Australian rules football in Queensland

Australian rules football in Queensland (typically referred to as "AFL", or less frequently "Australian Football", "Aussie Rules" or "Australian Rules") was the first official football code played in 1866. The Colony of Queensland was the second after Victoria to adopt Australian rules football, just days after there rules were widely published. For two decades it was the most popular football code, however a strong desire for representative football success saw Queenslanders favour British football variants for more than a century. 120 years later in 1986 Queensland was the first state awarded a licence to have a club, the Brisbane Bears, in the national competition, also its first privately owned club. However the Gold Coast based Bears had a detrimental effect until the 1993 redevelopment of the Brisbane Cricket Ground (Gabba). In contrast the Bears transformation into a Brisbane and traditional membership based club resulted in enormous growth, and a tripling of average AFL attendances by 1996.

Queensland has two fully professional teams competing in the Australian Football League: the Brisbane Lions (1996) and Gold Coast Suns (2009). These two teams compete against each other in the QClash.

The sport has surged in South East Queensland and the Cairns Region since the 1990s. The Brisbane Lions threepeat premiership era in the national Australian Football League (AFL) saw a participation boom and a sharp increase in drafted players. The Lions 3 Grand Final appearances in the national women's competition from its inaugural season in 2017 and 2021 premiership helped further fuel female participation despite a lack of success from the Lions and Suns senior men's teams. AFL in Queensland subsequently grew throughout the state. Ausplay puts Australian Football participation in Queensland third after Soccer in Queensland and Rugby league in Queensland, passing Rugby union in Queensland in player numbers in 2018, the first time since the 1890s. However, contrary to reports from the game's governing body, since 2019 the player base declined in contrast to increased numbers for all other football codes. Nevertheless an increasing number of players have found pathways to the elite professional national level. As at 2020 more than 100 Queensland males and almost 50 Queensland females had played at the sport's highest level (AFL/AFLW), however only a dozen have played more than 200 games.

Queensland was the first state to host the AFLW Grand Final (the inaugural 2017 AFL Women's Grand Final) and the second state in history to host the AFL Grand Final (the 2020 AFL Grand Final). AFL Premiership matches are now regularly played in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Cairns. The AFL began matches in Townsville along with AFLW matches in the Moreton Bay Region, Mackay in the 2010s and the Sunshine Coast and Ipswich in the 2020s.

The state has produced several great players. Zane Taylor holds the record for the number of representative caps for Queensland, though the AFL abandoned senior representation in 1993. Erwin Dornau became the first born and raised Queenslander in the AFL in 1948. Jason Dunstall was the first Queenslander to be inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2002 and holds the AFL record of most goals for a Queenslander with 1254, the third highest tally in league history. Dunstall also holds the record AFL games for a player born and raised in the state (269). The state's 3 AFL Brownlow medallists include: Michael Voss, Jason Akermanis and Simon Black while these players were not both born and raised in the state all three are nonetheless multi-premiership players and Australian Football Hall of Famers. In the AFLW, the first Queensland born and raised player to win the league best and fairest is Ally Anderson (second Queenslander after Emily Bates) and shares the record for most games while Tayla Harris has the most goals.

Despite growing popularity and participation, the combined membership of the state's 2 AFL clubs is the lowest of any state and the AFL attracts the second highest media profile of the four major football codes.

History

1860s: Early Beginnings in South East Queensland

Football matches had been played early on in what was known as "Moreton Bay", with some of the earliest evidence dating back to 1849, however it is not known under what rules they played and there were no established codes. The Melbourne Rules were brought to the newly self-governed Colony of Queensland by migrants from the Colony of Victoria and was the first organised code to arrive.

Founder of the code Tom Wills, moved to Queensland along with his father Horatio Wills in October 1861 to work on the family grazing property near Springsure in Central Queensland. While Horatio was killed during the Cullin-la-ringo massacre and Tom returned to Victoria in 1864, his brothers Cedric and Horace (both played at Geelong Football Club) continued their football involvement in Brisbane, as did many other associates of Wills.

Not long after the redrafting of the laws on the 1st May and the widespread distribution of the Victorian Rules of Football in the Australasian on 19 May 1866 an advertisement appeared in the Brisbane Courier on the 21st May calling for a meeting to form a Brisbane club. The first Brisbane Football Club was incorporated the following day on the 22 May 1866 and chose to play under the then widely distributed Victorian Rules.

