this is the funeyist website i have ever been to and i will jion you in your concept that aussie rules is bad for children and adults alike. most of the kids in my class are football mad when they ask me what foot ball team i go for i say i hate football
I abhore the way the media overplays “football”. I cannot watch the news on the 3 main channels, they always put in stories, or even open the lead story with some boring football news. By the way, who is this Ben Cousins guy, he has no relevance to me.
I also totally avoid watching channel nine, this Eddie guy must be the centre of the universe, but once again, he has no relevance to me in my life.
Bring it on ABC TV.
It was a sad day when AntiFL was disbanded in the late 90’s.
Got to say I’ve detested with a passion the 3 worst things about australian culture nearly my whole 50+ odd years…..bloody football, holden cars, and 4&20 puke pastries (pies).
there is no respite, the cursed “thing” goes on all year, thanks to the media! no where else does anyone celebrate a total lack of ball handling skills, women’s netball/basketball players are far better at catching & handling the ball.
This may be a record.
I came from Tasmania in 1961 and as yet have not been to an AFL or other football match anywhere in 47 years. My first visit to the MCG was for one night of the Commonwealth Games 2006.
At school in Launceston I was forced to play football each winter which I hated and as you can see I have hated it ever since.
It is very disappointing to find the newspapers, the radio and TV obsessed with football - it appears like a religion to a lot of people.
If you don’t like football thats fair enough but keep your opinions to your-self, this sport is more popular than this anti fan club will ever be no matter what scandals you blow out of proportion .
ABOUT TIME! I have grown up bombarded with this stupid, pointless, thuggish game for far too long. The players are a disgrace to humanity, not just the professionals but from amatuer leagues as well, mostly being associated with alcohol abuse, drug abuse and general abuse of people in general. That event with that poor Jewish guy is just typical of football thugs in our communities but it’s all accepted because they’re footy players and they’re heroes…please…gimme a break…nothing but brain dead, meat headed thugs and I…as I’m sure a LOT of people are…AM SICK OF THEM. If any normal people behaved like these cavemen they’d be hung out to dry by the media, so should these ape-ish thugs.
My husband found your website and forwarded it to me, despite being a footy fan himself.
I was a member of the original AFL in its prime and am very pleased to see its return. Now I am married and, as well as my family of origin interested in football, they have managed to reach my husband and daughter as well. I really truly need you!
I’m glad you are supporting Villa Maria now, as we use their services for our sons.
Carmel.
I am a guest in your fair city and have been having a lovely cultural experience, I have been formulating positive points of order to put to SWMBO in a case arguing a move to Melbourne.
So as I walked along going over the arguments in my head working out counter moves to her counter points I decide it was time for some late lunch.
I walked into 4 cafe / restaurants in a row, they all had the bloody footy on so I walked straight out with the realisation that the dream had just died.
I love you city but until the people can put footy in perspective you will always have this cultural cringe to create awkward moments in your cities make up
I, like you, look forward to the day in september when all their melarchy is over for another year.
You have no idea how excited I was to read in the Herald Sun today of the re-establishment of the AFL. I immediately determined that I would certainly become a member, not having done so in the first iteration of the organisation.
Having been forced to play the ridiculous game at the tender age of 13, because it was ‘expected’ for boys in my small Victorian country town, even though I had absolutely no interest in it. I think I was scarred for life.
At 17 years, I ran away and joined the Army, only to be posted over the next 31 years, to various locations around Australia, finding that all the states either had the local Victorian version or their own even weirder version of the game. Also finding that the papers, the office conversation and even on field exercises virtually the only topic of conversation was football, with the ‘Boredom of the Day’ even being broadcast on the radio in the middle of nowhere.
