Australian rules football in South Africa information
Australian rules football in South Africa
Country
South Africa
Governing body
AFL South Africa
National team(s)
South Africa
Nickname(s)
Lions (formerly Buffaloes)
First played
1896, Durban and Johannesburg
Registered players
32,000 (total) 2,000 (adult)
Clubs
138
Club competitions
South African Australian Football League North West Province Australian Football League Gauteng Province Australian Football League
Audience records
Single match
10,123 (1998). Brisbane v. Fremantle. (Cape Town)
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.
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