Queensland at the time was one of the poorest colonies (especially in comparison to booming Victoria), having begun as a penal settlement it was very much a frontier colony and relied heavily on investment from the southern colonies. With its population of under 90,000 in 1866, it was dwarfed by Victoria's rapidly growing population of 640,000 consisting mostly of migrants from the United Kingdom and New South Wales. Nevertheless Brisbane was the first football club of any code in the colony and the only known club outside of Victoria and New South Wales to have officially adopted Victorian Rules.

The majority of the founders of Brisbane FC had prior exposure to the game during its rapid rise in popularity in Victoria. All of the six founding members were from other colonies and four were from Victoria. One of three members of the founding committee was Charles Edward Wallen, who had played for Scotch College in the experimental rules matches umpired by Tom Wills in 1858. Tom Board and George Clencross-Smith were both teammates of Tom Wills at Geelong Football Club. Studholme Hart had played in 1859 with South Yarra. Founding chair David Watterston moved from Melbourne to Ipswich in 1860 and was a member of Brisbane's Victorian Cricket Club (formed 1863 and consisting of ex-Victorian players). His cricket club had on 26 May proposed that cricket make way off-season for football. Significantly, on 1 June 1866, the Brisbane Courier published the Melbourne Football Club rules as the official rules for the Queensland colony.

The club played the first of several scratch matches on Saturday 9 June 1866 at Queen's Park (now part of the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens). The first official fixture was played on the 21st July, 1866, and after a marathon 5 hours, the game was declared a draw. While there were sufficient numbers for scratch matches Brisbane FC struggled early on for competition and at times during its early years switched to Association Football to facilitate matches with early teams like Volunteer Artillery.

Despite the slow start the game began to spread rapidly during the 1870s. By 1870 there were five clubs: Brisbane, Volunteer Artillery, Brisbane Grammar, Civil Service and Ipswich, all adopting the ''Victorian Rules'' (as it was then known).

Ipswich Grammar was the first school in Queensland to adopt football in 1868 care of new headmaster John McCrae of Scotch College in Melbourne. Two years later the first schoolboys match was between Brisbane Grammar and Ipswich Grammar was played. The National School was to join the fledgeling schools competition in 1869. Ipswich Grammar's influence in the code's development was formidable, while the senior clubs went into recess early in the decade due to player numbers, the school continued to fly the flag and by the end of the decade the flow of juniors helped the city of Ipswich become the major stronghold for the code with no less than 7 clubs regularly competing against each other.

1870s: The code spreads north and west

A club also formed in Rockhampton, Capricornia in 1873 to play under Australian rules on the local cricket ground.

By the time rugby was imported from Britain in 1876, Victorian Rules had well established itself as the colony's premier football code. Though in areas outside Brisbane there was growing confusion amongst clubs over which set of rules to adopt, and while some experimented with rugby most simply defaulted to the Victorian rules.FOOTBALL MATCH AT WARWICK Warwick Examiner and Times 5 Aug 1876 Page 2

The game had spread to the Darling Downs by 1876 with a match between Civil Service and the newly formed club Toowoomba. As the game spread further west of the Great Divide to places including Warwick clubs were split on whether to adopt rugby. Some of the Downs clubs lacked nearby opponents and appear to have preferred rugby, as a result competition went into recess a few years later until matches were played by Toowoomba Grammar. The code in Brisbane was still dominant and in 1876 several newly formed Brisbane rugby union clubs including Rangers and Bonnet Rouge moved to switch codes citing the game's huge popularity in Melbourne. However Brisbane FC's decision to defect to rugby to join the other two clubs helped establish the rugby code in the state.

Queensland clubs affiliated with the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877, and the game became known in Queensland as the "Victorian Association rules", "Victorian association football" (or sometimes just "Association Football" or "Association rules").

In 1878, the main clubs playing rugby, Rangers and Bonnet Rouge folded, and Brisbane FC, lacking opposition teams returned to Australian rules. Rugby was left without any clubs in the city. However it was beginning to gain ground in smaller country towns which didn't have the numbers of funds to tour as full Australian Football teams.

