New England Online > Culture & Society > Sport & Recreation > Australian Football
Australian Football in New England
| Australian Football | |
|---|---|
| Governing Body: | NEAFA |
| National Team: | New England |
| First Played: | 1962, Armidale |
| Registered Players: | 150,000 |
| Competitions | |
| - National Football Premiership - Gillies Shield - National Football Carnival - Metropolitan Football League - North East Football League - South East Football League - Western Football League |
|
| Audience Records | |
| Single Match: | 45,780 (2047) Coffs Harbour v Guyra |
| Season: | 1,320,952 (2051) |
Australian Football (usually just called Football or Australian Rules) is a major winter sport in New England, with 150,000 people playing mens, womens and junior competitions played all over the country. The premier competition is the National Football Premiership played by twelve teams from April to September each year. After a slow beginning, Australian Football has grown to become the second most popular winter sport for men, along the way surpassing many sports which were traditionally dominant in New England.
Administration
New England Australian Football Association - Since 2011, the administration of the game in New England has been managed by the New England Australian Football Association or NEAFA. The NEAFA is the principal governing body for Australian Football in New England, and is a member of the International Australian Football Council. Under the organisation's jurisdiction fall the three national competitions and the four regional leagues that make up organised football in New England.
International Australian Football Council - The world governing and law-making body for Australian Football, the International Australian Football Council or IAFC was established in 2033 for a second time when the NEAFA refused to recognise the Australian Football League as the governing body for the sport. The IAFC is responsible for organising the annual Tri-National Cup between Australia, New England and New Zealand as well as the Australian Football International Cup for associate members of the council.
National Competitions
The National Football Premiership is the only professional Australian Football competition in the country, with all subordinate leagues being amateur or semi-professional at best. The three principal competitions are as follows:
National Football Premiership - The pinnacle of competitive domestic football in New England is the National Football Premiership, which is organised by the NEAFA. The National Football Premiership consists of twelve clubs from all over New England playing a single division for Kennelly Cup. A regular home and away season of twenty-two rounds culminates in the finals series for the top five teams every September, with the victorious side determined by a Grand Final on the last Saturday afternoon in September.
Gillies Shield - Apart from the National Football Premiership there is also the Gillies Shield, which is contested in September as a three round knock-out tournament by the eight National Football Premiership teams who did not make the divisional finals. The competition is therefore seen as a consolation prize for those clubs on the lower end of the ladder. The final of the Gillies Shield is played as a curtin-raiser on the Friday evening before the National Football Premiership Grand Final.
National Football Carnival - Every two years in March, a domestic representative carnival is held with the four regional leagues playing off for the title of Champion League of New England. The carnival is played in three divisions, professional, semi-professional and amateur, with the results of all three divisions determining the championship title. Selection to compete in the carnival is the highest domestic honour for footballers in New England, and is considered second only to national selection. Historically dominated by the Metropolitan Football League, in recent years the South East Football League has been the dominant league of the carnival.
Regional Leagues
Below the National Football Premiership sit the four regional leagues which organise both senior and junior football competitions on the local level across the country. By default, all players in New England play for the regional league club to which they have been assigned for a contracted period. Those players more talented undergo a complex player draft system to allocate players of equal talent and ability to each National Football Premiership club. These players are then assigned to a division one team in the local league where they play when not selected for their National Football Premiership team. The four regional leagues are:
Metropolitan Football League - The largest of the four regional leagues, the MFL consists of clubs from across the three metropolitan counties of Greater Armidale, Guyrashire and Urallashire, as well as the more rural Apsleyshire. The league is organised into three divisions consisting of ten teams each.
North East Football League - Based in Coffs Harbour, the North East Football League or NEFL features teams from the counties of Clarence, Fitzroyshire and Raleighshire. There are two divsions of twelve teams each, with a promotion and relegation system in place to allow for a more mixed competition.
South East Football League - The second largest regional league, the Port Macquarie based competition features teams from Macleay and Macquarie. The league consists of twenty-eight teams over three divisions, with teams fielded from Fredrickton to Laurieton.
Western Football League - Geographically, the Inverell based Western Football League or WFL covers the largest part of New England, and includes Gwydirshire, Macintye, Parkes and Severnshire. The WFL is smallest of New England's four regional leagues, and unlike the others, it consists of a single unified division, the J.L Prater Cup.
National Team
Apart from Australia, New England is the only other country with a professional Australian Football competition. The national team is made up of the best players from the National Football Premiership, each of whom are chosen by the national selection committee of the team. The team then plays in a tri-national competition every year with Australia and New Zealand.
History
Introduced into New England in early 1960s, football did not enjoy widespread popularity until after New England became independent. For the many years in between, Australian Football was ranked a poor third to Rugby and Soccer. The code was seen as alien, and was often labeled as "aerial ping-pong" or "cross-country basketball". Men who played the code were often teased for playing an inferior and un-manly sport. Despite this ridicule, the game survived, although it struggled for attention and support for many years.
However, as time went by, attitudes began to change. A very small number of New Englanders walked away from Rugby League during the so-called "Super League war" in 1996 and converted to Australian Rules. They were joined by the many Victorians and South Australians who moved to New England worked hard to establish competitions, which by the late 1990s had settled into two successful bodies: Tamworth and North Coast. The latter of these was formed in Coffs Harbour in 1982 and is the immediate predecessor of the North East Football League. The introduction of Auskick exposed school children to the code for the first time, and began a slow process of building up a base of players and supporters who would follow the game their entire lives.
