The origins of Australian rules football date back to the late 1850s in Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria.
Statue next to the Melbourne Cricket Ground on the approximate site of the 1858 "foot-ball" 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."
Portrait of Wills in the colours of the Melbourne Cricket Club
The Victorian cricket team, 1859. In May of that year, Tom Wills (seated, far left), William Hammersley (standing, third from left), J. B. Thompson (seated, second from left) and Thomas H. Smith (not pictured) met at the Parade Hotel, run by Jerry Bryant (standing, second from right), where they wrote the first laws of Australian football.
A drawing from William Blandowski's 1850s scientific expedition shows Aboriginal people engaged in domestic and recreational activities, including a kicking game with a ball made from Typha roots.
Melbourne Football Club
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The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons or colloquially the Dees, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It competes in the Australian Foot
Origins of Australian rules football
…began to regularly play variants of English public school football in the parklands of Melbourne. The following year, four members of the newly formed Melbourne Football Club codified the laws from which Australian rules football evolved. Professional historians began taking a serious interest in the origins of Australian…
After promoting the formation of, and captaining an 1858 incarnation of the club, Tom Wills co-wrote Melbourne's first laws.
Wills' cousin H. C. A. Harrison captained Melbourne from 1861 to 1872, and later served as club president.
Former Parade Hotel near the MCG, where in 1859 the "Rules of the Melbourne Football Club" were drafted
Melbourne playing in Yarra Park at the start of the 1874 season