Nice video, enjoyed it a lot. You touched on Fitzroy in the 1916 season winning the flag in a league of just four teams. Fitzroy have the unique honour of winning the wooden spoon and premiership in the same year. At the end of the home and away rounds they finished bottom of the ladder, but due to just four teams being in the league they made the finals and then suddenly found form. So they finished both last and first in the same year!
Wills actually did not actually take much inspiration from the the indigenous game Marn Grook however he may have known of its existence. He actually took the inspiration from an early version of Rugby which was a popular football code in England for which he had attended a Rugby school in England for part of his early life. Tom Wills actually wanted to bring this sport to the new colony of Australia but with his own version of the code. You can see by the early code of the sport written in 1858 how it drew a lot of similarities and had a chance to become pretty much another code of Rugby had it not been for the intervention of other members of the MCC at the time. For example, the members discussed the addition of having to kick the ball up into your hands as opposed to picking it from the floor with your hands, this was a big rule in the old Rugby code at the time and Tom Wills was for its addition, however it was never passed. But, in some ways Australian football may taken some inspiration from Marn Grook but it's not really known how much as there aren't a lot of records about Tom Wills playing or seeing the Sport. If anyone cares I know all this from an excellent historical book Australia's game.
Aboriginals were nomadic hunter gatherers. If they didn’t find food they died. I just don’t see how they would have had the time to spend on chasing a rolled up possum skin around a paddock.
Amazing video! I see a lot of people in the comments are arguing over whether or not Marn Grook, or any other Indigenous games, influenced AFL. The truth is we most likely will never know for certain, but as of 2019 the AFL has taken the stance that there was influences on the game originating from Indigenous games, specifically Marn Grook. The reasons many historians disagree is mainly due to a lack of records to prove this, but it's important to note that just because there are no verifiable records of something doesn't mean it didn't occur. If you look up the rules of Marn Grook there are some striking similarities to Aussie Rules, particularly it's emphasis on jumping including using other players to jump higher, punt kicking, and that supposedly when someone caught a ball they would yell out "mark" or a word similar to it. Given that Indigenous Australians have an oral tradition it's understandable that there may have been influence that was never recorded by them because they did not write records for their histories, and not written by any Europeans who may have either wanted to take full credit, or who may have worried that open acknowledgement of these influences could have negatively impacted to popularity of the sport. When the AFL stated it's position on the matter in 2019 they said that it was the sharing of oral history by Aboriginal Elders that confirmed the influence, which is in line with Indigenous traditions/culture. Unless someone unearths a diary where Tom Wills, or another significant figure in the creation of the game, admits in plain language that Aussie Rules is influenced by Marn Grook most non-indigenous historians will not accept it as evidenced as their bias is towards written record as opposed to oral tradition. We may never know the extent to which AFL was or wasn't influenced by Marn Grook or any other Indigneous Australian game, but ultimately if the AFL states this as their position, and it hurts nobody, does it really matter? We all love this game regardless, and within the game itself the contribution from Indigneous players themselves speaks volumes. AFL is becoming increasingly more inclusive for anyone of any walk of life to play in one way or another, we should all just appreciate the game as it is and as we know it them climbing over each other to try and tear down or discredit others.
Mate, this is good stuff! You are a footy RU-vidr, not a Historian. Your sources and script are all perfect for a short video, don’t worry about all the people nit picking at slight errors.
Nice video dude 👍the only thing I would say is I would have liked a better explanation of the VFA/VFL as it is something alot of people (mainly non-Victorians) struggle to understand. The VFA is a completely different league to the VFL/now AFL. The AFL took the VFA over and rebranded it.
The VFL wasn't created a week later than the SANFL as stated in this video... it was created 20 years later. The entire history of the VFA, including the split that formed the VFL, was completely glossed over. Twelve out of thirteen Victorian clubs (incl Fitzroy and South Melbourne; excl University) were formerly part of the VFA. It's such a shame that the VFA, as one of the top leagues in the country for many decades and with 120 years of independent history from the VFL/AFL, gets completely written out of history by so many, as if its crucial role in the formation of Australian rules football in the 19th century and its enduring strength and popularity throughout the 20th century never happened.
