 | |
| Sport | Lacrosse |
|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | Australia |
| Abbreviation | LA |
| Founded | 2008 (ALC 1931 and AWLC 1962) |
| Affiliation | World Lacrosse |
| Affiliation date | 1974 |
| Regional affiliation | Asia Pacific Lacrosse Union |
| Headquarters | Melbourne, Victoria |
| Chairperson | Abbie Burgess [1] |
| Official website | |
| www | |
 | |
Lacrosse Australia (LA) is the governing body for the sport of Lacrosse in Australia.
Lacrosse in Australia has a rich and celebrated history, and can trace its beginnings back to a letter to the editor that was sent from Lambton Mount to The Australasian newspaper and published on 8 April 1876. [2] In his letter, Mount announced that he was calling a meeting the following week with respect to the formation of the "Melbourne La Crosse Club", and four days later, the club was formed. [3]
Lacrosse soon spread around the continent, and by the time of federation in 1901, lacrosse was being played in every state in Australia. [4]
Proposals for a national governing body for lacrosse were reported as early as 1903, [5] with the Australasian Lacrosse Union formed after the national Lacrosse Conference in 1904, [6] however disagreements between member associations [7] led to its demise by 1908. [8]
The need for a national body persisted, and while discussions of forming one were reported in 1923, [9] it took eight more years before the Australian Lacrosse Council was finally formed. [10]
The Australian Women's Lacrosse Council was formed in 1962 soon after women's lacrosse had been restarted in Victoria and South Australia.[ citation needed ]
Up until 2007, men's and women's lacrosse in Australia were administered by separate governing bodies: Lacrosse Australia (originally the Australian Lacrosse Council) and Women's Lacrosse Australia (Australian Women's Lacrosse Council). [11] These organisations merged in 2008 to form the Australian Lacrosse Association (ALA). [12] In 2021, the ALA rebranded as Lacrosse Australia and remains the single governing body for all formats of lacrosse in Australia. [13]
Field lacrosse is a full contact outdoor sport played with two opposing teams of ten players each. The sport originated among Native Americans, and the modern rules of field lacrosse were initially codified by Canadian William George Beers in 1867. Field lacrosse is one of three major versions of lacrosse played internationally. The rules of men's lacrosse differ significantly from women's field lacrosse. The two are often considered to be different sports with a common root. An outdoor six-a-side version, lacrosse sixes, was established in 2021 and features six players per team, reduced field size, and shorter duration to be conducive for daily tournament play. Another version, indoor box lacrosse, is also played under different rules.
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.
Australian rules football is played in more than 60 countries around the world with approximately 1.4 million players worldwide. By 2017 more than 26 nations had contested the Australian Football International Cup, the highest level of worldwide competition. The AFL Commission is the world governing body which manages international competition through its International Development Committee headed by Andrew Dillon. There are 3 regional governing bodies affiliated to the AFL: AFL Asia, AFL South Pacific and AFL Europe.
In Queensland, Australian rules football dates back to the colonial era in 1866, with organised competitions being continuous since the 1900s. Today, it is most popular in South East Queensland and the Cairns Region. There are 11 regional club competitions, the highest profile of which are the semi-professional Queensland Australian Football League and AFL Cairns. It is governed by AFL Queensland. According to Ausplay there are 51,941 adult players with a per capita rate of 1.2%, just under half of which are female, and 30,563 children. It is the seventh most participated team sport and fourth code of football after soccer, touch and rugby league.
Lacrosse in Australia is a minor sport, with a long and proud history dating back to 1876, with a small but dedicated community of participants and volunteers. The established centres for lacrosse are in the greater metropolitan areas of Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. In these cities there are organised weekend field lacrosse competitions for men and women at senior and junior levels, played over the winter months. In the off-season, there are informal box lacrosse and sofcrosse competitions, though the majority of players in Australia are mostly of the field lacrosse type. Some lacrosse is also played in Sydney, South East Queensland, Canberra, Ballarat and Bendigo, it is very much at the developmental level.
