For purveyors of timely footy news 'and' commentary, this contribution may come a little late in the day. That 'day' being yesterday, when a story about the EU Cup winners Belgium -- a team I am currently managing -- was posted.

In the first 9-a-side EU Cup held in London last weekend October 9th, Belgium (represented by the Brussels Saints) defeated Sweden 78-37. Ten sides competed in the cup, representing nations from around Europe.

After a long time at the top of the AFL ladder, the Brisbane Lions are rebuilding their aging team. One innovative recruiting strategy involves the Lions hosting trials this week to identify potential Australian footballers within Ireland's Gaelic sports community.

The curtain-raiser to last weekend's AFL Challenge Cup at the Brit Oval, London, was the international match between Ireland and Britain.

This wasn't an expat event, both sides were composed fully of Irish and British lads under International Cup qualification criteria. Unlike the Eagles v Dockers match that followed, the game was also Australian Rules by the rulebook - in other words it was melee free, and the standard impressed the crowd that had grown by the last quarter to several thousand. We got the views of some of the people involved and some ideas of future plans.

Every so often a few guys stranded in a city without footy go looking for like-minded individuals and get a kick-to-kick happening. 'Every so often' is slowly but surely becoming more regular and kick-to-kick is turning to clubs looking for a game. In the past few months Europe has seen three, possibly four new teams hoping to get off the ground, with the Trolls in Oslo and Lions in Finland, the Czech Republic and the Swedish city Linköping.

After a successful first year in its 2004 season, the Scottish Australian Rules Football League (SARFL) is building up for the finale to its second season with a Grand Final set to be played in Edinburgh on 22 October. The Scots also have big plans for the future, hoping to put a 3-year plan in place to enter the International Cup in 2008.

The special relationship between the Geelong Cats of the AFL and the Farum Cats of the Danish Australian Football League will really show signs of bearing fruit with the visit of Geelong stars Tim Callan and Jimmy Bartel to Denmark and Sweden for the first week of October.

Ireland's Green Machine will travel to London to take on the British Bulldogs in the curtain-raiser for this year's AFL game at Brit Oval on the 8th October. The AFL match features AFL grand finalists West Coast Eagles taking their Western Australian rivalry to London against the Fremantle Dockers. In the many years of AFL exhibition games at the Oval this is the first time there will be a curtain-raiser involving local footy.

The Skåne Grand Final between Port Malmö Maulers vs Lund Magpies will be on Saturday September 24th at Limhamnsfältet, Malmö at 14:30. There will be a curtain-raiser before this at 13:00 between the Helsingborg West Raptors and debutante Göteborg Beserkers. The Beserkers were formed in 2003, but are yet to play a match against outside opposition.

With the withdrawal of the Spanish side organised through the Madrid Bears, an announcement has been made by the Lliga de Futbol Australià de Catalunya (Australian Football League of Catalonia) that they will attend in their place.