He’s back with another amazing one! I already had this idea but now I can’t do it :( I’m late to the video D: It’s been so long since the last video (but it was hella worth it) that I’ve even changed my username lol
There is so much conjecture ,but early Aussie rules were played on Rugby pitches ,Wills went to English Schools played rugby ,yet you fail to mention Harrison , arguably the most important person in football who helped codify the game before any football code , Harrison House was League Headquarters for over 100 years , there are so many factual errors I don't where to start , especially early years
In his exhaustive research of the first four decades of Australian rules football, historian Mark Pennings "could not find evidence that those who wrote the first rules were influenced by the Indigenous game of Marngrook".[31] Melbourne Cricket Club researcher Trevor Ruddell wrote in 2013 that Marn Grook "has no causal link with, nor any documented influence upon, the early development of Australian football."[ from wiki
Some nitpicking, minor errors at the beginning: 0:07 - not the 'national sport.' 0:24 - Wills AND OTHERS invented Australian football to play football, not in order to keep cricketers fit. This is one of a few origin myths running around. 0:27 - Wills played rugby and soccer in their formative years in England, and brought aspects of those games AS WELL AS Marn Grook. There was NO tackling in Marn Grook so it couldn't be the sole source.
Soccer as we know it broke away from rugby in 1863. The two factions couldn’t agree on how the game was to be played. So, rugby and soccer started in 1863.
@@petertrezise4545 This isn't quite right. This date is when the seperate administrations set up. Prior to that, football clubs would agree on what rules they'd be playing, but it was basically do you feel like playing soccer or rugby today, with the home side having most of the say, and the weather the rest. Muddy pitch, rugby. Best player struggling with shoulder injury? Best play the association rules. It's not like the two sports were born when they were officially separated. Australian football played with separate rules for running without a bounce for years before it was made part of the rules in 1866.
I'd love to know what your reference was that Wills took inspiration from marngrook? The Wills biography that I read said there was no evidence as such. But I'd be curious to read otherwise.
@@Kaleen_YT the story has no author name or info. just an article written by someone at the swans. not exactly a good reference for writing a factual article. just curious as i have been around for a while and as a youngster growing up and learning about our great game indigenous australians were never even partly credited with the founding of australian football.
@@Skatted yes indeed credit where it is due, i just have never heard this theory and was wondering of its origins rather than someone who writes for the sydney site. everyone is big on shouting fact check nowdays, i was curious of the source of information. you failed to provide information.
@@Kaleen_YT There was an overseas exhibition match in London during World War II, but I think what you meant was the NZ game was the first overseas match to be played for Premiership points, which is correct, so you were on the right track there.
The "national sport"? How do you work that out? The national sport in Australia is cricket. The premier football code for half the Australian population is Rugby League.
What about how the nature of the game has changed? For a new fan like me, you think the product that you see is the same game played for over 100 years. Your football has the same arc as American football, it used to be an organized street fight where hitting someone in the head or face was ok. Some of the older marches I watch, it looked like the players want to Inflict pain on the other team rather than win the game. Older players have head trama and CTE. I have to admit though the new game is exciting, the old street fight was sometimes hard to watch as the players bloodied themselves on a what appeared to be a grade school footy ground.
Well the reason Scotch and Melbourne chose their umpires is because they turned up thinking they were playing different games: 1 thought they playing Rugby and the other the Eaton field game (seriously search this game on you tube it’ll look strangely familiar) Wills may have been involved in the organisation of the game e but the fact he wrote the rules AFTER the game should be flashing red light that the Mangrook theory is utter bollocks. Say the VFL formed and was originally the VFA also just wrong. The VFL was a breakaway competition the VFA existed in name until the end of the 20th century and is essentially the VFL competition that we know and loathe today.
"National Sport"? I dearly love Aussie Rules, and I'm a fountain member of the GWS Giants, but Aussie Rules is not our national sport. Also nothing about the VFA?
@@Headknocks Cricket is the closest thing to a national sport, but pretty obvious which football code would qualify if you had to chose one, and it aint League or Soccer
@@Zaiden. Footy has been traced back to 1858, thanks to a chap named Tom Wills he was a cricket and a rugby player he didn't think soccer was manly enough so it was a mixture between soccer and rugby. The first footy match which was held at Richmond Paddock these initial matches were a bit shambolic, so the following year the rules were clarified shin kicking was verboten, as was tripping or pushing your opponent. The ball could not be thrown under any circumstances.
Look at what Port Adelaide have suffered just to enter the AFL! It weakens State football clubs. The Port Adelaide magpies haven't won a premiership in 25 years now, the biggest drought in their long history! Before the AFL they won more flags than any other club, but look at them now, a shadow of their former glory!
