That's correct. The was an Australian football ground outside the MCG which had a double sided stand to serve both cricket and Aussie rules.

150 years ago today the rules of Australian Football were codified. No matter what those who prefer other codes say - we have a unique Aussie game that has been part of our history & culture for 150 years. See John Harms article in today's Sunday Age "A meeting of minds".

Fast forward 150 years......1 club 140 years old playing 1 club 110 years old attract 82,000. Hard to beat that

When did this new game you talk about change its rules to get rid of the kick off that required all their players to be onside at the time of the kick?

as a new south welshman i feel the need to state the obvious that the general belief here is that AFL made that 150 year celebration thing up to combat nrl's centenary celebrations.

Everyone's against the NRL eh?

haha , whos against the nrl! names i want names!

That's absaurd Keith, though the notion of anniversaries beings up a lot of historical issues.

English RL clubs celebrate their foundation before the code itself came into existence. E.g. Rochdale Hornets were founded in 1871 and played RU. The Northern Union broke away from the RFU to form RL in August 1895. Also, look at the rules. It was only at later meetings that the rules were changed. At which point is a modified version of a sport a different sport?

Sean Fagan wrote an article about the 1858 anniversary for Australian football. He says Scotch v Grammar is not the best point to start time.

http://www.colonialrugby.com.au/AFL-2008.htm

a great article. to answer your question "At which point is a modified version of a sport a different sport?" its certainly later than 1858 in this case.

If you take the date that rules were first written down then Rugby was "codified" in 1845 which is long before Australian Rules.

What I have found interesting is that as late as 1933 the VFL and NSWRL sat down to try to formulate a common set of rules to make one true Australian Game out of the two variants of Rugby.

I was quite funny that they had their 150th celebration only about 15 years after their 100 year celebration

No doubt when Rugby League celebrates it's 150 years the AFL will claim that they’ve been around for 50 000 years – Marn Gook and all that.

The 150 years was supposedly for the sport (was it not) of Australian Football (or Aussie Rules) whereas the 1996 celebrations were to commemorate 100 years since the formation of the VFL in 1897...

I don't know much about the history of Aussie rules/RL and RU...too many people wanting to bag each other out, conflicting views on who invented it and when (Indigenous Australians claiming some responsibility for the initial rules...who knows)

All I am aware of is this year is the Geelong Football Club is celebrating 150 yrs since it was formed (apparently, correct me if i am wrong or someone wants to dispute this too)....and its as if it doesn't exist, the club has been very quiet about it.

Just like the RAN celebrated it's 75th Birthday in 1986 and then there were centenary celebrations in 2001. Anniversaries are subject to debate and conjecture.

(The Commonwealth Naval Forces were established in 1901, the Royal Australian Navy in 1911.)