Perhaps after a 44 year premiership drought it was good karma that finally brought success to the Cats. At least that could be the view from an international perspective, with people involved with the club doing the right thing by international footy recently. As we reported, Brownlow medallist Jimmy Bartel has been a regular visitor to Denmark and is off again soon, where he'll give some assistance to Australian Football development there.

Making an even larger commitment is Frank Costa, the Cats' president and the man behind Costa Logistics, a fruit and vegetable company (amongst other things) that we reported on earlier in the year in "Costa Logistics gives young Africans opportunity".

Costa joined Geelong when the club was millions of dollars in debt and has been a big part of their turn-around. His company is now investing in South Africa, such as in the Alexandra region of Johannesburg, and as part of that they are also putting over half a million dollars over three years into AFL South Africa's program. As a sign of that commitment, a special guest was brought to the MCG. On AFL Grand Final day nine year old Tsepho Daniel Raphiri, a FootyWild participant in Alexandra, was involved with the half-time Auskick program. Let's hope the young lad was able to appreciate the atmosphere of the day.

The full story can be found at Footy goes Wild.

A decade after the Australian Football League's seemingly one-off experiment in Africa, with the 1998 Brisbane versus Fremantle match in Cape Town, AFL footy is set to return to South Africa with Carlton taking on Fremantle in Pretoria in a February pre-season, pre-NAB Cup match.

As previously reported (Carlton v Fremantle in South Africa) and although not confirmed, The West Australian reports that the match is tentatively booked into SuperSport Park (Google image) on February 2nd 2008. The heart of Australian Football is in North West Province and the likely venue would have been Potchefstroom's Sedgars Park, which hosted the Australian Under 17's against a South African selection earlier this year (see Aussie talent all class on African footy's big day). Unfortunately cricket commitments are reported to have ruled that out. Nearby Pretoria lies in the province of Gauteng, and North West's loss will be their gain. Rather than reward the region where footy has its roots, perhaps this will introduce the game to a relatively untouched audience. Let's hope that it goes ahead and it would be tremendous to see AFL South Africa and the AFL arrange to bus in some of the players and volunteer officials from North West to see what for many would be their first live game of AFL.

Also headed across the Indian Ocean, in December this year, will be West Coast. In the PerthNow story West Coast trip to South Africa a good life lesson it's reported that the Eagles will spend ten days in KwaZulu-Natal, their development province under a four team agreement with the AFL. The players will also be conducting coaching clinics in what is AFL South Africa's newest football region. The other AFL clubs involved are Fremantle, who work with North West, Carlton with Gauteng and Collingwood with Western Cape.

Channel 7 Melbourne has scheduled a documentary prepared by their news team, called "Footy's Wild Frontier - AFL in South Africa". The stations blurb explains:

"Watch as reporter Nick McCallum travels to the shanty towns of Johannesburg and other regions of South Africa , discovering passionate AFL communities along the way. This program provides a rare insight to how the AFL views South Africa as football's final frontier and a viable market for players and television, having already expanded its presence into countries all around the world. In the documentary, AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou outlines his confidence over the sport's push into the far-off region".

The Age newspaper also quotes Demetriou as saying in the program "There's no doubt in 10 years, there will be a player drafted out of South Africa".

Sadly the show appears to only be scheduled for Melbourne, 5pm - 5:30pm, Sunday 23rd September. Channel 7 Melbourne have advised that there are no plans to air the documentary to the wider Australian audience, and Channel 7 Adelaide have no immediate plans to show it but have put a request into the system (fans shouldn't hold their breath).

As far as we've been able to tell from searching the internet, despite great gains by AFL South Africa in the past few years, there hasn't been a lot of media coverage within South Africa itself. This of course will slowly change with time, and no doubt they're up against entrenched sports that guard their coverage closely. So it's pleasing to see an article in called Now kids are to play new game by Tandie Ntsepe on the City-Vision Western Cape website. They spoke with Development Officer Allison Simons about the FootyWild program being presented to local schools in Khayelitsha and Nyanga. Let's hope interest continues to grow.

Also of interest is an article that reviews some of AFL South Africa's progress in part from the point of view of Australian Volunteers International, an important partner early in their program. See A game for all seasons.

Aussie Rules competitions all around the world, including in Australia, often struggle to find enough umpires. Perhaps we haven't been looking in the right places. In another example of innovation in growing Australian Football, AFL South Africa (North West Province) is commencing a program of delivering training in the coaching, umpiring and playing of footy into four correctional centres - Klerksdorp, Christiana, Wolmaranstad and Potchefstroom. No one doubts that the country faces many large challenges as its economy and people continue to overcome the legacy of apatheid and the weight of HIV/AIDS. But it does so with a strong sense of energy and reconciliation, and clearly this extends to its correctional system which has a policy of rehabilitating inmates.

Melbourne newspaper the Sunday Herald Sun today reported that AFL clubs Carlton and Fremantle are currently set to play a match in South Africa next February, possibly as a NAB Cup fixture. The proposed venue for the match wasn't mentioned, although the article did mention that the clubs will take community camps in their affiliated South African development regions.

Read on for the full article.

For the last couple of seasons the Collingwood Football Club have held part of their pre-season training at an elite sports facility at high altitude in Flagstaff, Arizona (USA). But with their commitment to a match against Adelaide in Dubai in the Middle East as well as taking an active role in South Africa's Western Cape province, the Magpies have decided they can't reasonably fit too much overseas travel into one pre-season. So they will shift their high altitude camp to Potchefstroom, in South Africa's North-West province, and support development in Cape Town from there, before heading direct to Dubai.

The push into KwaZulu-Natal is also underway, with the launch of the program in Umlazi. More details of both these initiatives follows.

AFL stars Michael Voss and Jason McCartney with Allison and others at a footy clinic in South Africa

Australian Football is a unique game in the way it combines so many aspects of other sports from around the world, such as Rugby (tackling and an oval ball), Gaelic football (in the running flow of the game and carrying the ball), cricket (an oval field), soccer (possession footy and the importance of foot-skills), volleyball (the underarm serve the closest equivalent to footy's handpass) and basketball with aerial contests. Any Aussie Rules fan will tell you it takes the best parts of all these sports plus many innovations of its own. The sport has also produced some unique stories. One of my favourites to write was about Benji Motuba (see Long trek from Itsoseng to Riverland for Buffaloes vice captain) and the hope the great Australian game had brought to the young African. Also from Africa comes the story of Allison Simons' journey. Born and raised in Kenya with European heritage, she travelled to England to complete her schooling then visited Australia where she fell in love with the country and its indigenous code of football.

Allison studied in Perth and began playing footy there before moving to Melbourne to do a PhD. While in Western Australia she became heavily involved in the local women's competition, something that would be a taste of things to come. Her journey has now brought her back to Africa, where she lives in one of the townships of Cape Town, leading the way as Australian Football begins putting down roots in African communities. WFN recently interviewed Allison Simons, discussing her world footy adventure.

Geelong Football Club President Frank Costa has won wide praise for his efforts to rejuvenate the Cats since taking over at the end of 1998. The recovery of Geelong is still a story being told, with the team sitting atop the AFL ladder and looking to complete their rise with their first premiership since 1963. Costa's efforts extend beyond the football arena. The family company has become a major force and in addition Frank was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 1997 for his services to youth and the community. Now Costa Logistics is combining its business, community and football passions to give young South African's the chance to play footy whilst investing resources in local communities there. Their South African arm have now committed to putting into Australian Football resources worth around AUD$200,000 per year for the next three years, a massive boost to the sport in the country that has become the focus and in many ways the litmus test for internationalising Aussie Rules.