Is it wrong? To be a member of our League? Should we not be spending our time profitably - worshipping footy idols? The most upstanding members of our society(members alright!!) . I think not! Should we fear them? Perhaps. But we must band together to prevent them from infecting our next precious and vulnerable generation with their disease. At least we know that they will never be able to infiltrate our ranks. The fans are too busy sucking down beam & coke and smoking winnie blues to find a site on the net other than that of their favourite team. Not to mention that the players struggle to construct sentences using multi-syllable words let alone to figure out how to even turn a pc on. We may one day win our fight - it will be a long one but let us rely on our intelligence and their lack thereof… Let us all drink a toast each night to the Anti-Football League!
After reading todays Herald Sun I could not get home quick enough to join the AFL and order three badges (I hate football so much one badge would not be enough).
Now I won’t have to explain when asked which team I barrack for, I can simply point to the badge.
I am an Electrician an cannot believe that at brew times my workmates read the paper starting at the back!. They can’t believe it when I take out the football section in the centre and throw it it the bin!.
Today I read the article in the Herald Sun about your anti football cult. You are un-Australian and un-human. You should be ashamed of yourselves and if you don’t shut the hell up i will lynch you. Football helps to encourage growth and development of team and social skills in young children. Many clubs put back into the communities that support them. You should go back into what ever hole you crawled out of.
Yours Joshua.
Great to see it is back. I was always a bit annoyed that the “fooody mob” pinched the AFL name when it tried to hijack the rest of the country into to cult.
Well done everyone. I’m sick and tired to AFL players being referred to a “heroes”. If I carried on like some of these so-called “sportsmen” in my job, I’d be out on my ear.
I admit that I used to follow football, when it was only 6 matches (12 Melbourne teams) played at 2pm every Saturday. and after the Grand Final we never heard from them again until the next April.
Oh dear, according to Josh, it appears we are all “un-Australia and un-human”.
I don’t acually think the term “un-human” exists meathead!!
Finally the original AFL has returned. I have just turned 40 and have never been to a football match in my life and don’t plan to. It is to expensive to get into the ground, food and drinks are over priced and I really don’t want to have to put up with a bunch of drunken idots carrying on like there is no tomorrow (Collingwood supporters are the worst) if their team loses. Just because we don’t like football doesn’t make us un-Australian.
If anything we realise there is more to life than sport, sport and more damn sport.
I don’t like sport and never have, it just makes me wonder where my eleven year old son gets his interest in sport from because my wife is not into sport either.
At least I was able to talk him out of playing for the local football team this year.
Had a few laughs at the comments,good to see some balance with Josh.
The media has got me down,and the tv is football and more football,and then the radio,has anybody ever had a earfull of that screaming moron on 3AW.
I do not know if i fit here as i like to watch the AFL final once a year and i was a member of Carlton (long time ago) i left after a leader of business (JOHN) used it as his personal play thing.I am sick to death of interstate football,and i did like the VLF,and i feel money has ruined the game.I might join up,thinking,thinking.cheers
Why would anybody in their right mind waste their time watching a number of deadheads chasing a piece of leather around a paddock, and then to pay ripoff prices for food and drink , I can only assume the spectators are deadheads like the ones chasing the piece of leather, my brother and sister inlaw and my daughter inlaw do nothing during the so called football season but go to, talk, eat and sleep footbRawl ,I just hope my 3 grandchildren do not catch this bug . I am joining up, thank god your back. ***Message censored at this point, -Ed
Was a member last time. Glad that you are back.Can not stand football, most players have sand between there ears.What a waste of TV and Radio air time,also to much print media. I dread the football season some of the players actions off the field are a disgrace,they are no heroes just idiots.Why would you want your young children calling them “Heroes”. The players are paid far to much money and it quite often go’s to there head with what they get up tooff the field.I say BBFB (Ban Bloody Foot Ball )
I have heard some crazy stories about the different ways that AFL members have destroyed footballs in the past. I would love to hear more, or better yet, see some photos of their humours and creative attempts. Any chance of adding a gallery to this fine site?
Fantastic article in the Saturday Herald, great to see that word is getting around. May I suggest trying to get some coverage from a hip and happening online magazine called 3000? They are AWESOME!
