The tickets were provided through a program called GLoBALL, geared towards letting international students experience AFL games for free, which was pretty awesome. Groups of students had access to an ambassador throughout the game, who told us about the background of the game and the teams, the stadium, the rules, etc. By the time the game started I had a pretty good idea of what was going on and how the team was going to be played.
The History of AFL
For a bit of background information, footie (the most common way Australians call the sport) started in Melbourne, the first experimental game ever being played at Yarra park in 1858. It was initiated by a man named Tom Wills, now thought of as the pioneer of footie, who was a cricket player and secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club at the time. He sought a way to keep cricketers in shape during winter months and invented footie as the answer. The sport spread quickly among colonies and even internationally around that time.
Despite quick spread, the sport remained a primarily Victorian state sport, the largest league being the Victorian Football League. Other Australian states did have leagues, but competition between states was not as common and there was no national league. It wasn't until the 1980s, over 100 years after the sport began, that interstate competition and activity increased, causing the VFL to rename itself as the Australian Football League in 1989. Over the next several years the best state teams across the country joined the league, which now has 18 teams and is considered the most elite footie league in the country.
Essendon v. Carlton
Because of the way the sport is made, many teams are named after suburbs rather than cities as is common in the U.S. The two teams playing that day were the Essendon Bombers and and the Carlton Blues, both from suburbs of Melbourne. In fact, in the national league it is common to have a couple teams from each city within Australia, where teams form the same city are frequently rivals.
The game we were going to was a perfect one to go to for many reasons. For starters, Essendon and Carlton definitely are rivals, and are even the two most successful teams in the league. To be exact, both hold 16 league championships, the most any team holds in the league. Secondly, it was being played in the Melbourne Cricket League Stadium, which is located in Yarra park, the same place the very first footie game was ever played! The stadium is on the National Heritage list for this reason. The stadium is located around several other sports stadium, and the area had even hosted olympic games in the 1950s. The third reason is because of how good the game would turn out to be, which I'll touch more on later.
To sum it up, I was watching the two most successful teams in the Australian Football League play each other, both rivals from the same city, playing at the very location the sport had been invented at. It couldn't have been planned more perfectly.
The Rules
After we arrived at the stadium (only three train stops away from our campus, towards the city) we found the GLoBALL tent, got our tickets and were assigned our ambassador. Before heading into the stadium he gave us a run down of the game, here it is:
Time Limits
Although the ball is shaped similarly to an American football, the game is played quite differently. In fact, there are few breaks - like soccer, the game is played continuously with little stops or time outs at all. There are four quarters, each lasting 20 minutes in the AFL plus any stop time due to a goal, going out of bounds, etc.
The Field and Scoring
Above: An Australian rules football field. Note the four goal posts at each end.
The goal of the game is to get the ball to pass in between the goal posts at the end. If it passes through the center two it is worth 6 points. If it passes through either of the outside goal posts, or if it hits a goal post, it is worth 1 point.
On Offense
A team can move the ball down the field in several ways.
1) They can run with the ball, but they have to bounce it every 10 or 15 minutes.
2) They can handball it. This means they can hold the ball in one hand, and hit it with the other, sort of like serving a volleyball underhand. Because you cannot throw the ball, this is the best way to pass it short distances.
3) You can punt the ball at any time you have the ball.
3a. If you punt it more than 15 meters and your teammate catches, he can either keep playing right away or stop, go back to where he caught it, and punt it again from there without being interrupted. But even when they go back to where they caught it and punt for free, they do very quickly, within two seconds or so.
3b. If you punt it and it bounces around or isn't caught, whoever picks up the ball gets it and keeps playing right away, just like in soccer. There's rarely any stopping unless somebody catches a long punt.
On Defense
The other team can try to stop them or get the ball in a couple of ways. They can tackle anybody running with the ball, or try to intercept or deflect a handball or punt from the other team.
Watching the Game
Having gone to plenty of games in Philadelphia (hockey, baseball and basketball mostly) this was one of my favorite games to watch, and was definitely the best match I've ever seen live.
Above: Wilfrido and Sergio watching as the teams are just about to run out. Those white spots are all birds - they are very persistent, and in fact are constantly on the field, moving to wherever there's space on the field. At any time throughout the game, even when playing, I counted at least 30 birds sitting on the field.
Above: My view of the field at halftime while children played little mini-games on the field
Above: Game play towards the end of the game.
The stadium was pretty much filled with attendance at over 82,600 people. From the beginning I randomly picked one of the teams to root for: Essendon. Essendon was up just a few points after the first quarter, 13 to 10. But as soon as the second quarter started Carlton began taking a lead, scoring point after point throughout the second quarter, ending at 41 v 22 with Carlton in the lead.
At this point Essendon was looking pretty bad, it was cold, and we had been at the stadium for over two hours, so Wilfrido and I decided if the gap kept widening we'd leave. And at first, it did. At 9:25 pm Carlton scored again, widening the gap. But then Essendon started coming back, scoring at 9:30 pm and 9:30 pm again. So we stayed, even though there were no more scores in the third quarter with 43 points for Essendon and 57 points for Carlton.
The fourth quarter is when it got really good. Carlton scored right in the beginning, widening the gap. But then Essendon scored, and again, and again, taking the lead and making the score 69 v 64, with only 10 minutes or so left! Now the team that had been behind the entire time was in the lead, it got exciting. Soon after, Carlton took the lead again, making it 69 v 70, neck and neck. Over the next couple of minutes each team hit the posts several times, getting only one point each, taking the lead from each other back and forth. And finally, with only two minutes left, Essendon scored one last time, ending the game at 77 Essendon v 72 Carlton.
Because both teams were from Melbourne, there was an equal representation of both at the stadium, so cheering was loud throughout the entire game. Between the huge comeback with three scores in a row in the fourth quarter, and the lead going back and forth up until the very last minutes, the game was awesome, and was the best way I could have seen one for the first time.
AFC Champions League football game favorite for us. Iran and UAE also my favorite team. Thanks for sharing.
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