Melbourne University Football Club, often known simply as University, is an Australian rules football club based at the University of Melbourne. Founded in 1859, it is one of the oldest football clubs in the world. The club fields two teams, known as the "Blacks" and "Blues", who both compete in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) in the William Buck Premier Division and the women's team in the VAFA Women's.
Football in Australia refers to numerous codes which each have major shares of the mainstream sports market, media, broadcasting, professional athletes, financial performance and grassroots participation: Australian rules football, rugby league, rugby union and soccer. There are four pre-eminent professional football competitions played in Australia: the Australian Football League, the National Rugby League, Super Rugby and the A-League (soccer). Rugby League is the most watched sport in Australia based on television viewership, however, Australian football attracts larger live attendences. In the states of New South Wales and Queensland, rugby football is overall the most watched and receives the most media coverage, especially the Rugby League State of Origin contested between the two states referred to as "Australian sport's greatest rivalry". In recent times, there has been an increase in popularity in Australian football and corresponding decrease in popularity of Rugby union in New South Wales and Queensland. Soccer, while extending its lead in participation rate, particularly in the large cities, and improving its performance at the FIFA World Cup and at the FIFA Women's World Cup, continues to attract the overall lowest attendance, as well as media and public interest, of the four codes.
The Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL) was the oldest and largest Australian rules football league for women in the world, consisting of 47 clubs from Victoria, Australia across seven divisions with a total of over 1,000 players.
The Talent League is an under-19 Australian rules football representative competition based in Melbourne and run by the Australian Football League (AFL). It is based on geographic regions throughout country Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne with each team representing one of twelve Victorian regions, while a thirteenth team from Tasmania was reintroduced in 2019.
Women's Australian rules football, is the female-only form of Australian rules football, generally with some modification to the laws of the game. It is played by more than half a million women worldwide and with 119,447 Australian adult and 66,998 youth female participants in 2023 is the second most played code among women and girls in Australia behind soccer.
The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition from the Victorian Football Association (VFA), with its inaugural season in 1897. It changed its name to Australian Football League in 1990 after expanding its competition to other Australian states in the 1980s. The AFL publishes its Laws of Australian football, which are used, with variations, by other Australian rules football organisations.
The AFL North Coast is a park Australian rules football competition in the Mid North Coast region of New South Wales. Founded in 1982 as The North Coast Australian Football League it merged with the junior league in its area in 2008 and was renamed AFL North Coast.
In Victoria Australian rules football is the most popular sport overall, being the most watched and second most participated code of football. Australian rules football originated in Melbourne in the late 1850s and quickly came to dominate in the sport, which it continues to. Victoria has more than double the number of players of any other state in Australia accounting for approximately 42% of all Australian players in 2023 and continues to grow strongly. In 2023 there were 76 competitions and 1,242 clubs. According to Ausplay there are 227,213 adult of which about one in three are female and 96,068 children playing, similar numbers to soccer. The sport is governed by AFL Victoria based in Melbourne. The national governing body, the AFL Commission is also based in Melbourne.
The Upper Murray Football Netball League(UMFNL) is an Australian Rules Football and Netball competition based in the rural town of Corryong, Victoria, Australia. The league contains four clubs from around the townships & farming districts of the greater Upper Murray area, including the three founding clubs from 1893.
AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football league for female players. The first season of the league in February and March 2017 had eight teams; the league expanded to 10 teams in the 2019 season, 14 teams in 2020 and 18 teams in 2022. The league is run by the Australian Football League (AFL) and is contested by each of the clubs from that competition. The reigning premiers are the North Melbourne Tasmanian Kangaroos.
Katie Brennan is an Australian rules footballer with and captain of the Richmond Football Club in the AFL Women's (AFLW). She previously played for and captained the Western Bulldogs from 2017 to 2019. Brennan was signed as a marquee player by the Bulldogs ahead of the inaugural AFL Women's season in 2017, and was their leading goalkicker in 2019.
Heather Anderson was an Australian Army soldier and Australian rules footballer who played for the Adelaide Football Club in the AFL Women's competition in 2017. She served as a medic in the 1st Close Health Battalion.
Angela Foley is an Australian rules footballer playing for the Port Adelaide Football Club in the AFL Women's (AFLW). She previously played for the Adelaide Football Club from 2017 to season 6. A defender, 1.73 metres (5.7 ft) tall, Foley plays primarily on the half-back line with the ability to push into the midfield.
Rebecca Goddard is a former Australian rules football coach who most recently served as the head coach of the Hawthorn Football Club in the AFL Women's competition (AFLW). Goddard also previously coached Adelaide Football Club in the AFL Women's competition (AFLW) between 2017 and 2018, winning the 2017 AFL Women's Grand Final. She was assistant coach of the University of Canberra Capitals in the Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) in 2018/19, when it won the league championship.
The NAB AFL Women's Under-18 Championships are the annual national Australian rules football championships for women players aged 18 years or younger. The competition is seen as one of the main pathways towards being drafted into a team in the professional AFL Women's competition (AFLW). Originally known as the AFL Youth Girls National Championship, the competition has teams of players representing their states and territories in a round robin tournament. The tournament is currently sponsored by the National Australia Bank. The winner of the 2019 tournament was Vic Metro.
Sarah Dargan is an Australian rules footballer who last played with Sydney in the AFL Women's competition (AFLW). She previously played three seasons with Collingwood, after being drafted to the club in the 2017 draft, and two seasons with Richmond after being traded to the club ahead of the 2021 season.
Scott Gowans is an Australian rules football coach and coach of the Sydney Swans in the AFL Women's, having previously served as the head coach of the Kangaroos in the AFL Women's competition (AFLW) between 2019 and 2020.
The Talent League Girls is an under-19 Australian rules football representative competition held in Australia. It is based on geographic regions throughout country Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne with each team representing twelve Victorian regions, while a thirteenth team from Tasmania was introduced in 2019.
The 2016 edition of the AFL Youth Girls National Championships was held from 2 May to 6 May in Melbourne, Victoria. Nine teams competed in the round-robin tournament, divided into pool A: Queensland, Western Australia, Vic Country and Vic Metro; and pool B: the Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, a combined New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory side (NSW/ACT) and the Indigenous Australian Woomeras.
Zarlie Goldsworthy is an Australian rules footballer who plays for Greater Western Sydney in the AFL Women's (AFLW). In 2023, her second season in the league, she won both her club's best and fairest and the league's Rising Star awards.
