Origins of Australian rules football

This claim is largely based on circumstantial evidence that Tom Wills, one of the game's pioneers, gained exposure to Marngrook while growing up amongst Aboriginal people in the Victorian bush.

[10] The codes of Cambridge and Harrow, while more similar to modern soccer, shared many aspects of modern Australian rules in particular the absence of an 'off-side' rule, kicking from the hand, marking (fair catch), carrying the ball in hand, tackling or shoulder charging the player with the ball and kicking through upright goals to score.

This would, of course have appeared remarkably similar to observers (as were the games of Harrow and Cambridge) and as such, was a key reason why the colony later adopted the Victorian Rules to facilitate intercolonial matches.

In the Colony of Victoria the merits of these different schools and their footballing traditions were also known on the Victorian goldfields in 1858 particularly the Cambridge rules which were popular.

[15] Geelong is believed to have its own rules which included a running bounce to limit carrying the ball (at least as early as 1862) that was later adopted by all Victorian clubs.

[citation needed] A little over a year after his return from England and Rugby School, where he played rugby football, Tom Wills promoted the idea of organised football in the colony of Victoria, most notably when he wrote the following letter, published in Bell's Life in Victoria on 10 July 1858: Sir, – Now that cricket has been put aside for some few months to come, and cricketers have assumed somewhat of the chrysalis nature (for a time only 'tis true), but at length again will burst forth in all their varied hues, rather than allow this state of torpor to creep over them, and stifle their new supple limbs, why can they not, I say, form a foot-ball club, and form a committee of three or more to draw up a code of laws?

If a club of this sort were got up, it would be of vast benefit to any cricket-ground to be trampled upon, and would make the turf quite firm and durable; besides which it would keep those who are inclined to become stout from having their joints encased in useless superabundant flesh.

Surely our young cricketers are not afraid of the crack of the rifle, when they face so courageously the leathern sphere, and it would disgrace no one to learn in time to defend his country and his hearth.

The Herald wrote in August 1858:[25] The game of football promises, as it deserves to be, one of the popular amusements of the ingenuous youth of Victoria.

Bryant had played a role in organising early football matches at the nearby Richmond Park and his son was one of the first players.

[29] Geoffrey Blainey, Leonie Sandercock, Ian Turner and Sean Fagan have all written in support for the theory that the primary influence was rugby football and other games emanating from English public schools.

I have accordingly omitted the Rugby and Eton rules, because we seem to have agreed to a code of our own, which, to a considerable extent, combines the merits while excluding the vices of both.Writing to Wills in 1871, Thompson recalled that "the Rugby, Eton, Harrow, and Winchester rules at that time (I think in 1859) came under our consideration, ... we all but unanimously agreed that regulations which suited schoolboys ... would not be patiently tolerated by grown men.

[34] He wrote to his brother Horace: "Rugby was not a game for us, we wanted a winter pastime but men could be harmed if thrown on the ground so we thought differently.

He played first class cricket for Victoria during the 57/58 season alongside 3 of the founders of Melbourne Football Club including Tom Wills.

[35] Some historians, including Martin Flanagan,[36] Jim Poulter and Col Hutchinson postulate that Tom Wills, who was the son of a politician and a squatter and was educated at Rugby School in England in the 1850s[37] could have been inspired by indigenous Australian pastimes involving possum skin "ball" games (sometimes collectively labeled "Marn Grook").

William Blandowski's 1857 sketch of indigenous Australians in Merbein clearly depicts children playing a form of "foot ball".

[citation needed] James Dawson, in his 1881 book titled Australian Aborigines,[a] described a game, which he referred to as 'football', where the players of two teams kick around a ball made of possum fur.

The first record of an early version of Gaelic football is considered to be a game in 1670 in Meath (Irish county) where the match featured the catching and kicking of a ball.

[50] In 1843 during Adelaide St Patrick's Day celebrations were held "in genuine Irish style" involving families native to Ireland playing a football game.

[53] Football, cricket and shinty were also commonly played in the early settlements of Hobart and Richmond in southern Tasmania during the 1840s and 1850s as well as part of St Patricks Day celebrations.

In the olden time, when bowls and tennis were everywhere in England, and hurling and football in Scotland and Ireland...The heavy-limbed or heavy-hearted peasant of today is not very like the authentic pictures of his predecessor.

"[56] "Englishmen do not usually care for hurling, or Irishmen for cricketing; and hence, if one description of exercise were exclusively the fashion, all nationalities would not be found in the lists, and there would be an obstacle to the spread of the habits we speak of.

[58] In 1859 an article in The Age (Melbourne) noted that "Englishmen do not usually care for hurling, or Irishmen for cricketing; and hence, if one description of exercise were exclusively the fashion, all nationalities would not be found in the lists, and there would be an obstacle to the spread of the habits we speak of.

The exciting sport of football and running, leaping, and swimming matches, are exercises not peculiar to any stock in particular, and we all meet them on common ground".

[61] Patrick O'Farrell has pointed out that another Irish sport with ancient origins, hurling – which has similar rules to Gaelic football – was played in Australia as early as the 1840s, and may also have been an influence on the Australian game.

In a 1949 interview that appeared in the Daily News (Perth), Pat Rodriguez stated his belief that Gaelic football was "probably the father of the Australian rules code".

[66] In 1982 John Daly stated his belief that the early games of Caid played by Irish immigrants provided the inspiration for the codification, and thus morphed into, Australian rules football.

Their presence in Victorian football may be accounted for in terms of a formative influence being exerted by men familiar with and no doubt playing the Irish game.

At the end of first 50 teams may leave ground for 20 minutes for refreshments but must be ready to resume on time otherwise rival captain can call game off or (if his side has scored) claim it as a win.4.

[70] Journalist Martin Flanagan postulates that the game's administrators engaged in historical revisionism of the story of Tom Wills involvement in the origins of football because he was a drunkard and because he committed suicide.