56 Fun Facts About Australian Rules Football

How many points is a goal worth in Australian rules football?

Six points come from kicking the ball between the two tall goal posts untouched; if another player gets a hand to it on the way, or it passes between a goal post and a behind post, it earns a single point.

Which AFL player, usually the tallest, contests the ball-ups and boundary throw-ins?

The ruckman leaps at each ball-up and boundary throw-in to tap the ball down to a running teammate, and only one nominated ruck from each side is allowed to contest it.

What must a player running with the ball do at least once every 15 metres?

Bounce it on the ground, or bend to touch it there: a runner who goes further without doing so gives away a free kick, a rule written into the laws in 1866.

A player who cleanly catches a kick that has travelled at least 15 metres is awarded what?

A mark stops play and gives the catcher an unhurried kick from that spot, which is why players leap onto opponents' backs to take one; a kick caught after less than 15 metres is simply play on.

What sounds to end each quarter of an AFL match?

A siren ends each 20-minute quarter, but a player awarded a kick just before it sounded still gets to take it, so a match can be won after the siren.

Which company makes the standard match ball used in the AFL?

Sherrin's own story is that founder Thomas Sherrin was handed a misshapen ball to fix in 1880 and gave it rounder ends for a truer bounce, the shape the game then adopted.

Which two ball colours are the only ones used at AFL level?

Red and yellow: the yellow ball is used for games starting after 3 pm or under a closed roof because it is easier to see, including for the officials doing score reviews.

Tom Wills's famous 1858 letter urged a "foot-ball club" to keep which sportsmen fit through winter?

Cricketers: Wills, a star of the colony's team, wanted them kept fit in the off-season, and within a year the response to his letter had produced a football club in Melbourne and its first written rules.

Tom Wills was educated at which English public school, where he played an early form of football?

Rugby School gave Wills his football, yet he judged its game "unsuitable for grown men" who had a living to earn, and pushed Melbourne's players to write rules of their own in 1859.

The landmark 1858 schoolboy match umpired by Tom Wills pitted Melbourne Grammar against which school?

Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar played 40 a side for a draw of one goal each, and the two schools now meet every year for the Cordner-Eggleston Cup.

In what kind of building did four Melbourne Football Club members write the game's first rules in May 1859?

A pub: Tom Wills and three others drew up ten rules at the Parade Hotel, run by football promoter Jerry Bryant, and the club had them printed and sent around the colony.

The 1859 Melbourne rules banned "hacking", which meant doing what?

Kicking an opponent's shins was banned to spare working men injuries they could not afford; a quarrel over the same practice later helped split England's footballers into two rival codes.

The original Melbourne rules notably left out which law common to English school football?

Offside never entered the Melbourne rules, so players could, and still can, take up position anywhere on the field, however far ahead of the ball they stand.

Which Aboriginal ball game do some believe influenced Tom Wills when he helped shape Australian football?

Marn Grook prized high leaps to catch a kicked ball, but there is only circumstantial evidence that Wills ever knew the game.

Which cousin of Tom Wills, later hailed as the "father of Australian football", drafted the revised rules adopted in 1866?

H. C. A. Harrison, the colony's champion sprinter for nine years, took up football at Wills' invitation and wrote the right to run with the ball into the 1866 code.

The oldest football club in Australia outside Victoria was formed in 1860 in which city?

Adelaide had a football club within two years of Melbourne's first matches, and South Australia formed the sport's first governing body in April 1877, a few weeks before Victoria managed it.

Which of the VFL's eight founding clubs of 1897 took until 1966 to win its first premiership?

St Kilda was one of two clubs the six breakaway sides invited along, and when its premiership finally came, 69 years on, it was won by a single point.

Which two clubs joined the VFL in 1908?

Richmond and University: the students' club never paid its players, lost its last 51 games in a row as rivals turned professional, and dropped out after 1914.

Which VFL club relocated to Sydney in 1982 and became the Swans?

South Melbourne had been losing money for years and its chairman feared the club would disintegrate, so the board chose Sydney and made it the first VFL club to move interstate.

Which two cities gained VFL teams in 1987?

Perth and Brisbane: the Eagles and the Bears each had to pay a multimillion-dollar licence fee that the old clubs never faced, money that helped keep struggling Victorian sides alive.