Former Brisbane Grammarian and Brisbane FC player Herbert W. Bryant, while playing with Essendon in the VFA had the honour of being the first Queenslander to play for Victoria's team in the first intercolonial Victoria v South Australia (1879).

Competition began in Wide Bay–Burnett in 1881, with the establishment of clubs in Maryborough and Gympie. The Darling Downs competition also expanded to include Allora in 1883 providing more regular interaction between the clubs. Competition in Far North Queensland was recorded as early as August 1884 with the first match in Cairns was played against a representative team from Townsville. An association also began in Charters Towers with the town competing against nearby Millchester in 1885. The code also reached the Mackay Region in 1885 however was short-lived there.

While Victorian Association remained popular, Queensland clubs, particularly the newly formed ones that were beginning to make hard decisions on rule adoption. Many players wanted to represent Queensland and many were convinced that adopting rugby would be the best option for this. Rules to protect players against dangerous pushing during contests for example were desperately sought, and some were claiming that rugby rules were safer as a result. Clubs were becoming increasingly disgruntled by the lack of representation or consultation on the laws of the game and governance from Melbourne.

1880s: Queensland Football Association era

A meeting was held on 30 April 1880 at the Queen's Hotel for the purpose of forming the Queensland Football Association (QFA) to affiliate with the Victorian Football Association. The formation was opposed by the premier Queensland club, the Brisbane Football Club, through its representative E.C. Binge, believing that it had the right to govern itself and use its position of influence to lead the other clubs. However his motion lapsed and the formation proceeded. While there were no dedicated rugby clubs, many of Brisbane and Wallaroo's best players preferred to play both codes so rugby matches were facilitated during the season on a Saturday every 4 weeks. While club rugby was nowhere near as popular with the public, Brisbane FC being by far the strongest club would often field its best players in rugby and its seconds in Victorian Association matches. By 1883 QFA membership consisted of 900 Victorian Association members from throughout the colony and 80 Rugby Union members mostly from Brisbane.

Rugby rebellion: local clubs and schools reject the Victorian Association

A growing rift between Victorian Association and its Rugby Union members came to a head in 1883 after QFA clubs had been pushed annually to vote as to whether to continue under the Victorian Association or adopt Rugby Union rules. Whilst the rugby fraternity was vastly outnumbered (just a handful of rugby clubs compared to more than 50 senior Victorian association clubs), their push for intercolonial matches against New South Wales was enormously popular. There was increasing discontent among all QFA members with Melbourne's apparent disinterest in sending teams to Queensland. The QFA felt that the wealthier Victorian Association were more capable of covering the travel expenses than the Queenslanders, while the Rugby Union members were more than prepared to cover the costs of the shorter trip to Sydney. Rugby players were also disgruntled with having to play under Association rules and were dissatisfied with the Victorian Association's growing contempt for rugby. Under pressure from its members, the QFA organised the first intercolonial to be played under Victorian Rules between New South Wales and Queensland. The two colonies played each other in a two-game series in Brisbane in August 1884 resulting in a 1–1 draw.The Brisbane Courier 4 Aug 1884 Page 6 FOOTBALLThe Brisbane Courier 11 Aug 1884 Page 6 FOOTBALL The first match attracted a modest crowd of 300 spectators and increased interest in the contest resulted in the second match drawing 2,000. Many of the players also played rugby and Queensland rugby footballers began to bypass the QFA to directly organise rugby tests with New South Wales. This angered the QFA and in an effort to uphold Victorian Rules, and with support unforthcoming from Melbourne on the issue, a motion was passed by the QFA secretary that effectively barred players found to be playing Rugby Union from playing at a Victorian Association club, effectively segregating the two codes for the first time since its inception. The move was to backfire as the breakaway Northern Rugby Union (NRU) formed, taking disgruntled clubs and players with it. These clubs in response, instituted the barring of rugby players from playing Victorian rules and Rugby players and officials began derogatively reverting to the term "Melbourne Association" and "Melbourne Rules" in reference to the QFA and its rules fuelling a sentiment of them being increasingly anti-rugby and anti-Queensland.

The lack of a player transfer system was exposed in 1886 when players began freely changing clubs and codes from week to week without accountability, the situation was becoming farcical and supporters quickly lost confidence in the QFA.