In New Zealand, Australian rules football dates back to the 1860s, was home to the first club formed outside Australia in 1876 and was the first colony outside of Australia to take up the sport. The sport's official name was changed in 1890 to Australasian Football acknowledge New Zealand's participation and remained for some time even after the country was expelled from the Australasian Football Council. After a half century hiatus of organised competition, it has grown rapidly as an amateur sport. Today five of New Zealand's sixteen regions have organised competitions: Auckland ; Canterbury ; Wellington ; Waikato and Otago. A four-team national competition with a national draft has been contested at the North Harbour Stadium in Auckland since 2016 for men and 2019 for women. The national team were crowned International champions at the 2005 Australian Football International Cup and competed annually against the AFL Academy between 2012 and 2019. Between the 2010s until 2022 the game was played in New Zealand schools.
Australian rules football in Canada is played in seven provinces – Ontario, Alberta, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. The Ontario league, centred on Toronto is a nine-team league, including sides from cities as far afield as Guelph, Hamilton and Ottawa. In western Canada, there are clubs in Edmonton, Calgary and a six-team league in the Vancouver area. There is also a number of junior and women's clubs across Canada.
In the United States, Australian rules football is a team and spectator sport which has grown rapidly across the country since the 1996. The USAFL National Championships is currently the largest club tournament in the world with 41 teams competing across 6 divisions in 2022. A national youth team has also been established and participation is growing in women's teams, junior teams and in modified and non-contact variations such as Metro Footy and Footy 7s. The United States Australian Football League (USAFL) is the governing body, with various clubs and leagues around the country it oversees more than 2,000 players more than half of which are American. An active fan based organization, the Australian Football Association of North America also exists to promote a broader audience.
The AFL Commission is the governing body of the Australian Football League Limited (AFL), its subsidiaries and controlled entities. Richard Goyder has been chairman since 4 April 2017, replacing Mike Fitzpatrick.
Lacrosse in England is an amateur sport played mainly by community based clubs and university teams. Field lacrosse exhibitions were staged in England at least as early as August 1867 when a group of First Nations people played a series of games at the Crystal Palace Park Cricket Ground. William George Beers and other Canadians later toured the country playing exhibition matches in 1876. Another tour was arranged in 1883; by then England had 60 clubs playing regular fixtures in Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Middlesex and Yorkshire.
North Melbourne Town Hall is the former town hall of the Town of North Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It was listed on the former Register of the National Estate on 21 March 1978 and on the Victorian Heritage Register on 11 March 2010.
The Australian National Football Council (ANFC) was the national governing body for Australian rules football in Australia from 1906 until 1995. The council was a body of delegates representing each of the principal leagues which controlled the sport in their respective regions. The council was the owner of the laws of the game and managed interstate administrative and football matters. Its function was superseded by the AFL Commission.
A push in the back is a free kick awarded in Australian rules football against a player who illegally tackles or interferes with a player from behind when contesting possession.
The AFL National Championships is an annual Australian national underage representative Australian rules football tournament. Since taking over as national governing body in 1995, the AFL has gradually restructured the competition into a primary junior pathway for its fully professional national club competition.
Thomas Henry Smith was an Irish Australian who had a clear role in the origins of Australian football by being one of the first people to introduce school football games to Australian public schools in 1858 and as one of the founders of the Melbourne Football Club.
Women's suffrage in Australia was one of the early achievements of Australian democracy. Following the progressive establishment of male suffrage in the Australian colonies from the 1840s to the 1890s, an organised push for women's enfranchisement gathered momentum from the 1880s, and began to be legislated from the 1890s. South Australian women achieved the right to vote and to stand for office in 1895, following the world first Constitutional Amendment Act 1894 which gained royal assent the following year. This preceded even universal male suffrage in Tasmania. Western Australia granted women the right to vote from 1899, although with racial restrictions. In 1902, the newly established Australian Parliament passed the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902, which gave women equal voting rights to men and the right to stand for federal parliament. By 1908, the remaining Australian states had legislated for women's suffrage for state elections. Grace Benny was elected as the first female local government councillor in 1919, Edith Cowan the first state Parliamentarian in 1921, Dorothy Tangney the first Senator and Enid Lyons the first Member of the House of Representatives in 1943.
Cornelius Michael "Con" Hickey was an Australian rules football player and administrator for the Fitzroy Football Club, and administrator for the Victorian Football League (VFL) and the Australian National Football Council (ANFC).
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Eduardo Majeroni was an actor who toured the world with Adelaide Ristori, playing popular Italian dramas in their original language. He and his wife Giulia, a niece of Ristori, left the company in Australia and carved out a career playing the same repertoire in English translations. Giulia was an actress, and their two sons Mario and George had acting careers in America.