A proud new member
I belive that it’s only a matter of time before technology provides us with a buffon or bozoid filter that will instantly detect cromagnon voice inflections (talking ‘foopy’) and automatically switch radio or TV stations to a non-offensive AV signal. Utopia will be when these detectors can be fitted to one’s person so that any such cretin detected within a metre of the wearer will be instantly teleported to the closest foopy oval, thereby providing relief to both parties.
just to rub salt in the wound, ch 7 has cut V8 supercar race coverage this weekend to 3 hours to allow the the “footy morons” the overdoses sat & sun. i hope the V8 supercar execs get a good kick in the balls for allowing ch 7 to take the program from ch 10.
When I read that you were back I dug out my Antifootball windcheater and wore it with pride much to,the disgust of my grandson who was visiting. Alas he is a promising 17teen year old footballer who aspires to play AFL.. My agony and worry will be with me for a long time , but with the help of the Antifootball League I will survive.
I find it is interesting that if the football hero coaches have their way it will destroy it self by flooding and even football followers will be turned off.Three cheers for the flooding tactics.
I am also upset by channel 7 lack of V8 supercars coverage on Saturday,the camera was not on the leader enough times also.Cheers
Why is the TAC allowed to spend money on football sponsorship, the money comes from motorists pockets to fund accident victims medical treatment. It is compulsory (government regulations), so there is no need to advertise. Do we need to see a bunch of clowns running around with TAC logos on their guernseys? They are not good models for anyone. Drugs, alcohol abuse, bullying is their motto/aim.
I would quite like to sign up to your anti football league. There’s one small problem; signing up to your site and receiving occasional emails will only help to remind me of AFL - something which I’m actually trying to avoid. Kind of self defeating isn’t it?
Maybe if you changed your site to only feature non AFL things like kite flying, go-karting, rock climbing, pinball, break dancing, heavy metal music, carpet weaving, french comedians, knitting, ham radio broadcasting, chess, cooking, dog breeding, home brewing, coin collecting, hats, hacky sac, snowboarding or gin rummy it would be more effective.
Have been wondering if footy fans and/or players will be seen as a distinct species by archealogists hundreds or thousands of years from now? Surely the way that they hold their slack jaws and drag their knuckes on the ground will be evident?? Not to mention their significantly smaller brain size. Would welcome other members views on this theory.
Thank heaven the REAL AFL is back. I joined the original version and was mortified when it vanished.
I still have my poster that announces a ban on talk about footbrawl withing 30 feet of it… perhaps you ought to re-release that item as well as the beloved badge.
And how about a campaign to raise a bronze statue outside the MCG of our founding father, Keith Dunstan, clutching a square footy and staring scornfully at the others?
Last night I bottomed out on football culture for the final time. I dragged my 5 year old son to his fifth session of Aus Kick where he was slung to the ground twice whilst standing in line and pinched hard enough on the arm to end up with a bruise. I left early with him whilst he was crying from the third attack, vowing never to return to not just to Auskick, but to all forms of football. I should add that my boy doesn’t have these sort of things happen to him at school.
Today I came across a great quote from Noam Chomsky that I feel is relevant to this site:
The real mass media are basically trying to divert people. “Let them do something else, but don’t bother us (us being the people who run the show). Let them get interested in professional sports, for example. Let everybody be crazed about professional sports or sex scandals or the personalities and their problems or something like that. Anything, as long as it isn’t serious. Of course, the serious stuff is for the big guys. ‘We’ take care of that.”
I say it’s time everybody took their eye OFF the ball and started looking at the real world.
It’s always a worry when the media portray these Neanderthals that are modern football players, as heroes.
Great role models… bash each other up, brawl in pubs, drink drive, do drugs, carry on like morons.
As proud as I am of being an Aussie.. I’m afraid that if and when I have kids.. I shall not be pushing them towards the great Aussie sport of Gay F L.
