Football
Further information: Australian rules football - Early years in VictoriaSome historians claim that Wills was instrumental in setting up at least six "football" clubs in Geelong before his famous letter dated 10 July 1858 to Bell's Life in Victoria (a Melbourne-based sporting publication) in an attempt to stimulate interest in organising a football club.
On 7 August 1858, Wills was one of two umpires (the other being medical practitioner John Macadam) at a match between Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar School, held at the Richmond Paddock. Played as a 40 per side contest, the game is claimed by some as the first match of Australian football.
On 17 May 1859, Wills chaired a meeting at the Parade Hotel in East Melbourne to incorporate the Melbourne Football Club in which the club's rules (later the Laws of Australian Football) were written down for the first time. While Wills was a fan of the rugby rules, his intentions were clear that he favoured rules that suited drier and harder Australian fields. His cousin H. C. A. Harrison later said that Wills "very sensibly advised us not to take up Rugby", and that he advocated for "a game of our own."
During that year, he was also heavily involved in the formation of the Melbourne Football Club. The club is still in existence today, playing in the Australian Football League.
Wills continued his involvement with football as player and administrator into the 1860s. His time at Rugby was influential in his attempt to introduce a rugby-style cross-bar into the sport in 1865. According to William Hammersley, Wills pushed for the oval ball to be used in favour of the round ball. Wills also introduced the idea of football and cricket being played on the same ground, leading to the oval-shaped Australian rules football playing field.
In a match between Geelong and Ballarat Wills became the first captain coach to use the Australian rules football tactic of flooding. Facing a large loss against a stronger team, he ordered all players to stack the backline to the boos of fans a tactic later used by rival Melbourne.
In 1874 he ceased playing football, having for much of the previous decade been a member of the Geelong team.
Read more about this topic: Tom Wills
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“Idon’t enjoy getting knocked about on a football field for other people’s amusement. I enjoy it if I’m being paid a lot for it.”
—David Storey (b. 1933)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)