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 Second 20. From 1878 until 1896, the club played in the Victorian Football Association, 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 near Tullamarine in late 2013 on land owned by the Melbourne Airport. The club currently plays its home games at either Docklands Stadium or the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Zach Merrett is the current club captain.
The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 reigning premiers.
The Adelaide Football Club, nicknamed the Crows, are a professional Australian rules football club based in Adelaide, South Australia that was founded in 1990. The Crows have fielded a men's team in the Australian Football League (AFL) since 1991, and a women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW) competition since 2017. The club's offices and training facilities are located in the western Adelaide suburb of West Lakes, at the site of the club's former home ground Football Park. Since 2014 Adelaide have played home matches at the Adelaide Oval, a 53,500-seat stadium located a few hundred metres north of the Adelaide CBD.
Mark Anthony Ricciuto is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). From Ramco, South Australia, Ricciuto started as a junior with the local Waikerie Magpies Football Club. He joined the West Adelaide Football Club in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL), making his debut at the age of 16, before being recruited by Adelaide as a zone selection prior to the 1993 season.
Gary Ablett Sr., is a former professional Australian rules footballer who represented Hawthorn and Geelong in the Australian Football League (AFL). Nicknamed "God", Ablett is widely regarded as one of Australian football's greatest players, and was especially renowned for his high-flying spectacular marks and his prolific goalkicking.
Mark "Bomber" Thompson is a retired Australian rules footballer and former senior coach. He played 202 games for the Essendon Football Club from 1983 to 1996, captaining the side from 1992 until 1995.
The 2001 AFL season was the 105th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia. The season featured sixteen clubs, ran from 30 March until 29 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top eight clubs.
Anthony McGuinness is a former Australian rules football player who played for Footscray and Adelaide in the VFL/AFL. His wife is former Nine News Adelaide presenter Georgina McGuinness.
The 2002 AFL draft consisted of a pre-season draft, a national draft, a trade period and the elevation of rookies. The AFL draft is the annual draft of talented players by Australian rules football teams that participate in the main competition of that sport, the Australian Football League.
Craig Starcevich is a former Australian rules footballer who played in the VFL/AFL. He is the only person in Australian rules football history to win both an AFL and an AFL Women’s premiership, having won the latter as coach. He currently works as the Brisbane Lions women's team coach and AFL Queensland Female Football High Performance Manager.
The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent and only fully 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 football organisations.
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.
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.
Darren Bewick is a former Australian rules footballer who won two premierships with the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Bewick's game breaking pace & goal sense inside the attacking 50 was legendary amongst Bomber fans.
The 1993 AFL season was the 97th 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 fifteen clubs, ran from 26 March until 25 September, and comprised a 20-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top six clubs.
The 1994 AFL season was the 98th 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 fifteen clubs, ran from 26 March until 1 October, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top eight clubs – an increase from the six clubs which had contested the finals in previous years.
The 2000 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Essendon Football Club and the Melbourne Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 2 September 2000 rather than in its usual last Saturday of September date to avoid conflicting with the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. It was the 104th annual grand final of the Australian Football League, staged to determine the premiers for the 2000 AFL season. The match, attended by 96,249 spectators, was won by Essendon by a margin of 60 points, marking that club's 16th premiership and thereby equalling the record for the most VFL/AFL premierships.
The 1993 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Carlton Football Club and Essendon Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 25 September 1993. It was the 97th annual grand final of the Australian Football League, staged to determine the premiers for the 1993 AFL season. The match, attended by 96,862 spectators, was won by Essendon by a margin of 44 points, marking that club's 15th premiership victory.
The 1985 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Essendon Football Club and Hawthorn Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 28 September 1985. It was the 89th annual grand final of the Victorian Football League, staged to determine the premiers for the 1985 VFL season. The match, attended by 100,042 spectators, was won by Essendon by a margin of 78 points, marking that club's 14th premiership victory.
David Marshall is a former Australian rules footballer who played with the Glenelg Football Club in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) and the Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).