Thank you Chris Howie, this was what I was on about with my letter in the member’s letters section of this website about parents who do not want their kids involved with competitive sport. I have not been successful in finding an Australian based website by parents who do not want their children playing competitive sport, be it AFL, rugby or anything else. I want to put forward the idea of adding a section to the anti-football league’s website for parents who want to their kids not to play body contact competitive sports.
you guys are the biggest ****heads i have ever seen. why the **** would you call your piece of **** organization the AFL when you are against the AFL you *****. how bout you put your energy towards sumthin positive instead of wasting your time complaining all the time. what the **** is wrong with u. footy is an australian tradition. get off your fat **** filled **** and stop playin counter strike and hacking in internet dating chat rooms. the computer is not your friend, no body loves u.
This comment was edited for reasons other than poor grammar and spelling.
Football – Mass Hysteria
I am baffled as to how this silly game of kicking a ball full of wind around an oval park generates such hysteria.
The corporate magnates have become so imbedded in the control of “the game” that they have taken control of peoples emotions.
Personality changes based on whether your team wins or looses is the ugly side of this business and the very reason why I cant stand it.
Wake up football fans– you are being manipulated by corporate people who want to make you believe that “the game” really is an important part of life, and why shouldn’t they - its to their financial advantage to do so.
I am sure that if it were financially viable we would see “the game” played every day of the week.
Its not too late - join the anti football league and regain control of your senses and lives.
Thank Goodness, I was so pleased to see the report in the paper that the true AFL had returned, I have been wearing a badge in the Operating Theatre of The Royal Children’s Hospital (a hotbed of footy talking) for thirty years and really need the support of like-minded people!!! I too have a grandson named Jack and hope to protect him and his twin Will from the mindless drivel. ( They are three and already have clothing I refuse to put on them) I am ordering a badge for a retirement present for the greatest footy addict of all time!!!!!!!!!! Hope he will find something else to do when he no longer works with me.
Keep up the good work Jack!!!!
After years of suffering ‘Footy Talk’ at various workplaces of mixed gender, I made a career change to work in libraries, with its predominantly female workforce. I thought I would be free. I thought I would be safe from the ‘Footy Tipping’ competitions, the inane discussion of who beat who on the weekend (who cares?), BUT I WAS WRONG. Even the most mild-mannered and ladylike of my work colleagues appears to follow someone-or-other. Their quiet and mundane lives are punctuated by a successful punt in the tipping comp. They are more likely to know all the players in such-and-such team, than what is going on in World News. Sadly, I am now minding one lady’s budgie (whilst she is on holidays) and that budgie’s name is ‘AJ’ apparently named after some footballer or other (oh, dear…).
Can we Anti-Footballers identify all sponsors of teams/players/whatever and then boycott their products? Watching tv earlier today there was some talk of the game and I noticed the following sponsors: Addidas, Wizard, and Emirates. At present I don’t need any sneakers, home loans or international flights so feel I am doing my little bit for the cause already!
maybe the village idiot (elliot) should have a look at the “AFL” the Anti-Football League was the AFL well before the afl (the large corporate bloodsuckers) came into existence. the so-called afl is a misnomer, the two teams north of the Murray river are relocated victorian teams. both teams were pretty well finished here in victoria, the afl has profited by sending them interstate. the spin involved in tricking people into this mindless “footy fever” is too easy when the locals believe all the lies out of afl house & of course the press makes a huge profit out of footy histeria. it is hardly a national game.
I also hate football. I live across the road from a footy ground and me and my friend put up a massive poster on the big grandstand saying “i wish you were a tv so I could turn you off” and it stands out a lot. It was just our little bit to try and make Australia a football-free nation.
hey i hate football dont u just want to turn it off. well i liove near the”mcg” so every weekend i go and start a protest that a small child like myself should not have that raket going on near me i live in echuca which is really close to the mcg i hear all the raket it seems to go throught the tv. byebyebye im in love with u xoxoxoxo
Why would anybody in their right mind waste their time watching a number of deadheads chasing a piece of leather around a paddock, and then to pay rip off prices for food and drink , I can only assume the spectators are deadheads like the ones chasing the piece of leather, my brother and sister inlaw and my daughter inlaw do nothing during the so called football season but go to, talk, eat and sleep footBrawl ,I just hope my 3 grandchildren do not catch this bug . I am joining up, thank god you’re back.
