In Queensland, Australian rules football (known mainly as "AFL") is a moderately popular spectator and participation sport governed by AFL Queensland. It dates back to the colonial era in 1866 and was the first and most popular football code until 1883 when it fell behind the Barassi line. There has been continuous organised competition since the 20th century.
The state is the sport's third largest audience with the Australian Football League (AFL) Premiership Season generating more than a million television viewers, though spectator numbers fluctuate with the success of its two fully professional AFL clubs: the Brisbane Lions (founded in 1996 through the merger of the Queensland based Brisbane Bears with a Victorian club) and Gold Coast Suns (founded 2009). Both clubs also field a side in the national women's competition (AFLW) and compete against each other in the QClash. Queensland was the second state in history to hold an AFL Grand Final and the first to hold an AFL Women's Grand Final. The Gabba is the sport's flagship venue, set to be replaced by Brisbane Stadium, currently under construction which when completed in 2032, will increase capacity to 63,000 seats.Schmick design concept for Brisbane venue by Coliseum, 7 January 2026
The participation rate is 1.3%. Despite having the third largest population, it has the second lowest player base and participation rate of any state. There are 51,941 adult and 3,798 children (around a quarter are female) playing full contact across more than 10 competitions and 130 clubs. The most popular competitions are in South East Queensland and the Cairns Region, the semi-professional Queensland Australian Football League and AFL Cairns respectively. Despite being the fourth in football participation behind soccer, touch and rugby league, according to Ausplay it is one of the top 10 team sports in the state.
Queensland's first representative football team, known as the "Maroons", experienced limited success in its matches between 1884 and 1988. Brisbane hosted national carnivals in 1958 and 1961. Despite a poor record historically, Queensland won Section B national titles in 1974 and 1979. Zane Taylor holds the record for the number of representative caps. The Teal Cup competition (now AFL National Championships) began in Brisbane. Prior to its national expansion, Queensland's underage side dominated the competition with 12 titles. Since going national from 1976–2016, it won 4 Division 2 titles, the most recent in 2015.
More than 150 born and raised players have participated at AFL/AFLW level since Erwin Dornau's debut in 1948. Jason Dunstall, the first inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame and granted Legend status, has the most goals, his tally of 1254 is the third highest in league history. Dayne Zorko has the most games. Ally Anderson won the competition best and fairest also has the most games while Katie Brennan has the most goals.
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 Victorian Rules, first drafted in 1859, were brought to the newly self-governed Colony of Queensland by migrants from the Colony of Victoria and in the 1860s was the first organized code to arrive.
Tom Wills who chaired that meeting in 1859 and helped popularise the code across Victoria, 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 alongside Tom at the 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 1 May 1866 and the widespread distribution in the Australasian on 19 May, an advertisement appearing in the Brisbane Courier on 21 May called for a meeting to form a Brisbane club. The first Brisbane Football Club was incorporated the following day on 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. In contrast to Victoria's population which migrated from around the world, the Queensland colony consisted primarily of those from Great Britain and New South Wales. Nevertheless, Brisbane was the first football club of any code in the colony.
The majority of the founders of Brisbane FC had prior exposure to the game during its rapid rise in popularity in Victoria. Of the six founding members four were from Victoria – none were from Queensland. 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).Brisbane Courier 16 June 1866 The early rules stipulated that the first team to reach 2 of 3 goals would be declared the winner. The first official fixture scheduled for 14 July was cancelled due to wet weather, but later played on 21 July 1866 between the All Comers and Civil Servants, the game was declared a nil all draw. It was decided to continue the match a week later on 28 July, but and after a marathon 5 hours without scoring it was declared a draw. Matches often went scoreless and it wasn't until 4 August that the first goal would be kicked after an hour of play by former Sydneysider George Cowlishaw while playing for the All Comers.
Ipswich Grammar School in the town of Ipswich west of Brisbane was the first school in Queensland to adopt football in 1868 care of new headmaster John McCrae of Scotch College in Melbourne. The National School was to join the fledgeling schools' competition in 1869. Brisbane Grammar travelled to Ipswich to play Ipswich Grammar in October 1869 to play the first ever school match and would form the Brisbane Grammar School Football Club in May 1870.
1870s: The code spreads west and north
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).
The code continued to expand to the west in Ipswich, with Ipswich Grammar helping popularise the code there and help establish the senior Ipswich Football Club and Ipswich Railways (known as "Railway Workshop Football Club") in May 1870 and April 1871 respectively. 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 become the major stronghold for the code with no less than 7 clubs regularly competing against each other.
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 August 1876 Page 2 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 codesThe Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 – 1939) View title info Sat 1 July 1876 Page 15 Football citing the game's huge popularity in Melbourne.The Week 8 July 1876 Page 13 SPORTS.
The game had spread to the Darling Downs and Toowoomba by 1876 with a match between Civil Service and the newly formed Toowoomba Football Club.The Darling Downs Gazette and General Advertiser Toowoomba, Qld. 5 July 1876 Page 3 The region sooned formed the football league, the Toowoomba Football Association which initially featured four senior clubs – Light Infantry, Civil Service, Toowoomba and Warwick but expanded to include a number of junior and regional clubs including Stanthorpe, Adavale, Roma, and Thargomindah. As the game spread further west of the Great Divide 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.Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser 21 May 1881 Page 2
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 MaryboroughMaryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser 9 June 1882 Page 2 LOCAL NEWS. and Gympie.The Queenslander at 22 July 1882 Page 111 FIELD SPORTING The Darling Downs competition also expanded to include Allora in 1883 providing more regular interaction between the clubs.Queensland Figaro 26 May 1883 Page 10 Football.
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.History of AFL in Queensland
By 1885 the code had expanded further west still, with clubs established in Stanthorpe and had penetrated the outback as far as Cunnamulla, Roma, Adavale, Thargominda and Normanton. The Capricornia competition had also expanded in Rockhampton with the formation of the North Rockhampton Football Club and a club in Gladstone.
1880s: Queensland Football Association era