*** Welcome to piglix ***

Women's Australian rules football


Women's Australian rules football, also known simply as women's football or women's footy, is a form of Australian rules football played by women, generally with some modification to the laws of the game.

Women's football began to be organised in the early 20th century, but for several decades occurred mostly in the form of scratch matches and one-off exhibition games. State-based leagues emerged in the 1980s, with the Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL) forming in Melbourne in 1981 and the West Australian Women's Football League (WAWFL) forming in Perth in 1988. The AFL Women's National Championships were inaugurated in 1992. Women's football became professionalised in the 2010s, with a national league, AFL Women's, commencing its inaugural season in 2017 with teams formed by existing Australian Football League (AFL) clubs.

Codified in 1859, Australian football had been played by men for almost half a century before the first women's football matches were played. Contact sports such as football were widely considered unsuitable for women at the time, and public attitudes prevented them from participating in organised matches. Exceptions included charity matches, such as patriotic fundraisers, which occasionally featured women players. Women have nonetheless followed the Australian game passionately since the mid-19th century, comprising approximately 50% of spectators at matches—a uniquely high figure among football codes.

Both world wars were a great liberator for women; as the men fought in the war, women were often called to perform many tasks typically done by men, including spectator sports. Records exist of a football side in Perth, Western Australia made up of department store staff playing as Foy & Gibson's as early as 1917. Matches played in Western Australia were also recorded in 1918. In South Australia, an early example of Women's football was a Port Adelaide Women's team in 1918 where a game took place at Alberton Oval between Port Adelaide and another club representing Thebarton. Port Adelaide was captained by Eileen Rend.


...
Wikipedia

...