The Big Kick

When Thomas Wentworth Wills suggested that an official code
be

drawn up to formalise the game of football in 1858, he could
not

have foreseen the impact his proposal would make on
Victoria’s

sporting landscape – and indeed on the psyche of many
Victorians

for generations to come.

An early coloured lithograph depicting Carlton Footballers from 1884 featuring a central portrait of the late Mr George Coulthard.

Alexander Goodall was a passionate supporter of the Geelong Football Club. In August 1895. he wrote in his diary: "Heavy rain and hail, very cold. Lively football match at Kardinia Park. Mud and slush no object!" 

Of a match in August 1897 he writes:
"Geelong v. Essendon on the ground. Enormous crowd. Blue and White defeated! Intense grief!!!’

Goodall’s richly illustrated diaries, kept from the age of 17, provide an entertaining window into a young man’s daily life in the 1890s.

This extract from William Thomas's journal was written in 1839, the year he arrived in Melbourne to take up the role of assistant protector of Aboriginal people: 'The Marn-grook or Ball is a favourite game with boys and men. A party assemble, one makes a ball of opossum skin or furs of other animals of a large size working it over and over with the sinews of kangaroo tail the ball is kicked up in the air, not thrown up by the hand as white boys do, nor kicked along the ground, there is a general excitement who shall catch it, the tall fellows stand the best chance, when the ball is caught it is kicked up in the air again by the one who caught it.' 

The 1908 Jubilee Australasian Football Carnival commemorated 50 years of Australian rules football and inaugurated the Australian National Football Carnival, an interstate Australian rules carnival. It was the first and only time New Zealand participated in interstate carnivals - they made their mark first by coming back from a half-time 26-point deficit to win by a single point, and second with the 'great zest' with which the team performed the haka.

The Victorian team won the overall championship and was awarded a silk pennant and individual gold championship medals.

This photograph from 1909 shows the Victoria Brewery Football Club players and officials posing in four rows.

Players A. Sim, P. Martin, V. Connolly, G. Nott, J. Brownhill, T. Reade.
Bottom: W. Bowring & A. Kamm (Umpire)

Mr R. K. Cole.

Cigarette cards, Victorian footballer's c.1914

The colourful jerseys of Footscray, South Melbourne and St Kilda

Promoted as the highlight of the St Kilda Football Clubs 1921 carnival, the match between "Fleetwoods" and "Chorleys" two "feminine" teams, is possibly only the second documented Australian rules football match between women's teams in Victoria. The first, a wartime fundraiser, took place in Ballarat on 28 September 1918 and was a contest between Ballarats "Lucas Factory" and Melbournes "Federal Khaki Clothing Factory." The match attracted 7000 spectators and was resolutely won by the women known as the "Lucas Girls." 

Spectators watch on as the "Fleetwoods" and "Chorleys" prepare to settle the much debated question; 'Should women play football?'

The AFL Womens League was inaugurated in February 2017.