From: marino@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.australian
Subject: Miscellaneous notes on Aussie Rules
Date: 6 Oct 92 15:12:10 +1000
Organization: Computer Centre, Monash University, Australia

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES ON AFL 1992
-------------------------------
 Throughout the year I have received many mail messages from people.
I have collected some of the messages relating to competitions overseas,
replies back from AFL Clubs, and Grand Final Parties. Julian Johnson gives a
summary of the game held on October 3 between the British AFL representative
side and the visiting Balmain football club from Sydney. Scott Nichol describes
the attempts of a fledgling Football league in Canada to educate the locals.
Alan Nolan recounts the reponse of the AFL Clubs to his request for information.
Leigh Ellery describes the Grand Final party that he attended in Texas. There
have been many other mail messages this year and I'm sorry to all those people
that I haven't kept them. Anyway I hope you enjoy these. Also, if anyone has
any stories along a similar line from anywhere in the world could they please
send them to me. It is always hard to gauge the extent of Aussie Rules around
the world, and this would help greatly.

----------------------------
Hi John,
   Here is the report of the game between the Sydney club, Balmain and the
British AFL representative team. (held October 3)

     The game was played in good spirits on glorious sunshine with the
   ground quite heavy though. The BAFL team kicked with the wind in the
   1st quarter and opened up a 2 goal lead by the break. In the 2nd Balmain
   came out fighting but good defending from a mostly English backline held
   them toonly 1 goal whilst BAFL kicked 4. In the 2nd half BAFL ran away
   with the game and eventually ran out winners 16 111 107 to 6 6 42. Sean
   Wallington was voted best BAFL player and Nick Archer best for Balmain.
   The party afterwards was held in the best Australian traditions with
   a BBQ and plenty of VB.
     Channel 7 were at the game taking notes and doing a bit of filming. I'd
   say they are planning to show it on Sportsworld in a couple of weeks. This
   was especially pleasing for BAFL as we are trying to get the AFL to take
   more notice of football in the UK and this game only served to show how
   strong the game is and how seriously it is taken over here. A lot of
   people over here, both British and Australian, are also disappointed that
   there will be no Foster's Cup game at the Oval this year.

   I hope you enjoy this John,

       Cheers,

            Julian

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Dear John

I was reading rec.sport.football.australian the other day and saw your
reference to the Maritime Australian Football League here in eastern
Canada. I thought I'd send you a message with some additional info. The
MAFL is in it's infancy (maybe even embryonic). At the moment there are
3 teams in the making: the Halifax Lions of Nova Scotia (my club); Moncton in
New Brunswick and Fredericton, N.B. To date, all we have achieved is a
couple of months training. Numbers have been difficult to maintain at
training but we are hopeful that things will pick up. Our main problem at the
moment is finding a ground big enough for Aussie Rules (forget the goal posts!)
- most parks in the area are only suited for soccer or rugby, so we may have
to drop a few positions when (if) we eventually play. The warm season is also
pretty short over here and we really only have until early October to play
before things start geting cold and the snows come.

We have had a favourable response from the AFL (i dunno about the VFA) re
support for the MAFL. My colleagues tell me that the AFL has promised footies,
jumpers, boots for the teams when things get underway. We already have a couple
of T.W. Sherrins(?) and have been busy coaching the locals the basics of our
great game. Many of the fellahs have a rugby background (it is a healthy sport
here, a womens rugby comp. even exists) so we have to break several bad habits,
particularly with kicking style and marking. As for handball and bouncing...
its like coaching 5 yr olds! Still, we persist with our efforts. Clearly, the
MAFL needs a couple of years to get going and we will be happy to have one game
this year. Until then its training every Tuesday night amongst baseball and
soccer games. We are certainly the odd men on the playing fields and get plenty
of onlookers when we start firing a few hand passes around.

As a final note. Thanks heaps for your regular postings on footy news etc. We
do recevIe a 1 hr highlights show of footy games from the previous round,
which helps to maintain a link with the greatest game of all.
But your news reports and stats. packages sure do help fill the void. Keep it
up.

Signing off from the footy antipodes.

Yours.

Scott Nichol

'CARN THE PIES.
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    G'day from Oregon, USA.  Back on May 22nd you sent out the addresses of the
AFL teams, well because I'm an American fan I wrote to them all asking for some
general or promotional information.  To date I've heard back from the following
teams:

    Adelaide:   Nice letter, club brochure, and stickers.
                Mark McGill - Promotions & Fund Raising Officer, wrote back.

