Australian rules football in South Africa is a team sport played at amateur level in the country with a small audience. The governing body is AFL South Africa.
Earliest recollections in South Africa indicate that Australian rules football was first introduced to the colonies of Transvaal, Natal and Cape in the 1880s with a premiership competition and intercolonial matches operating from 1896. By 1904, it had become one of the most popular codes of football in those colonies, however it soon faded with the success of the 1906–07 South Africa rugby union tour of Europe and with a lack of support from Australia, the game died out just prior to the Union of South Africa.
Since 1997, the sport has grown quickly amongst indigenous communities, beginning in the North West province and later spreading to Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape province through the Australian Defence Force and later through dedicated development officers. In 2006, the game received a boost when the Australian Football League, seeking access to international sports funding from the Australian Institute of Sport began to show increased interest in the game's development.
South Africa's national team, the Lions, made history in 2007 by competing against the AFL Academy annually (until the AFL shifted its focus from South Africa in 2011), as well as defeating a touring Australian amateur senior team for the first time. The Lions reached a peak of bronze at the 2008 Australian Football International Cup however its performance, like the state of the game in South Africa, collapsed in the 2010s.
The junior variant, similar to Auskick, is locally known as "FootyWild" and was played in 92 primary schools and 46 high schools.
History The AFL Commission's official 2008 account of the game's history in South Africa was that it was played in 1898 "by a few Australian soldiers on Boer War service behind the lines". The AFL's mythological perspective appears to be primarily influenced by the presence of the league's own players including Stanley Reid (of Fitzroy) and Charlie Moore (of Essendon) who were among the earliest league players to die in active service. Several other league players also served including three Collingwood Football Club players and the club's song "Good Old Collingwood Forever" likely has its origins from this war. The VFL (which itself began in 1897), was aware of exhibition matches by soldiers through its war service players, though these matches generated very little interest among locals as the game was already being played there. While details of the game's origins in South Africa are not clear, there is much evidence pointing to interest in the game significantly predating and succeeding any involvement by Australia's premier league."Those splendid comrades of adolescence" - The origins and early history of Australian football in South Africa by Hendrik Snyders Stellenbosch & Free State University May 2013 from Sporting Traditions, Vol. 30, No. 1, May 2013: 1-13
Origins and first clubs: 1886-1896
The Witwatersrand Gold Rush brought an influx Australians to Johannesburg in 1886, and there were a large number of migrants across the goldfields of South Africa. A 1904 recollection of the Australian game in South Africa cites a book called "Martin's Australian Football Guide" that claims that on the goldfields early footballers of various nationalities would alternate between soccer, rugby and Australian rules, and this happened prior to the outbreak of the war, with Australians beating the other nationalities at their own games contributing to the impression that the Australian game was the more skillful of the codes.
The Wanderers Football Club based at Old Wanderers in Johannesburg was formed by Australian Association cricket members as an off-shoot in December 1896. Melbourne's Argus newspaper makes reference of serviceman Frank E. Cochran of Elsternwick who served in the German West African campaign as one of the founding figures of the code in Johannesburg. Among the early instigators of the game in Durban was George Cornelius in 1896 who left as Port Melbourne Football Club's youngest ever captain at age 20 and began organising and captaining matches there.
Rise of the game, Boer War and the Elliot Shield (1897-1905) The Second Boer War saw an influx of soldiers from around the world, including a significant number from Australia which boosted the game significantly and allowed it to take root.
1898 appears to have been the first year of regular annual competition between clubs in Transvaal with teams competing for the Elliot shield donated by Mr. E. Elliot.
The Durban Football Club appears to have been incorporated prior to 1900 but well established in 1900 though few records exist and there is no mention of a local competition in the city.
In 1900 a match was played at the Albert Park Oval in Durban between Victorians and South Australians which South Australia won by 2 points.
Records of the Johannesburg Football Club and the Pretoria Football Club date back to at least 1903. Pretoria was formed by Jack and Andy Campbell who had played football with the Maffra Football Club in Maffra, Victoria.
