Early History of Australian Rules On Anzac Day
Further information: The VFL during the World Wars and VFL/AFL players who died in active serviceDuring many wars, Australian rules football matches have been played overseas in places like northern Africa and Vietnam as a celebration of Australian culture and as a bonding exercise between soldiers. Despite this, League football was not played on Anzac Day for many years; in 1959, for example, when all VFL games were played on Saturday afternoons, Anzac Day also fell on a Saturday, and the entire round was postponed to the following Saturday. The first VFL matches played on Anzac Day occurred the next year after an Act of Parliament which lifted the previous restrictions on this activity.
Over the years these games sometimes drew huge crowds, with the 1975 Carlton versus Essendon game attracting 77,770 fans to VFL Park, a then record for the day, while two years later Richmond and Collingwood drew 92,436 to the MCG.
In 1986 the league used Anzac Day to attempt its first ever doubleheader. Held at the MCG, Melbourne and Sydney played in the afternoon, followed after a 30 minute break by North Melbourne and Geelong in the evening under lights; due to a total crowd of only 40,117 and various logistical problems, the league has never attempted another doubleheader as of 2012.
Through the years until the mid-1990s, it was common for at least two matches to be played on the Anzac Day public holiday.
Read more about this topic: Anzac Day Clash
Famous quotes containing the words early, history, australian, rules and/or day:
“The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Each Australian is a Ulysses.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)
“Critics are more committed to the rules of art than artists are.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“This will be a black baby born in Mississippi, and thus where ever he is born he will be in prison ... If I go to jail now it may help hasten that day when my child and all children will be free.”
—Diane Nash (b. 1938)