Australian Rules Football (or �footy�) cannot be more different from cricket and its esoteric customs and traditions. Footy or �Aussie Rules� is as anarchic a sport as they come! The sport may be not well known beyond Australia�s shores, but in the city of Melbourne of 3 million people, it is a passion and ranks among the most popular football leagues of any codes anywhere in the world. It is estimated that, each winter Saturday in Melbourne, one person in 16 attends an Australian Football League (�AFL�) game and thousands more follow the saturation TV coverage. Crowds of 80,000 attend �premiership� (final championship game) games, with the record being the 121,696 crowd in the 1979 finals between Collingwood and Carlton. The AFL grand finals held in September each year is one of the great sporting experiences, rivaling an English FA Cup soccer finals or an American Super Bowl�for colour, passion and atmosphere.

Aussie Rules football originated from a crude brand of Gaelic (Irish) football played by miners on the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s. It is played with a melon-shaped ball that looks like a rugby or an American football. In 1858, Harrisson and Wills formed the Melbourne Football Club after drawing up a set of rules borrowed liberally from other football codes. So in Aussie Rules, you have a bit of everything! In 1866, the game�s first official rules were established, but were subsequently changed many times over the years. The spectacular series of kicks and catches (call �marks�) at the heart of the game have led some critics to call the game �aerial ping-pong�. The game tears along at a rush with high scoring and spectacular play.

The power and wealth of the professional AFL clubs draws star players from all the states in Australia. Hence, clubs will comprise of players from all over. The state of Victoria, with the presence of footy mecca Melbourne, is usually the showcase state with the clubs to beat for Australian Rules Football. Nevertheless, inter-state games, called the �State-of-Origins� games, allow all the states to flex their might against each other. These inter-state representative games allow states to recall their best-players to compete to determine who really is the best!

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