Footy history in Sweden added a new chapter to its history last weekend when the Norrtälje Dockers club went on to win the club’s first SAFF (Stockholm Australian Football Federation) premiership in just their fifth season. It caps an amazing year for the club which had already broken new ground reaching their first finals series, culminating in the greatest prize of all.

The club was formed in 2012 and according to the club’s own vision “many hours have been put in by many people to build a club that had a vision of becoming Stockholm’s strongest on and off the field.”

The downed the reigning premiers, the Södermalm Blues with a final score 12 12 84 to 7 4 46.

Carlton today announced the Kate Shierlaw of the Wimbledon Hawks will be one of their rookie players for the inaugural season of the AFL Women's league in 2017.

Shierlaw is originally from Adelaide and is a huge Carlton fan, but only began playing Aussie rules this year in London for the first time.  Kate is the first woman to be signed to an AFL club from a club outside Australia. 

Senior women’s coach Damien Keeping said of Kate "(she) is returning to Australia from the UK which demonstrates her passion and dedication to the game.

 

“Although she has only recently taken up the sport, Kate is a tremendous athlete with a strong work ethic and deep desire to develop and hone her football skills.”
 

The Glasgow Sharks’ successful season went one step further last weekend when they visited Newcastle to take out the 2016 Tyne Tees Cup. Just last month the Glasgow Sharks took out the AFL Scotland premiership - Glasgow Sharks Crowned AFL Scotland Champions – and the trip south has netted them another trophy for the cabinet.

The competing teams for this year saw the Glasgow Sharks, Tyne Tees Tigers and Scotland’s Kingdom Kangaroos in the men’s competition. In the women’s draw the England Vixens took on the Wandsworth Demons and the Glasgow Sharks.

 

The Zaprude Giants are the toast of Croatia after last weekend’s victory in the CEAFL (Central European Australian Football League) Championships held in Prague, Czech Republic. After having headed the table after victories in the first two rounds held in Croatia and Austria, something special was needed by their competitors to stop a Giants title – it didn’t happen.

 

 

Headed into the Prague leg of the tournament, only the Giants, Sesvete Blues from Croatia and the Styrian Downunderdogs from Austria had enough accumulated points from the previous events to be overall winners, but the Giants did little wrong as they again won the day and the overall title.

Paul Daffey of PDFooty interviews Julien Kann from the AFLG club the Munich Kangaroos.  The Roos stalwart grew up in Balywn and moved to Bavaria, where he’s now a premiership coach after leading his team to victory in the AFL Germany grand final.

The draws for the upcoming Euro Cup in Lisbon, Portugal on October 8th have been released by AFL Europe. The men’s draw features 15 national teams across four pools, whilst the women’s draw sees seven teams across two pools – 22 teams in all headed for Lisbon.

The men’s draws have been broken down as follows:



A: Croatia, Italy, Austria, Wales,
B: France, Ireland, Russia, Peace Team Lions
C: Germany, Norway, Scotland, Portugal
D: Netherlands, Crusaders, England

Once again history has been made in Danish football with relative newcomers, the Odense Lions, reaching the DAFL finals for the first time. As expected, there is one very excited and emotional football club on the island of Funen. For a city already well known as the birth place of children’s story teller, Hans Christian Andersen, the Lions (and their Lionesses) are hoping to bring another type of fame to the city.

“For the first time the Odense Lions have made it to the Danish Australian Football League’s finals. They will meet Copenhagen Barracudas in the semi-final, a hard opposition that has only lost one game all year. It is the Lions third season and the development has been slow but steady.”

The new season of French footy (CNFA) gets underway in a little over a month. It seems like yesterday that the Paris Cockatoos stunned the footy world by taking out the 2015/16 premiership in their debut season, and since then six other teams have been plotting how to pluck the Cockatoos.

But one team that will just be happy to enter the fields of battle is the brand new Blagnac Aviators club from Toulouse. Having been on the rise in the shadows of last season, the leagues newest entity is ready to roll and will hit their home field first round when they tackle the Bordeaux Bombers on October 15th. It will be an historic day for Blagnac, for the city of Toulouse and for the CNFA and French footy in general.

One of the last club based tournaments for 2016 will be held this coming weekend, Saturday 17th September, in Newcastle at the club’s new home in Gosforth. It is a chance for some clubs to have a last hitout before the start of the off-season and international representative competitions.

According to Tyne Tees Tigers president, Phil Martin, “The Tyne Cup is a pretty recent one day tournament held up here in the North East. Competing this year are the hosts, Tyne Tees Tigers who currently hold the trophy. The Glasgow Sharks who are the current AFL Scotland champions and the Kingdom Kangaroos who we have a long relationship with which has been cemented by competing for the annual pre-season ‘Bawbag Cup’”.

Alexey Andryushin from the St Petersburg Cats is a keen student of history, and is very aware of how important this weekend’s clash between the Lazy Koalas and the Cats was. “The weather was perfect: no rain and no hot sun either, and the day of this game matched the Moscow City day - today was the 869th anniversary of Moscow (est. 1147).”

The culmination of the first full season of competition between the two cities is certainly an historical event in European footy – maybe not on the same level of the history of the nation’s iconic capital city, but certainly of historical importance in the growth of the Australian national game across Europe.