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:
“Although good early childhood programs can benefit all children, they are not a quick fix for all of society’s ills—from crime in the streets to adolescent pregnancy, from school failure to unemployment. We must emphasize that good quality early childhood programs can help change the social and educational outcomes for many children, but they are not a panacea; they cannot ameliorate the effects of all harmful social and psychological environments.”
—Barbara Bowman (20th century)
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Each Australian is a Ulysses.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)
“Most of the rules and precepts of the world take this course of pushing us out of ourselves and driving us into the market place, for the benefit of public society.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Until the day when, your endurance gone, in this world for you without arms, you catch up in yours the first mangy cur you meet, carry it for the time needed for it to love it and you it, then throw it away.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)