For those interested in the history of Australian Rules in Sydney prior to 1914 the article linked below is a worthwhile read.


http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/SportingTraditions/1987/st0401/st0401d.pdf

Thanks for that Gyfox. Was a good read. Really eye opening as to what has occured in the past to create the present situation. I wonder when the 'im not supporting Aussie Rules because its from Melbourne' mentally kicked in.

Also found interesting the stats of the number of teams and crowd sizes when the cities were a smiliar size. (Melb 8x more teams and 3x bigger crowds) I think it says a lot about the culture of Melbourne and clearly it was been there since the beginning.

That paper was a fairly even handed account with a slight Australian Rules bias. I am looking for other accounts of the era from the rugby perspective at the moment. I have read stuff in the past but I am looking for up to date research. One of the interesting things in that paper was the major role of ground access in the success or otherwise of the football codes. Seems that is not a new thing either.

Well you do find this in reverse...

Why is it that AFL fans in Melbourne should care about the sporting culture of Sydney? I don't care that Rugby League is a minor and mocked sport in Melbourne or Adelaide.




Both sports are wonderfully inferior to football and we only support them because we grew up with them. If it wasn't for the great clubs and their ingrained histories, Canterbury and St George, Richmond and Collingwood, there'd be no point.

I recall a similiar article a while back on the history in Brisbane. Can't manage to find it atm.

Exactly
It is funny that most people from Melbourne believe that Australian rules is the best form of football, people from Sydney believe the same thing about rugby league or union depending on what school they went to and people from England believe the same about soccer.

It is usually based on what sport you grew up with and/or your parents made you watch/play.

I would say that very few people would objectively weigh up the pros and cons of each code and then decide which one is for them

Person who knows nothing about a sport has no interest in it


Person who knows nothing about a sport feigns interest in it when caught up in nationalism and marketing


Yes - I am sure that there are many people in Victoria who also do not know alot about what is happening in the rest of the world

I would add to that what is available via the media.
To a much lesser degree political decisions.
Australian Football would be much stronger in NSW and QLD if it hadn't been for a number of political decisions . Football of any code is boosted if it is displayed in the media .It's a catch 22 situation . Minor codes can't get onto TV because they are a minor sport . The internet and pay TV are changing that to a small degree .



Again , mainly because of the lack of choice . However people can appreciate common features . I like aspects of American Football ,RU and rl but not soccer .

.

With respect someone who says that there are no aspects of soccer/football they can appreciate basically renders their opinion on all sporting matters worthless.

He's employed by either the WAFC or AFL...ignore him.

wow , a forum that brings everyone together!! there was a great question put forward earleir that asked why melbourne people care so much about sydneys sporting landscape. can anyone from melbourne actually answer that here?

i went to a fairly afluent school on sydneys north shore, union heartland. we had a decent union team but towards the end of my tenure there was a huge demand for a league team and more kids were changing over. in the end there had to be two senior league teams. i still live on the north shore and must say for the rugby union stronghold theres at least a 50/50 split with league. if i had to chose one id chose league because of the pace of the game, although i like union and attend shute shield games occasionally.

AFL is never really mentioned here, although channel 10 devotes a lot of airtime to it so maybe that will change. as for naming the mascots or the players, coaches etc the general consensus is no idea who they are. i do agree there is a lot of hostility towards AFL in sydney. the swans do a goood job of being not too aggressive. never attacking league directly. is it the same hostility for league in melbourne?

I find this desire for teams to go bankrupt and get out of the market very very different to my experience. Its an Aussie Rules town, but never do you have the media wanting a club to go bust...

I find hostility towards other sporting codes fruitless.

Growing up in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne an area which could arguably be called the heartland of Australian rules in Australia you were only exposed to one thing - footy. Cricket was there as well but usually it was an afterthought. All other codes were not even on the radar within my sphere.

To use the terminology of the time, soccer was wog ball and only came to prominence when the World Cup was on with all talk only being about England pretty much. During Italia 90 it was the game of the playground for the month but then as soon as it was over interest stopped. In the environment in which I lived I was never exposed to it. Only through SBS did I start developing an appreciation of the NSL and the EPL with passing interest in the Socceroos come WCQ time. Even when the EPL came to prominence in the mid 90's I had it a couple of times when it was often assumed just because you wore a soccer top (in this case Southampton) it was automatically Italian.