In June 1903 Johannesburg 3.14 defeated Pretoria 3.5 in front of a large crowd, with the local paper reporting "never was a more skilful, fast, and sterling exposition of the true Australian game exhibited In the annals of Australian football in this country, and if only both these clubs continue to give the public such genuine entertainment as was provided by Saturday's game, I venture to say that the time is not far off when many other local teams will adopt the Australian game. The openness of the play witnessed on Saturday, and the skilful manoeuvring of the several individual players roused the onlookers to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, and even the few Englishmen, Afrikanders and Dutchmen present, were unanimous in the verdict that never before had they witnessed such a fast, determined and skilful game in South Africa". The match was intended to be annual.
Also during the 1903 season, on October 17 Johannesburg defeated Durban 107 to 21 at Wanderers Ground. The Johannesburg Football Club is noted to have won the Australian Football League competition that year. Johannesburg's winning shield was sent to Australia and displayed in George Street, Sydney.
The Commonwealth Football Club, captained by ex-Fitzroy Football Club player Charlie Naismith won the South African premiership in 1904 and the South Africa's Premiership Cup was displayed in Sydney and Melbourne leading to some awareness of the league in South Africa and the league had laid out the challenge to leagues in Australia and proposed a tour.
The Transvaal Australian Football League in 1904 had 4 clubs in and around Johannesburg: Commonwealth Football Club; Central South African Railways Football Club ( also known as "CSAR" or "Railways"); Pretoria Football Club, and; Germiston Football Clubs each playing nine matches a season. In 1904, W. Warner of the Commonwealth Club wrote to Thomas W. Sherrin that public opinion was that following the Pretoria match it had become the most popular football code in the colony and was being played with a Sherrin ball on much harder cricket grounds than Australia. Australian Football clubs were widely spread and had been formed in Germiston, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, and Standerton. Among the prominent Australian players were: Charlie Foletta (East Fremantle: WAFL); Charlie Naismith (Fitzroy: VFL); Cecil Graeme (St Kilda: VFL); Alexander McKenzie (Port Adelaide: SANFL); W. Adair (Melbourne: VFA); Seary (Melbourne: VFA); Dowling (Melbourne: VFA) and Vincent O'Farrell (Geelong: VFA). It was noted that while the public had embraced the game, the majority of British nationals increasingly preferred to play the football codes which they were more familiar with. + Year & Winner 1903 Johannesburg 1904 Commonwealth 1905 Commonwealth
Another league, the Cape Town Australian Football Association based in Cape Town also existed.
On 20 August 1904, a representative match held in Natal between the Colony of Natal and the Colony of Transvaal was played in front of a large crowd. The result was Natal by 22 points.
Officials in Melbourne were reporting that the game was established in South Africa by 1905. By mid-1906 there were reportedly as many as 30 clubs across the colony and the game was growing rapidly.
Australia declines support (1906-1909) Between 1903 and 1905, the popularity of Rugby union in South Africa and Soccer in South Africa also began to rise rapidly. The sport's officials in the country, facing competition with two other football codes began to call for assistance from Australia to further grow the game. In 1904 delegates from South Africa sent a request to Australia for funding, proposing a major tour to Australia and New Zealand. However funds and interest in such a tour from Australia were not forthcoming. In 1906 delegates from the major leagues of Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban made a direct request to the VFL to send a team to play a representative match in South Africa, which the Victorian league initially replied it would consider.pg.10 The Referee, Wed 29 Aug 1906
Following the request the game's newly formed governing body, the Australasian Football Council headed by the VFL met to discuss the issue and resolved that the game should only be played in Australasia and would not support it being played elsewhere. The Council's policy reflected the strong Australian nationalism of the time "one flag, one destiny, one football game" - that as the national code, all matches should be played under an Australian flag, with an Australian manufactured ball where possible on Australian soil, by the whole nation. The Council refused to sanction any matches under any other flag anywhere else in the world. It also refused to officially recognise the competitions in South Africa and the colonies were denied representation on the Council. The AFC replied that if South Africa wanted to play against Australia, it would have to send a team to Australia, Australia would not send any team or fund any matches. In 1907, then Australasian Football Council president Con Hickey declared that despite the game being played overseas the primary focus should be on inter-state competition and that there was no intention to attempt to "oust rugby" in places where it was growing in popularity.The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 - 1930) Mon 2 Sep 1907
The success of the 1906–07 South Africa rugby union tour of Europe substantially entrenched rugby's support in the colony and interest in Australian Football quickly waned. From 1907 an Australian exodus from South Africa occurred as wages fell and unemployment rose with many migrating to Western Australia.