I’ve been searching for this webstie for a long time. It has always been a distant dream for the anti-football legue to come back. and finnally it has! good on you!
A few years ago my school had a “football colours day fundraiser”, in slight annoyance I decided ill come with a home-made anti-football badge. Now i can get the real one! hehe how my friends will loath me. I’m fine with rough sports… but football takes it too far! it is time for the rebellian to fight back! we will not be defeted!!!
I kinda aggree with elliot. its our choice 2 like football and its not like u guys r made to support a team. its not a stupid comment its just sum 1 speaking his mind and i agree with him. though i dont care weather u like it or not, im not gonna bag u 4 tht (like he did). GO ST KILDA!!!
How wonderful that the A.F.L. has been resuscitated after all these years !!!! I have still got my badge and intend to wear it every ” Saderdee” till the end of the ,what ever they call it .
Now people will understand me when I proudly declare “I am a member of the ANTI-FOOTBALL LEAGUE !!!!!!” in answer to the ubiquitous question “whoodyabarrackfor ?”
another two hours (minus many two minute ad breaks) of V8 supercars today. then more of the mindnumbing afl football. ch 10 certainly gave the V8’s more airtime.
I know punctuation and grammar are not really important in a places like this. However, just try to read the few posts supporting football above. And when I say read, of course I mean decode or interpret. I tried some online translators. They were no use.
I suppose requiring people to read your opinion several times to get the “hidden meaning” is almost as good as actually having an opinion worth reading. Almost but not quite. Now I have a headache.
Shame ! Shame! You DISCRIMINATE! What about those other games which we are cursed with in Queensland and NSW ? I refer of course to Rugby League and Rugby Union. Why are you so fixated on Aussie Rules? Sure, it is dreadful, and it is spreading like a malignant tumour into other states. But compared with Staterforigin … Those ‘accidental high tackles’ repeated endlessly on the telly showing one hoon trying to decapitate another hoon. Those ‘careless tackles’ in which a hapless player is driven like a star picket into the ground head first. Aussie Rules is cultured and civilised by comparison. Thank God no gridiron yet . Come to think of it, cricket is not the gentleman’s sport it used to be.
hi, josh again At first i thought this was just a fad, but i’ve noticed this website is still up and still abusing our national sport. I’ve grown tired of this ‘concept’ of yours and have decided enough is enough. You should all be deported to a warzone, hopefully that will be far enough away from football for you. You should all listen to elliot harvey he is the only one on this website with any sense . Anyone that joins this should go and play in the traffic it is about the only thing you are good for you inbred moronic, chromosome missing **** heads. You should do the human race a favor and kill yourself.
I was prompted to find you after being confronted by requests to buy raffle tickets in support of an AFL football club today - this organisation turns over 10s of millions of dollars! Your article about Harold Holt caught my attention especially when you described him as more of a ”doer” than a spectator. I have no problem with people playing football, no more than I have with flower arrangers, bushwalkers or authors. If people are doing something it is all good with me … What I do have a problem with is the endless discussions about and promotion of this multi million dollar industry at the expense of actual participation in anything. I consider that I am lucky to live at a time when there is a fabulous diversity of entertainment and many amazing human achievements to celebrate. To me AFL represents a very small part of the entertainment spectrum and none of the human achievements that I think should be celebrated.
I suggest that you shouldn’t just focus here on the negatives of AFL but also celebrate the many alternatives - which are many and wonderful. Clebrate all of the “doers”. Make a list. The “other things that are going on in Australia List” perhaps ABC radio and TV might be inspired to promote this as much as it does football.
This is great, a place where I can feel like I’m not a pariah for not supporting the game. The game itself has its merits, but the incessant glorifying just bores me.
I received the badge on Friday and will have great pleasure wearing it to my veterans golf club on Tuesday as most are footy mad I am looking forward to their reaction.