Suffering from dwindling numbers, the 1886 Queensland team was humiliated by New South Wales in their intercolonial matches. The Victorian game supporters were struggling hard to uphold the premier position they had gained. In contrast within just two years of its founding, the locally governed breakaway NRU competition came to dominate sport in Queensland and, according to one writer, "The defining moment in the code battle came with the 1886 Queensland ugbyside, who defeated NSW for the first time in Sydney. "The success of this team undoubtedly won the day for rugby game in Queensland. After the brilliant performance of the 1886 Queensland rugby team, who lost only one match through their tour, the rugby game became very popular and the next season several new clubs were formed and the Victorian game began to wane".

Australian rules, however, was still strong in the schools. Brisbane Grammar through Richard Powell Francis had switched to rugby in 1885. Though Grammar continued to play Victorian Association matches against Ipswich, it lobbied hard for the other Independent Schools to switch away from them. Perhaps the death blow occurred when Independent Schools headmasters in 1887 voted by 1 vote to adopt rugby. The majority of councillors objected on the basis that the reference of "Victorian" in the name of the sport did not represent the interests of Queenslanders.

Between 1885 and 1887, for the first time in the history of the colony, mainstream newspapers began to report rugby result first, followed by Australian Football and Association Football signalling the premier status of the rugby code. Despite the Victorian Association having 10 times the participation of rugby in terms of players and clubs, regular competitive intercolonial representation was by far the most important to the players and the public, the QFA was just not able to offer this.

1890s: Victorian Association slips through the cracks

Despite the advances made by Queensland football, it was clear that Victoria was progressing faster than any other state while the code in Queensland had been going backwards. In an effort to reverse the decline, the QFA had been calling on the VFA for years to send teams to Queensland to play exhibition matches which were largely ignored. In 1888 it finally secured the first visit from a colonial team slated to be from all of Victoria, however a representative Melbourne team arrived in June 1888, playing against a QAFA Queensland (made up of combined Brisbane and Ipswich players) team at the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds which the home team lost 3–5 to the visitors 6–16 in front of 5,000 spectators. Rugby officials had deferred matches for the event, though noted that both Queenslander players and spectators appeared to have little understanding of the game. Several Melbourne clubs followed shortly thereafter including the Melbourne Football Club.

A representative match between Brisbane and Ipswich was held in June 1890 won by Brisbane 3 goals 6 to Ipswich 3 goals 5.

On 21 June 1890, South Melbourne Football Club toured, playing against Queensland on Albion Park. The result of the match was a complete 6–17 to 1-0 humiliation (behinds were recorded in the scores at the time but did not actually count until 1897). The humiliation was obviously felt by the players as when Queensland defeated a New South Wales Rugby Union team shortly afterwards many of the former rugby players receded from the Australian football ranks and formed clubs of their own.

The Queensland Football Association, already under heavy criticism, folded at the end of the 1890 season. With the gap left by the collapse of Victorian Association, the majority of the Brisbane clubs switched to rugby, while many of the clubs in Ipswich and Toowoomba either folded and to join the ranks of the Anglo-Queensland Football Association. The Australian code quietly disappeared with no clubs surviving the 1890s.

Revival attempts

A meeting was held in 1892 to re-establish the code. It was initially successful, with a well attended representative match played between Brisbane and Ipswich staged at the North Ipswich Reserve. Ipswich won 4 goals 12 to 3 goals 7. The teams met again in August at Queens Park in Brisbane. While interest remained strong in Ipswich, the rugby dominated Brisbane media appeared disinterested in the return match and the series quickly died.

1900s: Post-Federation Australasian Rules Revival

With Federation of the colonies Australian rules was to benefit from a renewed interest in Australian nationalism.

A meeting was held in 1900 in an effort to revive the code. However this was made more difficult as rugby interests had rebranded their sport in Queensland as "Australian Football" and soccer was then known as "Anglo-Australian Football", presenting a major branding obstacle. In an effort to differentiate, the new association chose the provisional title for the new league as the rather awkwardly worded "Queensland Association of the Australian Game of Football".

Competition recommenced in 1900 in of all places, Maryborough in Wide Bay, with senior and junior competitions including the Wallaroo club, which had continued to field both Australian rules and rugby teams, and the Victorians club.

