Danish footballer Mikkel Kjoge has dreams to follow in the footsteps of fellow Dane, Aksel Bang, and make it to an AFL team list in Australia. Having just tested at the AFL Europe Talent Combine in Dublin (one of just two non-Irish players to test), Mikkel is keen to chase his dream further, and confident that he can.

 

The following is Mikkel’s story, looking at his early playing days, his journey to date and where he hopes to be in the very near future.

 

 

“I first heard of Aussie Rules when I was about nine years old from a family friend. My mom’s cousin had been playing for quite a while, and to begin with he was my head figure. I went to my first practice with Farum Cats when I was nine. I was a little kid and everybody would just throw me around but I liked the roughness. I kept up the spirit and went to practice every week and I liked it even more every week. I always loved sports and I played soccer when I was younger, but I found AFL way more fun.” 

 

In coming weeks World Footy News will be looking at the 2014 seasons for leagues across Europe, as well as looking towards the 2015 season. This first article features a look at the Australian Rules footy scene in Croatia, courtesy of Josip Kravar, president of the AAFC (Association of Australian Football Croatia).

 

2014

“Croatian league (HLAN) started with new club, Slavonski Brod Tigers and first time we played with four clubs.”

“During the season the Hawks showed the best performances and won all games during the season and won back to back [premierships], pretty much as Hawthorn did in Australia. MVP was Josip Habljak, ruckman of Zagreb Hawks and best rookie was Lovre Čudina, player of Zagreb Cvjetno Dockers who were runners up.” 

“We also played CEAFL (Central European Australian Football League) with our friends from Austria (Styrian Downunderdogs).”

The 2014 AFL Europe Talent Combine took place in Dublin, Ireland, over the weekend. Whilst the vast majority of attendees were from Ireland, one Englishman, Sam Willatt, was there to fly the flag for England and pursue his own individual journey to the big time.

As Sam says, “I’ve always wanted to try the combine as a way of taking the next step in my football journey, and leapt at the chance when AFL Europe invited me. My dream would be to get picked up by an AFL club.”

So how did Sam’s journey start, and where will it go from here?

“I discovered the sport at my first week of university in 2012. Before this I played soccer and basketball to a local and school level. The speed and athleticism of the AFL players caught my interest, and highlight reels seeing blokes take huge marks definitely appealed to me.”

When Essendon Football Club went so hard to secure the signing of Irishman, Conor McKenna, after his performance at the AFL Draft Combine, it raised the question. Why? The following video from AFL Europe gives a very good idea of why Essendon representatives courted him on two trips to Ireland, and why AFL Talent manager, Kevin Sheehan, has stated that Conor may yet be the pick of the Irishmen this year and maybe of all.

Conor is a product of the AFL Europe Talent Program, a talent pathway which includes the European Legion team which has played Australia's AIS Academy team in recent years. This year's team not only featured Conor, but also fellow 2014 Irish rookies Paddy Brophy (West Coast), Padraig Lucy (Geelong), Sean Hurley (Fremantle), Daniel Flynn (Port Adelaide) and former Greater Western Sydney rookie Aksel Bang from Denmark.

For more information on the AFL Europe Talent Program, go to: http://www.afleurope.org/talent-progr...an-legion/

The Toulouse Hawks have started the new 2014/15 season in ominous form in the CNFA competition late last month. After having won the past two league premierships in France, their recent outing against the ALFA Lions was a frightening warning to the rest that the Hawks aren’t done with yet.

Toulouse Hawks 42 17 269 d ALFA Lions 4 4 28.

The massive 241 point win against the youngest team in the French competition would have had many interested observers searching for the record books, and we invite anyone to confirm where that particular score, and winning margin, sits within the history of French footy.

The second annual AFL Europe Algarve 9’s tournament was again held in Vilamoura, Portugal, on the weekend. The Algarve is the region in the far south of Portugal, on the Atlantic Ocean, and is a tourism mecca with some stunning coastal scenery. It is also a new home for Australian Rules football after holding the 9’s event for the past two years.

Last year’s winners, The Flying Dutchmen, the Netherlands (DAFA) national team returned to the scene of last year’s success hoping for back to back titles. But it wasn’t to be. This year the team from Portugal took the honours.

Final score:
Kernahandles (Lisbon Dockers) 147 d Flying Dutchmen 52

The Madrid Bears Australian Football Club has hosted an international match over the weekend with the Manchester Mosquitoes headed south for a visit to Spain. The match was played at the Rugby fields at the Autonomous University of Madrid (AUM – Universidad Autonoma de Madrid).

For the Madrid team, the opportunity for some of their players to play another competitive match so soon after the Euro Cup in London would be invaluable for the game’s progress in the country. For the Mozzies, they would still be riding on the crest of a wave after winning the AFLCNE premiership just a couple of months ago.

On the day it was the Manchester Mosquitoes that were far too accomplished for their Spanish rivals.

Final Score: Manchester Mosquitoes 17 12 114 d Madrid Bears AFC 2 7 19

The Farum Cats have played off in ten of the past eleven Grand Finals in the Danish Australian Football League, for seven premierships, including the last four in a row – the last three of which have not included a single Australian player in the team. One of the club's founders, Ian Hill, takes a look at the history of the club and how their domination of the league has come about.

The Farum Australian Football club was first formed in the 1994-1995 DAFL off-season. Jim Campion and I had been playing for a few years with Copenhagen-based clubs in the league which was at the time mostly all about the three big-city teams based in the Danish capital. Farum is a regional town of 20,000 people located 20 kilometres north-west of central Copenhagen. Jim was living there (still does) and I was working there and living 12 kms further west in a small village called Slagslunde (still do). The commute to Copenhagen for training and games was not unreasonable, but in that off-season, Jim and I thought we would have a go at starting a new club in Farum (the actual reason behind it all is another story in itself).

The team was originally called the Farum Lions. There was a soccer team in Farum wearing red, yellow and blue at the time. That, and the FFC logo amounted to a synergy which led us to select the Fitzroy jumper and emblem, ignoring the fact that the AFL Lions were in their death throes at the time.

Kevin McSorley, Development Officer for Australian Rules Football League Ireland (ARFLI), has taken the game of Australian Rules football and transformed it from simply a sport to a subject of study, opening the game up to a legion of students. The club he has established in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland, has used the Start-up Club Program (SCP) grant to attract interest (and recruitment) to the game through an entirely different medium – education.

“The NRC Eagles are the college team of North Regional College, a technical college for students aged 16 plus. The team had competed in the Fitzpatrick Cup but my direction is focused more on skill development and game understanding than competition as the other similar teams in Ireland, such as DCU and UCC Bombers, are university teams meaning my students in the 16-20 year old bracket (mostly 16-18 years old) would be competing against much older players.”