Is there someone missing the point? I have always had a problem with the hysterical and adverse emotional responses to these “major sports”, be they AFL, Rugby or whatever. Over exposure to these sports appears to me to generate hostility in people’s lives towards others. You only have to take a look through some of the comments above to see what I mean. What better justification is there for an anti football league.
tonight i started to try to compile the list of which i have spoken previously. i don’t know if i have the energy to create it. not only do i have to visit the official site of each “club” (and this pains me enough) but i can’t live with the knowledge of the NUMBER of sponsors involved. having looked at the sites of just 3 clubs i managed to compile a list of no less than 25 sponsors. a lot of major coporations. i had no idea that “footy fever” had travelled so far into our lives. i have been unwittingly supporting it. banks, australia post, tourism, car and food manufacturers. the only way i can see to avoid supporting these people is to move to a far off country. but then no doubt will be supporting another ‘league’ of sorts. there is no escaping it!!!!!!! what hope does the human race have…
Someone needs to do a Michael Moore style documentary which separates the reality of football from the hype surrounding it. As for me, I’ve chosen to give footy the flick this year, but it’s been hard to break free, because the team I’m trying not to follow is kicking butt and everyone I know keeps trying to talk to me about them. When I tell them that I think football is a vice and I’m trying to kick it,-no pun intended- they look at me like I’m crazy or think I’m joking. There’s a lot spoken about footy but I’m yet to hear anyone explain why it’s taken so seriously and treated with so much importance, because at the end of the day all it really does is distract people from engaging in more worthwhile pursuits.
How refreshing to see and dread that democracy IS alive and well in Australia.
Why does society make tin gods out of sports people and elevate their status ? Let’s not forget those after-footy season trips to country towns where slobbo Aussie males really show their team colours and destroy hotels, chuck bown-eyes in the back windows of coaches to all and sundry, bash innocent folk up in pubs and clubs, only to be revered in the weekend press..get real Australia.
Enjoy the finer points of skill on the field but why be so obsessed and tolerate the sub-culture that goes with it ? Why don’t you mention the broken fingers, missing teeth, sprains, strains and fractures, the buggered up knees that cripple former players when they reach their 40’s or so…? Why foist this obsession so frequently upon a public whose composition doesn’t necessarily like or appreciate football ? Give it brief exposure but why the fanaticism ?
It’s not just inflated prices to see the game and the food/drink prices but also the crazy demands upon the road and public transport system, the police, council and so on. Want to lift your game…? Then lift your mind.
I was at a function on the weekend and the subject of football came up.
I made it clear that I was not interested in football and that I was a member of the anti football league (complete with badge).
At that point I copped the stock standard response that I was “un Australian” for having no interest in the “game”.
To my great delight three others in the room, also admitted to being anti football as well – I am pleased to say that we now have three new members for the movement.
This site is just pathetic. No-one is asking anyone to like AFL and its a hobby that brings joy inio the lives of so many people. Why dont you show this site to my footy mad cousin who is ten years old and currently fighting for his life in hospital. the happiest times of his life was seeing the bombers players come in and say hello to him and he makes me come in and watch every essendon match with him. You people are obviously intelligent (or seem to think you are anyway) so why worry about it? Let people do what they want to do and just chill out!
James, I am very sorry to hear about your cousin. But, shame on you for using him to further your “pathetic” point. You are clearly intelligent (or seem to think you are) so why worry about this site? Why drag your cousin into it? If football makes him happy that is fantastic. Sick kids need all the help they can get.
However, not everyone shares YOUR views on football. If you haven’t already, then read what this “pathetic” site is actually about. Then, try to imagine that there are people in this world who are not interested in YOUR hobby. Then, try to wrap your mind around the concept that some people derive no joy what-so-ever from YOUR hobby. If you can do that, then try to accept that not everyone wants to hear about YOUR hobby all of the time. Then, ask yourself “Why am I worried about this site? Why did I try to use my sick cousin to further my argument? Why don’t I let people do what they want to do and just chill out!?”. Then James, you can turn on the TV. Watch a match. And with an enlightened mind never post YOUR opinions here ever again.
