Our Game : The Melbourne Rules
	A random selection of the history of the earliest days of what was initially called "Melbourne Rules".  We absolutely guarantee you won't find most of this stuff anywhere else!

NOTE : Undated archives were loaded mid-June 2007 as part of a major upgrade to the new site.  Archives created or substantially update after then show the latest modification date.   The index below is in chronological sequence based on the seaon relevant to the event.

1844   An Irish Picnic

Some histories of the Australian game suggest the first game of football in Melbourne as being "an Irish picnic", a reference taken from Garryowen's "Chronicles Of Early Melbourne", first published in the 1880s but with a couple of facsimile reprints over the years. But has any historian investigated (before now) the real circumstances of the "picnic"? ...     Top

1850  The Gymnastic Games

Histories of the Victorian code mention games of football being played for barrels of ale or other prizes prior to the formalisation of the rules in 1858. Many of these games were nothing more than promotions by the hotel keepers of the growing city, and most of them never actually took place once the publicans had attracted curious but gullible patrons to their premises. Surprisingly, virtually nothing has ever been documented of the first organised football matches in Melbourne ...     Top

1850  The Gymnasts - Campbell and Stephen

Two of the earliest contributors to the development of football in Melbourne remain almost totally unknown despite all the previous research that has gone into the game. Most historians over the years attribute the idea for the game to Tom Wills and (mistakenly) Henry Harrison, but perhaps if gold had not been discovered in Victoria in the early 1850s, two totally different men may have gone into history as the founders of Australian football ...     Top

1850   "Old Lysander"

The 476 ton brig "Lysander", on which the news of the declaration in London in 1850 of Victoria's Separation from the rule of New South Wales was hardly a glamorous vessel. The Separation celebrations included one of Melbourne's first organised football matches, but the Lysander went on to make another significant contribution to Melbourne's football culture and was still in action a century later ...     Top

1850   A Pie At The Footy

Roast lamb and mint sauce, Irish stew and 'taters, roast pork with apple sauce, hot pies and football. All matches made in culinary heaven, but back in 1850, the promise of the first footy pie sadly didn't quite come true ...     Top

1859   The First Footy Season - a review    (added July 2007)

The first rules of the Melbourne Football Club were laid down in May 1859, but through the efforts of James Thompson and William Hammersley, two of the four men that established the code and who were leading journalists of the time, by May of the following year, at least nine clubs are known to have existed ...    Top

1859   "Black Eyes Don't Look So Good In Collins Street"

The first rules of Australian football were laid down in May, 1859. Strangely, and despite the fact that they were printed in the daily press, the existence of these laws was ignored by writers for many years (the "first" rules usually being quoted as being established by Henry Harrison in 1866), until 1980, when the M.C.C. Museum curator, Bill Gray discovered a handwritten copy of the original rules that were actually printed in the press of the day. Many historians credit Tom Wills with being the inventor of the game, but closer scrutiny reveals that Wills certainly didn't have it all his own way when it came to the early rules ...     Top

1861   The Caledonian Cup - Footy's First Trophy

Melbourne's first football trophy was made available for the 1862 season by the Caledonian Society of Australian following the success of their first Caledonian and Highland Games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground late in 1861. The games had promised a football match that didn't quite happen as expected, but the link between the Society and football remained ...     Top

1867   "Buck" Wheatley Remembers

The original South Melbourne Football Club went through a series of name changes, ultimately becoming the Albert Park club. Albert Park later merged with a new South Melbourne to form the entity we knew before they became the Sydney Swans. In a rare disclosure in The Sporting Globe of 1931, "Buck" Wheatley, one of the original founders of the club as a young man, recalled one of the first annual meetings in 1867 ...     Top

1872   The Junior Cup      (added November 2007)

... it appears that the junior clubs are considering the advisability of having a cup in imitation of their seniors.  The idea at first is not a bad one but when we remark how very bitter – not to say dangerous – the play is made with this additional excitement, it may be as well to pause before taking such a step”   The Collingwood Observer, May 2, 1872

1874   Archie Graham - Essendon's First Champion      (added November 2007)

One of the most unique pieces of Australian football sporting memorabilia is a cup dating back to 1874 and now calling home the Essendon Football Club Museum at Windy Hill.   The trophy, dated October 1874, was originally presented to Archibald Graham as the best all round player in Essendon's first ever season - little is recorded of either the season or Archie's life, and until recently, even less of his death.  This archive is an amalgamation of two different sets of research passed on to the Essendon Museum ...    Top

1875   The Second Twenties Cup     (added November 2007)

1878   Footy Backs Out Of A Corner

Although largely ignored by current day historians, the match between Melbourne and Carlton on June 9, 1878 (in just the Victorian Football Association's second season) created history on two fronts and set precedents that became part of our football life …     Top

1877   The First Footy Trips

1878   The First Intercolonials

1879   Football Under Lights

These days there seems to be almost as much football under lights as there is under daytime conditions. Most of us have grown up accepting night football on television on more or less a regular basis and it will probably by a huge surprise for most to learn that the first night matches were played back in 1879 and almost as big a shock that the first match under lights featured two virtually unknown scratch teams from the defence volunteer brigades, the East Melbourne Artillery and the Collingwood Rifles ...     Top

1880   North Of The Border

Our Australian game has always struggled to establish a strong foothold in Sydney, not in the least because it was alternatively known as "Melbourne rules" or the "Victorian code", both names somewhat objectionable to the conservative elements in the New South Wales colony. But in 1880, the first real push came to introduce the game in Sydney and the move gathered pace with an old exponent of the game ...     Top

1886   T. S. Power - The Whistleblower     (link fixed January 2008)

One of the most influential officials in the decades immediately following the formation of the Victorian Football Association in 1877 was Thomas P. Power.   Even before the V.F.A. was born, Power published "The Footballer", the first annual devoted to Melbourne Rules, as the game was known.   In 1888, Power visited "the old country" and an interview conducted upon his return gave some revealing insights on his thoughts on the British Association game (soccer) and ideas on how some of the English rules could be applied to advantage in our local game ...    Top

By the end of the 1896, it was an open secret that several of the leading Association clubs were discussing the possibility of a breakaway competition, ultimately to become the Victorial Football League.   The story of the breakway has been told many time from the League's point of view, but rather less so from the much older V.F.A. view ...     Top

There have been a few "ring-ins" on the racetrack  over the years, but a footballer appearing under an assumed name at least in senior ranks is a different matter.  There have been at least two, oddly enough both of whom appeared in Collingwood colours, including a captain and premiership player ...    Top

1907  A Crapp Decision     (added February 2008)

The land breaking decision in 2006 by the A.F.L. to award Fremantle their match against St. Kilda may have established something of a precedent in modern times, but disputes over just when the bell or siren sounded and whether or not the umpire heard it have been part of the game since its inception ...     Top

1922  The Last Post   (added June 2008)

Football being brought to a halt mid-quarter is unusual, and with a couple of exceptions like lights going out or sprinklers coming on, the interruptions have usually been predictable and linked to Someone Or Other booting his 100th goal for the season. But for a funeral ... ???    Top

1922  The Coach who Wasn't (or was he)   (added June 2008)

Football being brought to a halt mid-quarter is unusual, and with a couple of exceptions like lights going out or sprinklers coming on, the interruptions have usually been predictable and linked to Someone Or Other booting his 100th goal for the season. But for a funeral ... ???    Top