Most sports were suspended during the Civil War, but once the Treaty of Wellington came into force, competition resumed with a single nationwide amateur competition played from 2011 to 2015 under the auspices of the newly formed New England Australian Football Association. This competition, the New England Football Cup, grew from eight teams in 2011 to a twelve team competition in it's final season in 2015. At the Annual General Meeting of the NEAFA in 2015, the constituent clubs voted to establish a semi-professional premiership competition consisting of the six clubs. The final choice of clubs was determined by a committee that assessed clubs based on playing ability, financial strength and the quality of their playing facilities.
Based on these findings, the National Football Premiership began with Armidale, Coffs Harbour, Grafton, Inverell, Port Macquarie and Woolgoolga in April 2016. In a break with the old competition, all but one club opted for a new mascot and colours. Only the Grafton Tigers retained their old strip and mascot, with Coffs Harbour opting for the same colours (red and white), but with a new mascot (the seagulls). The inaugural grand final was played between Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie, with the Seagulls victorious over Port 15.10 (100) to 10.6 (66). Players were found locally and from Australia, with the government granting the NEAFA forty skilled labour visas by which players could be enticed to New England to play football and work in a trade. This formula proved successful, and an additional twenty visas were granted in every year from 2017 until 2019.
The availability of quality players, coupled with a demand for skilled labour, led to the NEAFA to invite submission for four additional franchise licences in time for the 2020 season. The Ministry of Home Affairs increased the availability of visas to the NEAFA to forty per annum, equal to that granted to the New England Rugby Football Union and the New England Cricket Control Board. This partnership proved to be one of the most successful public policy initiatives ever to have been devised in New England. In the meantime, the NEAFA heard submissions from eight proposals, and from these, accepted the applications from Glen Innes, Guyra, Kempsey and Uralla. The quality of football was still a long way behind the Australian Football League, and indeed the VFL, SANFL and WAFL were easily superior as well, but as time went by, the NEAFA began to close the gap.
The makeup NFP remained unchanged for the next fourteen years, with an ever increasing improvement in player quality leading to higher crowd attendances throughout the 2020s. Australian Football surpassed Soccer in crowd attendances in 2021 and player numbers in 2027. Meanwhile on the playing field, the dominance of the foundation clubs was finally broken by the Guyra Football Club in 2030, when they defeated Port Macquarie 17.12 (114) to 12.11 (83) in the grand final. The Cockatoos were victorious again the following year, easily defeating favourites Coffs Harbour 23.8 (146) to 15.9 (99). Guyra become the third team to win consecutive premiership, joining the 2016/17 Coffs Harbour team and the 2019/20 Grafton side.
However, an attempt at a "three-peat" was dashed when the Five Day War broke out in July 2032. The Cockatoos had been undefeated, winning fourteen consecutive games, but with the outbreak of war on the 5th July, the NEAFA immediately cancelled the remainder of the season, and declared the competition abandoned. Although the association was following the will of the government in canceling competition, there was sustained criticism of the decision which many felt had been premature and ill-conceived. A sustained media attack on the association led by the chairman of the Cockatoos culminated with the resignation of Tom Jeffrey, the Chief Executive of the NEAFA in October 2032.
Rebounding from the disaster of 2032 proved difficult, but next few seasons proved to be a great success. In the lead up to the resumption of the competition, the association announced in January 2033 that it would admit two new franchises for the 2034 season. Submissions for new teams were received from Dangarsleigh, Dumaresq, Maclean and Wauchope. At the same time, the quality of football in New England had grown to the point where a full time professional competition could finally be considered. The NEAFA undertook a ten year plan to lift the premiership into full professionalism by 2040, and at the same time, make it the the second best competition in the world.
The admission of Dangarsleigh and Dumaresq in 2034 brought the National Football Premiership. While the national competition had been booming, the second and third tier competitions were struggling. A lack of direction, poor funding and substandard facilities dogged the minor leagues around New England. Many of these competitions had a short lifespan, with clubs forming and disbanding on a yearly basis. Fearing a collapse of the game, the NEAFA took full control of the game in 2036 and abolished the ramshackle arrangement of local leagues, replacing them with four regional leagues, each based in one of New England's four biggest conurbations. This stability allowed for the leagues to form two or three division competitions, all with a mix of semi-professional and amateur players.
The year 2036 also saw the introduction of two new national competitions. The Gillies Shield was devised as a consolation tournament for those teams that had failed to make the final four. Over the last three weeks of September, the bottom eight teams play for pride and a handy prize money reward if victorious. The second initiative was the National Football Carnival, a tournament where the best players of the National Football Premiership are selected to play with their region of origin for the title of Champion League of New England.
The international situation had calmed enough by 2038 to allow for the resumption of international representative football between New England and Australia. The large number of New Zealand born players led to that nation also joining the international fray, thereby forming the Tri-National Cup. Australia has dominated the Cup since the first game in October 2038, and has won every series since. But Australia has not hogged all the glory, with New England enjoying several upset victories since the competition began. While the quality of football in New England still trails that of the land of it's birth, the gap had now all but closed.