I truly hope your cousin recovers and leads a long and happy life. If you care to post the name of a charity that supports research or care for children with his illness I promise that I will make a donation to them.
lolz u pplz that made/ support this site basically dont like any sport full stop. am i correct?
im not sayin that i am, im just highly opinionated. anyweyz, so wat if the majority of Melbourne are sport induced and most hav a particular sport they favor. obviously members of this site dont like any sport or anything too physical becos maybe, just maybe, ur parents wrapped u up in cotton when u were kids and neva wanted their little babies to get hurt, and rite now my guess is ur life is more of the ps/xbox type that cant get enough of halo or counterstrike or sumthin, but u dont see others making a hate site for gaming consoles do u? so jus giv it up, Melbourne will always be the Aussie rules capital whether u guys like it or not. btw congrats to browny, he slotted thru 10 on the weekend
A translated version of this comment is available on request- Ed.
Sam Newman you are a hypocrite, a narcissistic ********** and a fool. Despite your childish delusions I can assure you that no-one has done less for football in their life.
Finally a website that understands my resentment towards sport. Which reminds me im currently writing an article on sport title: The Pointlessness Of Sport by James Sutcliffe. sounds interesting doesnt it
everyone is entitled to enjoy any sport they wish ! it does not have to be 24/7. i know the afl caters to the lowest common denominator, their attention span is terribly limited so the afl has to run the mind numbing brainwashing constantly to prevent anyone discovering that there is more to life than fumbleball
It is interesting to read through the comments. In doing so it quite easy to sum up the mentality of the pro foolsball brigade. Maybe foolsball is the only thing they can comprehend. Because they have no idea when it comes to the english language. GO THE ANTI FOOTBALL LEAGUE!
Well done (the real) AFL.
I work in Brisbane but the office is infested with Victorian refugees who somehow reconcile a dislike of all things “Qld” with actually living here. They drink VB for heavens sake.
The constant Aussie Rules worship I have to hear suggests some form of creeping mental disorder.
Well done, it’s about time we speak out against this so called sport. Actually is it realy a sport? Let see, you can have a the sport of track and field, the sport of cycling and the sport of swimming. None of these we say I going to watch the swimming game or the cycling game but we can say we are going to watch the footy game. There fore footy must be a game and I thought games were played by kids. Well at least they were when I was young. Imagine grown men play games and getting paid for it. What has this country come to.
I was terribly excited to see your organisation featured on Can We Help. I thought I was the only person in australia who couldn’t stand that thing those men do with the funny shaped ball. Of course I had to join immediately!
I’m a sports fan but after living in N.E. Victoria for 15 years, I was so relieved to get away from the mindless prattle of what was referred to as football. I promise to buy the first tickets when they hold their first “World Cup”
I also saw the feature on can we help. I do not understand how 36 grown men need to chase after a ball that is not even round. Surely the balls are not that expensive that they could by one each for all 36 and save all the hassle !
Aghh! Home at last.
So nice to be amongst like minded re detestation AFL.
Quite like sports per se, is simply the overload and hype associated with AFL that has put me off forever. Plus maybe the likes of Sam Newman and Eddie whats-his-name.
I find football a discraceful thing. Imagine the hospital bills a footballer gets from all the injuries in one game! Dislocated knee, broken arms. What is so exciting about seeing a whole bunch of guys running around a feild chasing a ball anyway? Im sure the half a million fans sitting in the audience will have a ball to spare and save the hospital coverage.
That was a fantastic feature on Can We Help. Sport in moderation and for entertainment is fine (ice hockey fan myself) but when it is shoved down your throat for almost half of any news program on any network it is crossing the line. The fervor for this mindless, skill less sport needs to stop. No wonder why the sport has got a bad rap when its fans are rabid and its players are drug addicted and constantly assaulting people.
