Discussion between touring Australian side "the Convicts", USFooty and the AFL Canada has come upon the possibility of the Convicts taking on the US Revolution on Sunday, October 14th this year as part of the 2007 USAFL National Club Championships to be held in Louisville, Kentucky. The match will follow one week after the Convicts take on the bulk of the Canadian Northwind in Toronto on Saturday October 6th, as a curtain-raiser to the Grand Final of the Ontario AFL, Canada's oldest league and one of the biggest and strongest outside Australia.

The USFooty season is fast approaching so Chris Adams has got the ball rolling with his 2007 predictions, looking at his top-ten USFooty clubs and how their preparations are going.

Ontario has proven fertile ground for expansion sides this winter and encouragingly enough, they’re all well outside the Toronto area, the hotbed of Canadian footy. There’s the Ottawa Swans in the Nation’s capital, the Cambridge Warriors in the Kitchener/Waterloo area (watch for an article on them in a few weeks) and a third side in the city of London, nicknamed the London Stallions. Home to the University of Western Ontario, the city of 335 thousand is located about 2 hour’s drive southwest of Toronto. If London sounds familiar footy-wise, that’s because a previous side, the London Magpies, went under after the 2005 season. The Pies struggled on and off the field having trouble fielding a side for their final few matches before missing the playoffs and folding.

The USAFL and the Louisville Kings Football Club today confirmed that Louisville, Kentucky will indeed be the host city for the 2007 USAFL National Championships on the weekend of October 13th and 14th, 2007. As reported earlier the rumours had been strong that this would be the case, and the claim had earlier been posted on the Louisville website before being withdrawn.

It appears that the Louisville Kings website has jumped the gun (as have I) in announcing they are hosting the 2007 US Nationals.  The club has contacted us to say that there is no definite decision on the location and that US Footy will make the announcement when the final decision is made.  They have said they are removing the announcement from their site as it was added by a team member getting “ahead of himself”. 

Rich Mann the National Championship Director also posted on the US Footy Forum today saying that nothing is yet confirmed but they were “VERY close to signing final contract with venue, fields etc” and “we should be officially announcing by end of week, but again, be aware I'm waiting on contract from city, so out of our hands to a certain extent.”

The Louisville Kings Footy Club website appears to be breaking the news (although rumours have strongly suggested it would be the case) that the 2007 Nationals will be held in Louisville, Kentucky (note that their website has since gone down).  This will be the 11th staging of the event, in the 10th year of the USAFL.  It will no doubt be promoted as a celebration of that milestone with a return to the original location of the first game of footy played in the US between Louisville and Cincinnati back in 1996.

2007 marks the 10th anniversary of USFooty. Originally construed as the United States Australian Football Association it was later renamed the United States Australian Football League and given the appellation USFooty. This article looks at some of the people who have made footy in the US what it is today.

Matt McBriar started out in Melbourne playing Aussie Rules footy. His long kicking ability was spotted in a long kicking competition in Melbourne and through contacts including former Melbourne and West Coast AFL footballer Darren Bennett he made his way from Old Brighton in the VAFA to college gridiron football in Hawaii. He's now reached the very top - punting in the Pro Bowl.

The first match of the newly overhauled AZAFL for 2007 was played on Saturday Feb 3rd between the Devils and Dingos. The league will consist of three teams vying for the title this year, with two teams competing and the third team handling field setup and officiating each round. This report supplied to us by John ‘Pops’ Meier

Late in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLI, the Indianapolis Colts' American punter Hunter Smith kicked a 32 yard drop punt to hold the Chicago Bears deep in their own end of the field. Commentator Phil Simms described Smith as holding the ball perfectly straight up and down and kicking so that it looked like a "kick off" (that is, the ball span end over end). "Aussie Rules" also got a mention when commentator Jim Nanz described the Bears' quarterback Rex Grossman's difficulty taking the snap in the wet conditions as being like an Aussie Rules game. With three Australians punting in the NFL including All-Pro Matt McBriar and possibly Sav Rocca following soon, NFL games are likely to see more drop punts. One has to wonder if the "banana" will make an appearance.