Which club is the only pre-existing non-Victorian club to have joined the AFL, in 1997?

Port Adelaide had secretly negotiated to join alone in 1991, but the other SANFL clubs went to court, a new composite side called the Crows took the licence instead, and Port waited six more years.

Which two clubs were added to the AFL in 2011 and 2012, bringing it to 18 teams?

Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney were both planted in rugby league country, and each launched with a league convert as its headline signing: Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau.

The imaginary line dividing rugby-following New South Wales and Queensland from the rest of Australia is named after which VFL star?

Ron Barassi preached that the game should spread across the whole country, so historian Ian Turner put his name on the dividing line in a 1978 lecture.

The AFL Grand Final is traditionally played on the afternoon of the last Saturday of which month?

September's last Saturday is so fixed in Victorian life that, since 2015, the Friday before the Grand Final has been a public holiday across the state.

Which club led the 1970 Grand Final by 44 points at half-time and lost?

Collingwood's collapse fed the legend of the Colliwobbles: between its 1958 and 1990 premierships the club reached nine Grand Finals and won none, losing eight and drawing one.

Which forward took the famous 1970 Grand Final mark that prompted the commentator's cry of "...you beauty"?

Alex Jesaulenko climbed onto the shoulders of Graeme Jenkin to take it, and Mike Williamson's cry of "Oh, Jesaulenko, you beauty!" became as famous as the mark itself.

Which three clubs shared the record of 16 VFL/AFL premierships at the end of 2025?

Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon each had 16, but two of Essendon's, in 1897 and 1924, were won without a Grand Final because those seasons ended in a round-robin finals series.

Which club became the first non-Victorian side to win a Grand Final, in 1992?

West Coast, in only its sixth season, won by 28 points a year after losing its first decider, and the premiership cup left Victoria for the first time.

Which club won three premierships in a row from 2001 to 2003?

Brisbane Lions won three deciders running and came within one game of a fourth straight premiership before Port Adelaide stopped them in the 2004 Grand Final.

With the MCG requisitioned by the military in the Second World War, Grand Finals moved to which club's Princes Park?

Carlton's Princes Park staged the 1942, 1943 and 1945 deciders while American and Australian servicemen were quartered at the MCG; the last was so violent it is remembered as the Bloodbath.

The Brownlow Medal, awarded to the AFL's best and fairest, is named after a former secretary of which club?

Geelong's Charles Brownlow served the club as player and secretary for more than 40 years; the league created the medal after his death in 1924, and its first winner was Geelong's own Carji Greeves.

Who casts the votes that decide the Brownlow Medal?

The field umpires award 3, 2 and 1 votes after every game, and a suspended player is ineligible, so in 1997 Chris Grant polled the most votes and still lost the medal to Robert Harvey.

The SANFL's equivalent of the Brownlow, first awarded in 1898, is which award?

The Magarey Medal was the idea of league chairman William Magarey, who wanted to curb rough play and win umpires more respect, and it predates the Brownlow by 26 years.

Which player from the winning side took the first Norm Smith Medal, as best on ground in the 1979 Grand Final?

Wayne Harmes chased his own stray kick to the boundary line, dived and knocked the ball back to a teammate for the goal that sealed a five-point win.

Which Essendon star, retired by a knee injury at 25, gives his name to the AFL's goalkicking medal?

John Coleman kicked 12 goals on debut in 1949 and 537 in only 98 games before his knee gave way, then came back as coach to take Essendon to two premierships.

As of 2026, which club's players have won the most Norm Smith Medals?

Hawthorn players have won eight, because the club has taken nine premierships since the medal began in 1979, more than anyone else; Gary Ayres and Luke Hodge each won it twice.

Which player holds the VFL/AFL record of 1,360 career goals?

Tony Lockett passed Gordon Coventry's 1,299, a record that had stood for 62 years, with his 1,300th goal at the SCG in 1999, and the crowd poured onto the ground to celebrate.

Tony Lockett's 1987 Brownlow Medal was the first won by a player in which position?

Full-forward: Lockett kicked 117 goals for St Kilda that year and shared the medal with rover John Platten after the pair tied on 20 votes.

