The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, is a professional Australian rules football club. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the game's premier competition. The club was formed by the McCracken family in their Ascot Vale home "Alisa", and while the exact date is unknown, it is generally accepted to have been in 1872. The club's first recorded game took place on 7 June 1873 against a Carlton seconds team. From 1878 until 1896, the club played in the Victorian Football Association (VFA), then joined seven other clubs in October 1896 to form the breakaway Victorian Football League. Headquartered at the Essendon Recreation Ground, known as Windy Hill, from 1922 to 2013, the club moved to The Hangar in Tullamarine in late 2013 on land owned by the Melbourne Airport corporation. The club shares its home games between Docklands Stadium and the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Zach Merrett is the current club captain.
Kevin John Sheedy AO is a former Australian rules football coach and player in the Australian Football League. He played and coached in a combined total of 929 games over 47 years from 1967 until 2013, which is a VFL/AFL record. Sheedy was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2008 and on 29 May 2018 was elevated to legend status.
Tathra is a seaside town on the Sapphire Coast found on the South Coast, New South Wales, Australia. As at the 2016 census, Tathra had a population of 1,675.
Timothy Michael Watson is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). After retiring from the game, he has continued working in the Australian football industry as a coach, sports journalist and media personality.
The Bega Valley Shire is a local government area located adjacent to the south-eastern coastline of New South Wales, Australia. The Shire was formed in 1981 with the amalgamation of the Municipality of Bega, Imlay Shire and Mumbulla Shire, with its name deriving from the town of Bega. The shire is also known as the Sapphire Coast for tourism and marketing purposes. During the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, the area was devastated by fire, with 448 houses being destroyed by fire and approximately 365,000 hectares burned, which is 58% of the Shire's total land mass.
Pambula is a town in Bega Valley Shire on the far south coast of New South Wales, Australia 454 kilometres (282 mi) south of Sydney via the Princes Highway. At the 2016 census, Pambula had a population of 970 people.
The 2005 AFL season was the 109th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured sixteen clubs, ran from 24 March until 24 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top eight clubs.
Paul Salmon is a former Australian rules footballer who played in the Australian Football League for Essendon and Hawthorn. Recruited from North Ringwood, Salmon had a prolific career, with many accolades such as being inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, a two-time premiership player, seven-time leading goalkicker at Essendon, and the fourth-highest goalkicker for Essendon.
Ross William Glendinning is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the East Perth Football Club in the West Australian National Football League (WANFL) and for the North Melbourne Football Club and the West Coast Eagles in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Merimbula is a town on the Merimbula Lake, located on the Far South Coast or Sapphire Coast of New South Wales, Australia. At the 2016 census, the population was 3,544.
Todd George Breman is a former cricketer and Australian rules footballer.
Rivalries in the Australian Football League exist between many teams, most of which typically draw large crowds and interest regardless of both teams' positions on the ladder. The AFL encourages the building of such rivalries, as a method of increasing publicity for the league, to the point of designating one round each year as "Rivalry Round" when many of these match-ups are held on the one weekend. Whilst some rivalries, such as between teams from adjacent areas, are still strong, the designation of an entire round of fixtures as a Rivalry Round is often criticised due to some arbitrary match-ups, or ignoring stronger and more recent rivalries.
Group 16 is a rugby league competition on the south coast of New South Wales, run under the auspices of the Country Rugby League. The Group 16 district covers the area from Batemans Bay down the Sapphire Coast to Eden, and inland across the Southern Tablelands to the Snowy Mountains towns of Cooma and Jindabyne.
John Cameron Sheedy was an Australian rules footballer and coach. He played for East Fremantle and East Perth in the Western Australian National Football League (WANFL) and South Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Sheedy is considered one of the greatest ever footballers from Western Australia, being the first player from that state to play 300 games in elite Australian rules football, and was a member of both the Australian Football Hall of Fame and the West Australian Football Halls of Fame.
Derek Thomas Kickett is a former Australian rules footballer. Kickett played with seven different VFL/AFL, WAFL and SANFL clubs during his career.
The AFL South Coast is an Australian rules football competition in the Shoalhaven and Illawarra regions of New South Wales. The AFLSC has three divisions of senior men's football and one division of senior women's football. In 2012 The South Coast AFL became "AFL South Coast" incorporating the three leagues of South Coast AFL Seniors, Shoalhaven Juniors and Illawarra Juniors.
The Greater Western Sydney Giants are a professional Australian rules football team based in Sydney Olympic Park which represents the Greater Western Sydney region of New South Wales and Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).
The Queanbeyan Tigers Australian Football Club, nicknamed the Tigers, is an Australian rules football club that competes in the AFL Canberra. The club is based in Queanbeyan, one of the oldest and fastest growing municipalities in New South Wales, that draws players, supporters and administrators from a region of 100,000 people covering the Division of Eden-Monaro.
Jonathan Giles is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Greater Western Sydney Giants, Essendon Football Club and West Coast Eagles in the Australian Football League (AFL). He was listed with the Port Adelaide Football Club from 2006 to 2009, but did not play a senior game for the club. He returned to the AFL with expansion club Greater Western Sydney, making his debut in round 1 of the 2012 season. Giles moved on to Essendon for the 2015 season, and then spent two years with West Coast before retiring due to a degenerative knee condition. In total, he played 63 AFL games.
In the AFL Women's (AFLW), the Gabrielle Trainor Medal is the name of the award given to the best and fairest player at the Greater Western Sydney Giants during the home-and-away season. The naming of the award is in honour of Gabrielle Trainor, an inaugural Giants board member and member of the AFL Commission known for pioneering the development of women's Australian rules football in New South Wales during her ten years on the AFL NSW/ACT Commission prior to joining the Giants. The award has been awarded annually since the competition's inaugural season in 2017, and Jess Dal Pos was the inaugural winner of the award.
