It's debatable whether the Melbourne Cup or the Aussie Rules Grand Final is the biggest Australian sporting event. Perhaps because the former is a public holiday, it takes the crown. Both attract crowds of around 100,000.
The Grand Final is played this Saturday. The event will be televised all around the world, even to Antarctica. At Mawson base the men will drink home-brewed beer and apple cider and eat oysters, prawns and steak and kidney pies known as "fray bentos". The many Australian troops around the world will get a complete coverage. English members can watch the game on Sky Sports.
The two teams are Hawthorn and Geelong with the latter expected to win. One of the Geelong players has the nickname "God", as he is so outstanding. The dominant religion in Australia is sport.
Aussie Rules is played around the world. This year's EU Cup is expected to be a close run thing.
Aussie Rules was first played in 1858 in Melbourne. Its rules were defined by an Englishman who was concerned that he had nothing to do between cricket seasons. The first clubs pre-date the first English soccer clubs. In many ways it resembles both soccer and rugby. It could loosely be described as soccer with no off-side rule, tackling allowed, even encouraged and ball handling a main feature.
I am confident that it would have become the major football game were it not for Australia's isolation.
Soccer is alive and well in Australia as is of course both varieties of rugby. But for all that, they are marginal sports.
Those interested to discover more of the world-wide aspects of the game might visit the
World Footy News - Independent News and Views from the International Aussie Rules Community website.
Aussie Rules Grand Final