    Brisbane:   Nice letter and "Bear Facts" magazine.
                Tania Green - Marketing Secretary, wrote back.

    Essendon:   Nice letter, club's annual report, stickers, a "Bomber" monthly
                newsletter, membership ticket holder, and a information packet
                containing a photo copied sheet of team member auotgraphs, club
                history, motto, song, and a souvenir catalog.
                Brian Crowe - General Committee, wrote back.

    Fitzroy:    Nice letter, club's annual report, stickers, a "The Lion"
                monthly newsletter, and a 1992 AFL season scheldue.

    Footscray:  A real nice letter from Graeme Pearce, club's annual report, a
                "1992 AFL" magazine, 2 key chains, 2 pins, 2 ink pens, school
                timetables, stickers, and coasters.

    Hawthorn:   A real nice letter from John Lauritz, club's annual report, and
                a "1992 AFL" magazine.

    Melbourne:  Nice letter, club's annual report, and stickers.

    Richmond:   A real nice letter from Debbie Beams, club's annual report, a
                1992 AFL season scheldue, school timetables, stickers, and a
                copy of The "Fighting Tiger" newsletter.
                Debbie Beams - Merchandising, wrote back.

    Since I sent my letters out 5/28 - 6/02, and my last response was on 7/07, I
assume I may not hear from any of the others.  I sent thankyou letters to each
of the clubs that responded.  I can say that the "1992 AFL" magazine was packed
full of great information.  Thanks again for posting the addresses.

    Now looking at the ladder ... looks to me like the last couple of spots are
going to be close.  Who wants it the most??  Because I'm not barracked with a
team I just want to see great footy!  I hope my cable company carries the Grand
Finale live again this year.  They've been good about showing the highlights
show.  Thanks again for the effort you put into keeping us all up on the going
ons of the league.

                              Have a great day,
                              Alan

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As an addendum, I've heard from three more teams since then:

Carlton: Club's annual report, stickers, club VISA card application, season
         scheldue, Footy rug ad, Blues footy tour pamphlet, "Blue's News"
         newsletter, club song, and Carlton Footy Funbook.

Geelong: Stickers, player profiles, and an info packett containing a
         photocopied sheet of players autographs, club history, and general
         club info.
         Louise Doedee' - Executive Personal Assistant wrote back.

St. Kilda: Nice letter, "The Saint" newsletter, and a copy of the "Inside
           Football" newsletter.
           Naomi Harding wrote back.

11 of the 15 teams responded, I say that's Great!
                                              Alan


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 I hope you enjoyed these. There were many Grand Final parties overseas with
plenty of Victoria Bitter flowing where they could get it. Here is the report
from Leigh Ellery in Melbourne, Florida who went to Texas to watch the Grand
Final with Chris Van Etten and Tony Hickey.

John

Made it over to Texas for the GF - and can you believe it, we missed the entire
first half. The Texas Rangers baseball game was being televised on Prime before
the GF, and unfortunately for us, the game was tied after nine innings. so it
went into overtime. Of course they do everything big in Texas, so the boys
decided to string the game out into a big game. And when I say big, I mean huge.
It took until the 15th innings to finish! We couldn't believe it. To make
matters worse, the Radio Australia broadcast didn't come through clearly until
around the start of the second quarter. So we made a few hasty phone calls to Oz
to get a score or two.

Oh well, we had a good time anyway. Some of us embarrassed ourselves (eg Chris
in being a Geelong supporter, me in wearing my fly at half mast - I must have
seen the writing on the wall for Victorian football). We had the obligatory kick
of the Tracey Wilma (T.W. Sherrin) before the big game at the local park.
Watching Chris and Tony try to explain the finer points of kicking to their
American friends was pretty funny. Then we got stuck into a few sausage rolls
which Chris had made (no 4 'n' 20s unfortunately) and of course a beer or two. I
even had two cans of VB brought over by a friend of mine especially for the big
game. They were to be used to celebrate the continuing dominiation of Victorian
football, but alas, Geelong let us down. Typical, send boys to do a man's job.
Oh well, there's always next year..................

Thanks for all the time and effort you have put in to keep us informed of the
football season. I really looked forward to coming into work each Monday morning
to get the scores for the weekend. I don't know what I would have done without
my regular fix of football. I hope you will be able to find time to continue to
send a wrap of the games to us next year.

Thanks again.

Talk to you later.

Leigh

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-  John Marinopoulos                                                      -
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