The Queensland Football League (QFL) was formed in July 1903 at a meeting with 50 present at the South Brisbane Cycling Club and a total of 150 signed on as members. Unlike the previous league which affiliated with the VFA, this new body decided to affiliate with the Victorian Football League. Practice matches were held in August that year in the Botanical Gardens and attracted large crowds and interest. The first premiership was held in 1904 with most games being played at Queen's Park, a sporting facility within the grounds of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens.

Competition in Ipswich, once the code's stronghold in Queensland was rekindled through an exhibition match between Locomotives and Brisbanes. The Ipswich Football Club was reformed in May 1906 and matches resumed at the North Ipswich Reserve. Several Ipswich clubs and schools resuming to play the sport from the following year including juniors at Ipswich North State School and Newtown schools.

From 1905 to 1914 games were regularly played at the Brisbane Cricket Ground. Clubs included Brisbanes, Locomotives, Ipswich, Citys, Valleys and Wynnum.

In 1908, Queensland again sent delegates to the Australasian Football Council, this time, fielding a side in the Jubilee Australian Football Carnival which saw all Australian states as well as New Zealand compete.

The sport was reintroduced to Far North Queensland during both World Wars. In 1913, a team of servicemen briefly existed on Thursday Island.

In 1914 a carnival to promote the code was held in Brisbane. The participating teams were Collingwood (representing Victoria), Perth (representing West Australia), South Adelaide, ACGS, Brisbane Grammar, Ipswich Grammar and The Southport School participated at one stage or another in the first division of the Queensland Independent Schools Australian Football League (QISAFL) (Toowoomba Grammar competed in a Darling Downs division of the competition). During these years of competition it became a nursery for AFL players. However the competition struggled to maintain interest in the schools and unlike rugby (and soccer in 1991) it has never become an official Great Public Schools Association of Queensland sport. Many AFL players who attended independent schools, notably: Jason Dunstall, Chris Scott, Jason Akermanis, Clint Bizzell, Clark Keating, Brad Moran, Nick Riewoldt, Steven Lawrence, Tom Williams, Marcus Allan, Scott Clouston and John Williams never had the opportunity to play for their school.

Also in the 1990s, the Cairns league experienced enormous growth financially on the back of gaming, with the Cazaly's social club quickly becoming the largest sporting club north of Brisbane. The Cazaly's Stadium received lights to play popular night football games and the western stand from the Gabba was transplanted to Cazaly's Stadium, enabling it to host AFL matches.

In 1999, the QSFL also went into voluntary liquidation, being replaced by a new organisation, AFL Queensland (AFLQ) in 2000. The new premiership competition was called the AFLQ State League. That year, Nick Riewoldt became the first Queensland produced player to be taken as number 1 pick in the AFL Draft, recognised as the best junior talent in the nation.

In 2001, a Women's Footy competition began in earnest.

Three successive premierships for the Brisbane Lions in 2001, 2002 and 2003 saw crowds to Australian Football League matches in Brisbane to grow to an average of over 30,000, and in terms of attendance and membership, the AFL team in 2003 was the most popular team of any football code in the state. However, despite increasing television ratings and media exposure, Australian rules football remains overall less popular than rugby league and rugby union in the state.

During the Lions premiership years, junior Aussie Rules numbers exploded in South East Queensland, and grew solidly right across the state.

2000s: Period of Stabilisation

From 2005, the growing local State League expanded to two divisions.

A record number of 13 Queenslanders were invited to attend the 2006 AFL Draft camp, representing 18% of the 72 camp invitees.

Although state league crowds have dwindled with the increase in support for the Brisbane Lions AFL team, a healthy crowd of 3,257 saw the Southport Sharks defeat Morningside in the 2005 AFLQ Grand Final at the Gabba, while a crowd of over 3,000 saw the Southport Sharks win back-to-back premierships in 2006 at Carrara.

In 2006, support for the Brisbane Lions waned substantially due to two successive seasons out of the finals. From 2005 to 2006 total memberships decreased from 30,027 to 26,429 and the average home crowd fell from 33,101 to 28,305.

The impact of the Brisbane Lions fall from grace was felt at grassroots level by the sport in Brisbane. From 2006, the much celebrated Jason Dunstall Cup was no longer contested by its former powerhouse schools – ACGS or BBC
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