Which champion, nicknamed "Lethal", was among the first Legends named by the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 1996?

Leigh Matthews hit so hard that in 1982 he ran into a behind post at Windy Hill and snapped it; he went on to coach four premiership sides.

Which North Melbourne captain, nicknamed "The King", was named Australian football's greatest-ever player in a 2008 AFL anniversary list?

Wayne Carey captained North Melbourne to the 1996 and 1999 premierships, then left the club in turmoil in 2002 over an off-field scandal and finished his career with another club.

The Melbourne Cricket Club lost its pre-MCG ground to what?

A railway: Victoria's first steam line, from Melbourne to Sandridge, was routed through the club's old ground in 1853, so the club was granted a new site in a government paddock at Richmond.

Erin Phillips, the AFL Women's first best-and-fairest winner, was already a world champion in which sport?

Basketball: Phillips won a world championship with Australia and two WNBA titles before switching to the game her father Greg had played, and she was the new league's best player at once.

The hybrid International Rules Series pits Australia against which country?

Ireland's amateur players meet AFL professionals under compromise rules: the round ball suits their own code, while tackling comes from the Australian game.

The annual Anzac Day match is played between Collingwood and which club?

Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy, who had spent two years in the army, proposed the fixture, and the first one in 1995 finished in a draw in front of almost 95,000 people.

In the first State of Origin match in 1977, which state, strengthened by its returning VFL stars, thrashed Victoria by 94 points?

Western Australia had lost to Victoria by 63 points earlier that year under the old selection rules; with its own players back from Melbourne clubs it won by 94, a turnaround of 157 points.

Football's unofficial anthem, a 1979 hit, is named for which high-leaping star of the 1920s?

Roy Cazaly was sent skyward by teammate Fred Fleiter's shout of "Up there, Cazaly", a cry Australian soldiers took into battle in the Second World War before Mike Brady made it a song.

The Melbourne firm famous for its Australian rules footballs was sold in 1972 to which US sporting-goods company?

Spalding's Australian arm bought the business and kept the founder's name on every ball; Spalding itself was taken over by Russell Corporation in 2003.

In Australian rules, a handball must be made by doing what to the ball?

Punching it with a clenched fist off the other hand is the only legal way to pass by hand; throwing the ball, or simply handing it to a teammate, gives away a free kick.

Which Victorian club merged with the Brisbane Bears at the end of 1996 to form the Brisbane Lions?

A proposed Fitzroy-North Melbourne Kangaroos merger was voted down by the other clubs; Fitzroy resumed playing in the VAFA in 2009.

Which club joined the AFL in 1995?

Fremantle took the nickname Dockers from the city's waterfront workers, but Levi Strauss already sold Dockers clothing, and the club could not officially call itself the Fremantle Dockers until the two struck a deal in 2010.

In the AFL, what may an umpire award for unsportsmanlike conduct after a free kick has been paid?

A 50-metre penalty marches the kick 50 metres closer to goal; the distance was only 15 metres until 1988, when the league decided that was too little to stop time-wasting.

A theory dating from the 1920s holds that Australian football derived from which other field sport?

Gaelic football was only codified in the 1880s, a quarter of a century after Melbourne's 1859 rules, and historians have found no archival evidence for the link.

What free kick is paid against a legally tackled player who fails to dispose of possession?

Holding the ball rewards the tackler unless the umpire judges the player had no prior opportunity to get rid of it, which is why crowds greet almost every tackle with a hopeful shout of "Ball!".

The AFL's Indigenous Round is named after which Fitzroy player who later became Governor of South Australia?

Doug Nicholls played six seasons for Fitzroy in the 1930s, became a pastor and campaigner for Aboriginal rights, and in 1976 was the first Aboriginal person appointed a state governor.

Which stadium opened at Waverley in 1970 to rival the MCG?

VFL Park was built to take the Grand Final away from the MCG, but the state government blocked its expansion and it hosted the decider only once, in 1991.

A 2019 photo of which AFLW player's kick became a bronze statue?

Tayla Harris was photographed at full stretch in an AFLW game; when the broadcaster deleted the picture rather than the abuse beneath it, the backlash made it a symbol, unveiled in bronze at Federation Square.