The 1908 Melbourne Carnival was the inaugural Australian National Football Carnival, an Australian football interstate competition, held in Melbourne in August 1908. It was known at the time as the Jubilee Australasian Football Carnival because it was designed to commemorate 50 years of Australian football.
Newby's souvenir carnival programme
Official carnival programme
New Zealand's Captain, Tom Wright
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, also called Australian football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by kicking the oval ball between the central goal posts, or between a central and outer post.
A ruckman leaps above his opponent to win the hit-out during a ball-up
Statue next to the Melbourne Cricket Ground on the approximate site of the 1858 football match between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College. Tom Wills is depicted umpiring behind two young players contesting the ball. The plaque reads that Wills "did more than any other person – as a footballer and umpire, co-writer of the rules and promoter of the game – to develop Australian football during its first decade."
Engraving of a football match at the Richmond Paddock, 1866. The MCG and its first pavilion are visible in the background, as are kick-off posts, the forerunner of today's behind posts.
Engraving of the first intercolonial football match between Victoria and South Australia, East Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1879