in Graham "Polly" Farmer, who changed the game forever and forged a path for future indigenous footballers to follow.

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With the weekend's Sir Doug Nicholls Indigenous Round about to kick off, the AFL has released the magnificent club jumper designs. The following link takes you to the AFL's website http://www.afl.com.au with a specific page dedicated to the designs and stories that go with each club's jumpers.

Included in the snapshot are the design pictures, the name of the artist who deigned them and a small explanation of the symbolic story lines attached.The round starts tomorrow in Sydney when the Swans take on Carlton. The feature match of the weekend will see the Essendon Bombers take on the Richmond Tigers in the match billed as "Dreamtime at the 'G".

To see the designs, go to: http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-05-29...r-revealed

One of the healthiest signs for clubs worldwide is the development of talent from within the club. At the highest levels of the game, clubs like Carlton celebrate the Silvagni name. The names of Long, Watson, Fletcher, Hird and Daniher are iconic at Essendon. Gary Ablett returned last weekend to Kardinia Park to keep a famous Cat name alive in Geelong. Collingwood boasts names like Coventry, Collier, Daicos and Moore…and more. The name Cordner at Melbourne is legendary. The list goes on.

At club levels world-wide, the passing of the baton from father to son (or now, indeed, daughter) has seen clubs build around ‘organic” growth as families take clubs into the future.

Now, one of the youngest clubs in England, the Tyne Tees Tigers, have reached the stage where the next generation has arrived. Whilst the club now plays in the AFL Scotland SARFL competition, they are located in Newcastle, England, and their history will forever be built around that connection. This weekend, Jack Martin will join his father as a Tyne Tees Tigers player. It is a significant event in the short history of the club.