World War II
Disputes over whether football should be played in wartime came up again in World War II. The VFL continued operation, but Geelong withdrew from the 1942 and 1943 VFL seasons when rail and road transport restrictions made it too difficult to attend games in Melbourne. Many clubs also had to play their home games away from the Melbourne Cricket Ground because it was taken over by the United States Air Force who turned it into a base. The West Australian Football League restricted the competition to players under the age of 18 between 1942 and 1945. The eight SANFL clubs temporary merged into four combined clubs for a reduced competition between 1942 and 1944.
In 1940, both the SANFL and the VFL staged the first Australian football Lightning Carnivals as fundraising events. The carnivals featured every team in the league in a one-day knockout tournament, featuring shortened games. Several more of these carnivals were held by major and minor leagues as wartime fundraisers.
Australian rules football also played a significant part in the Australian forces during the war, with the first Australian assault in Libya commencing with the signal of a football being kicked into no-man's land.
Read more about this topic: Australian Rules Football During The World Wars
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