Clear case of the AFL trying to pretend that our game originated from Marngrook because it was expedient to do so.
Gerard farking Healy banging in about the aboriginal word “namake” meaning “to catch”, and being equivalent to “mark”.
FFS.
A) There is no one “aboriginal word” for anything; indigenous Australians were organised in to distinct groups or nations with diverse languages and cultural practises.
B) Do ya reckon maybe the term “mark” already existed in Anglo Celtic sports that the founders of the sport were heavily exposed to?
A lot of people don’t know about the stupid ‘challange’ system that was used pre 1933 (or so), called the Argus system.
Winners of the premiership weren’t given the Cup we know of today. That only started sometime in the 50’s. Then recently, back in 08 or so, that if clusb wanted replicas for the period before, they’d have to pay around 10k each for them. It also meant that at the time c–twood only had one actual AFL/VFL cup.
Prior to the 50’s there was some ■■■■■■ sheild that was awarded.
I always thought the game was invented simply as a way of enabling cricketers to keep fit in the offseason. My point was that it doesn’t seem to be an extension of any existing game (rugby, soccer, etc) - although there may have been rugby, soccer, Irish, indigenous influences in how the game was played. I think it would be difficult to quantify those influences (as Ivan stated), though. It appears to be distinctly unique in how it was formed, under the original rules (kicking, marking, no throwing, scoring). And it was originally quite a static game, with no picking up of the ball from the ground.
Some of the history of the game can get quite muddled.
Because it took quite some time for regular organised matches to take place at club level, it makes for a challenge to work out how even the VFA itself came about.
Even in the early days of the VFA, there was a bit of confusion. some clubs in the VFA rarely played - whereas others played very regularly.
Origins of Australian Football. Victoria’s Early History. Vol 5. Payers and Clubs. 1858 to 1896. Mark Pennings.
5 Vol series football history before VFL 1897.
Brilliant series, thoroughly recommend them.
That Rule #8 is straight out of Gaelic football. If you want to see how it’s done, look up the All Ireland Football Final on YouTube.
I know it must be easier with a round ball, but who’s to say they weren’t using a round ball for some games back in 1858 ?
In recent years, there’s been a lot of crap talked about the origins of Aussie Rules. To put it simply, Australian Football didn’t start when Wills & co. codified their rules. The very fact that they felt it necesary to codify a set of rules suggests that there was a lot of football being played, and that the rules varied from place to place (just as still happens nowadays in park football).
I don’t know what hands-on game of football they were playing in England in the early to mid-19th century, apart from Rugby, which didn’t really take off outside the school of that name until 1863, when the Blackheath Club in London told the newly-formed English Football Association to stick their no-hands round ball where the sun doesn’t shine.
When Harry Beitzel and friends set up the International Rules games, they were only acknowledging the obvious answer. Although a lot of self-styled “historians” of English Empire ethos have been at great pains to discredit the obvious answer in recent years, following the principle of Ockham’s Razor there can be no doubt that Aussie Rules is an outgrowth of Gaelic football.
Gaelic football had been played in Ireland for many centuries, and was brought to Australia by the huge numbers of immigrants coming here in the wake of the Great Famine of the late 1840s, and whose numbers were boosted by the lure of gold in the mid to late 1850s.
It doesn’t matter that this self-evident truth is no longer popular: it is still the truth.
Wills & Co.'s codification of the Rules should be seen as the first step away from the original Gaelic game, just as the foundation of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ireland in 1884 with its codification of the rules for Gaelic football moved their game away from what it had been previously. Wills & Co.'s codification introduced a few elements taken from the Rugby School game, which Wills had played as a student there. The Mark was one of these, but in Aussie Rules, unlike in Rugby, the player does not have to cry “Mark!” or make his mark on the ground with his boot in order to have his free kick. It’s interesting that a version of the Aussie Rules mark was introduced into Gaelic football in 2017.
As for Marn Grook, I’m sorry to say that there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that any elements exclusive to Marn Grook were imported into the Aussie Rules game. All those elements suggested as coming from Marn Grook were already present in Gaelic football. For example, the “catching and kicking” aspect of Aussie Rules, which has been claimed as originating with Marn Grook, was mentioned in a report of a Gaelic football match held in County Meath in 1670.
Traditionally Gaelic footballs were made of cow hide or horse hide with a natural bladder inside. There must have been considerable variations in shape.
Anyone interested in the early history of Gaelic football — the pre-history of Aussie Rules — should check out the following history of the Gaelic Athletic Association:
It wasn’t soccer that was banned in the 1600s (1695, I believe) in England, but FOOTBALL. There is nothing in the historical record to suggest that the game which was banned wasn’t a form of football in which the ball was held in the hands.
I get a bit tired of the English Football Association rewriting history to “prove” that soccer is the oldest form of football, and thus the only form of football deserving to be named simply “football”. This is patently untrue. It is far more natural to take the ball in hand to kick it, than to impose a ban on the use of the hands — which only occurred because of the socio-industrial circumstances pertaining in England in the 19th century.
The popularity of soccer today derives from the Industrial Revolution when urban working people took up the game because with its no-hands approach it was suitable to play in cramped situations in city back streets and on vacant plots of ground.
Actually, that’s an excellent point.
We don’t know what that sport looked like.
I call it soccer because it was the precursor and different to Rugby and Australian Rules.
It probably didn’t look much like what we call soccer today.
The report that William Webb Ellis picked up the ball may by apocryphal, it may be true, however, whoever first picked up the ball and ran with it was apparently defying the existing rules of football.
That said, who knows what it looked like 100 years before that.
High Marking was not part of Australian Football until about 30 years after the game began.
It was our own Charlie Pearson who is regarded as the first player to regularly take high marks.
It’s a little like talking about flooding being part of the game in the 1970s.
It wasn’t part of the game
The word “Mark” most likely means to Mark.
As in to draw a line, with your boot, to say “don’t go over that mark”.
Players still do it today when they take a “mark”.
E) One of the great Grand Final moments ever.
10) Darren Bewick
I don’t think there was an “it” until the mid-19th century. Many towns and many schools played football but they were games of their own invention. The rules, such as they were, for one town could be radically different to those of another town just a few miles away.