Rugby league and union wasn't seen or heard. If it was that was only due to the fights and punch ons or it being a game for 'bum sniffers'. If you asked most people back then in Melbourne (80's and early 90's) and probably even now they wouldn't be able to tell you the difference or know that they were too distinctly different games as rugby was the universal word to describe both. I heard it very often back then and still do now. In fact I even used to do it for quite a while as a sign of lazyness, not to mention as a sign of scorn before I grew to appreciate. On two distinct occasions I remember peers of mine being abused because they wore Wallabies jerseys. One was called a sheep fucker and a Kiwi because he wore the Australian rugby jumper to school free dress. Even when one of the popular kids wore from memory a Norths beanie to school once because he previously lived in Sydney when younger he was told to f**k off back there, albeit with less venom due to his status in the student hierarchy.

Up until my sporting schism in the mid/late 90's everything was Aussie rules with a developing interest in football. I could watch it on TV, knew all the teams and grounds but by hell or high water I couldn't get anyone to go with me to NSL games. However soon as I made the decision that football is by far the superior game to my liking I made every effort to be involved.

Me moving to Sydney introduced me more to league. Prior to that I had no interest at all never attending Storm games. Now I prefer watching the NRL over the AFL because I have made an informed choice about what game I prefer. Now that I have returned to Melbourne I still chose the NRL over the AFL. Same goes with union. I have no interest at the International or Super levels but chose to have an interest in grade rugby as it was more to my liking.

The other factor as well is proximity. In Sydney I lived very close to NRL and Shute Shield grounds. This immediacy made it easier for me to make an informed choice to take further interest.

Football on the otherhand was on the other side of the Harbour plus a bit more however as it was my game of choice I didn't use natural impediments as a barrier or excuse to attending.



Definitely. The best example I have seen of this personally is my 13 year old nephew. Growing up he had an interest in a few sports playing union and football at various stages. Union was probably his main interest because of it being the main game of his father and him going to Waratah matches however he was open to other games.

I spoke to him about football and the A-League and took him to occasional NRL games as he lives close to Brookvale Oval. He used to enjoy the experience.

However upon stating secondary school at a very prominent GPS school his mindset and outlook on sport has changed totally. Everything now is solely about union because if you play union you have 'bragging rights' and that all other sports are now inferior especially football.

I questioned him about this as he's a very intelligent lad and said to him bluntly 'your school is crap at union, most students play football as it is clearly a more popular pastime - what is there to brag about?' When i mentioned other codes like league and football all I got was more dogma about 'bragging rights'. It seems like the sportsmasters are trying to indoctrinate a dying breed with one last ray of hope.

All Boys school parochialism in all sports annoys the crap out of me all over the country. Such an eletist mentality, even in Australian Rules Football states.

Sathc has an interesting experience at Claremont showground for a game between Scotch College and Christchurch Gramma...Around 2000 people attending the game from reports.

But this thread supports the argument I had with redback original that Australia's sporting culture behind the surface is highly diverse and shows there has to be more about why a local area likes a particular sport other then the media.

The history of sport in that area is also integral...

I do like this thread, be interesting to here other stories. I have said mine before so I will retract from explaining my experience, but it was similar to Hot Dogma, getting bagged for being a Glory supporter after we lost the 2000 GF. But a ton of people played it, yet would give me sh*t for following Glory, while there was a ton of noobs (aussie accents) that supported the EPL, particularly Leeds.

Rugby Union became extremely popular as a sport towards graduation, but my school participated in every sport under the sun and our sports program was diverse, even at primary school were we played Lacrosse! As a primary school student in Year 6 and 7 at a government school we would play other schools in our region in home and away fixtures, which would then allow us to progress if we topped our region. Netball, Hockey, Aussie Rules, Soccer would be what we did every Friday afternoon. Buses would come to our soccer field in Singleton and transport primary school kids from Mandurah and even as far a field as Waroona!

This continued at High School with all sports, playing public and private schools. I played a few times for Freddies and never noticed an eletist attitude when playing sport. Despite going to the most bragged about school in the region, even though it only attracted the fuckwits and braniacs.


Rugby Union, Soccer, Aussie Rules, Cricket, Swimming, Hockey were all big in participation stats. Aussie Rules, Hockey and Soccer probably all had around the same amount of participants.

Having noticed the "rivalry" between Egan & Nines, I was intrigued by Egan's assertion that Nines works for AFL or WAFL. Is this just part of his attack or is their evidence?

I actually thought what Nines said was spot-on & very logical.

Gyfox criticised me for saying there were more skills in Aussie Rules. The fact is I am an average athlete - but was good at running & jumping. In high school I was convinced to play rugby. Even went to an international game at Adel Oval. After 1 year I returned to the 3rd XVIII because I wanted to use more skills than I could in a rugby backline. I luv the different skills & freedom of Aussie Rules. Also, being a lousy kick, I really liked that I got a score for missing the goals