As a petrol head the lack of motor sport news and the excess of AFL news is disgracefull. We have a young Australian on the edge of becoming the world champion in moto GP and all we hear about is Ben Cousins. How do we convince the media that there is life outside of AFL?
PS it would be clearer if you label the email box as email rather than Mail.
I think this is a great idea and am surprised I have never heard of it before. I’m not a fan of football (to be honest I really find it quite boring. I once went to a game on our classes year 11 trip, if it wasn’t so loud I probably could have drifted off to sleep :D), but I respect other peoples choice to enjoy it.
It’s also great to see that this isn’t a “footy-nazi” site or something, saying that all footballers should be impaled or something. Congratulations on founding a good-willed, good-fun organisation that knocks footy in unique, harmless and humerous way.
This is what it truely means to be an Aussie…not a fanatic footy fan Josh, elliot and others.
You think AFL is bad? Come to Newcastle where the Knights and Rugby League are king. How can we ever hope to convince people that there is more to life than football?
another weekend of V8 supercars this time at Sandown, a major event, ch7 gives it the barest coverage. Let’s hope that whomever was responsible for taking the event from ch10 gets what he/she deserves.
heraldsun reports that afl stars are overseas behaving badly ? what’s new ??
I am hoping that this Movement includes all the various forms of rugby
football or whatever its called, (the distictions between which I am
unclear- it is very vague and hazy, but my understanding is that there exist
various forms of this game). So I hope this is not just a website for
opposition to one manifestation of Gross National Stupidity, in support of
some other weird form of the idiot game. I am hoping that this site opposes
ALL forms of this jaqueoph waste of time! I am so completely uninterested in
this pathetic phenomenon. Having said all of that I must confess to watching
some of the matches (sp?) of the World Cup Soccer game a year or so ago…
it was, fortunately, a passing daliance, but intertesting at the time,
nonetheless. But the hideous spectacul of a neighbourhood dividing against
itself for a game is onanism in the most manifest!
I found out about this place by “chance”. Wish I’d known about it before - At one time I was fairly tolerant of AFL football until it reached saturation level and then it became intolerable. Football seems to take precendence over every other piece of news happening anywhere in the world. Religion is said to be the opiate of the masses - I tend to think football has replaced it - or maybe not after all AFL has so many devotees
You say at the top of the screen that there are only “12 more days until the end of the Australian Rules football season”. Are you sure? The football season never ends? ITs continuous, all year long!!!
And if its not footy, its full-on fanatic sport on all free-to-air TV, all year long. Am I treading on dangerous ground here mentioning that I’m not too fond of cricket or tennis either. If people like all these sports so much why not just go and watch them live, not inflicting the torture on the rest of the population who have higher interests.
Its so good to hear that the Anti-Footie League is alive and well. Lets hear more the AFL exploits. Shall we also start an ACL?
How refreshing to find out that my family are not the only ones who couldn’t give two hoots about football. We will gladly join you with the rebirth of the AFL!!
While everyone’s looking at the football they may not notice the erosion of our quality of life issues and our civil rights. ‘Bread and Circuses’ from the Roman days, thigs don’t seem to have changed. Are human beings still that shallow.
I applaud you for being the voice of all of us football haters.
I would like to submit that the
leage should extend to holding bloody rugby league football in it’s contempt as well.
Living in NSW and not following (or even being remotely interested in) this pathetic “sport” is horrible. It seems to dominate television etc… without end.
In this ‘More sport, more often’ country anything that gives relief from the never ending banal braying of anything to do with sport is to be encouraged.
As a child I was forced to attend football matches with the family every Saturday. I was supposedly kept amused with colouring-in books. Suffice to say I grew into an adult with a passionate distate for football,its machoistic, misogynist culture and colouring-in books. Subsequently, I determined never to give a child of mine a colouring-in book or to marry someone who liked watching football. I was successful with my fisrt determination, but failed on the second, my husband lied - he’s nuts about football…
P.S. As I don’t live in Vic.(S.A. is even worse) so can’t attend your luncheon and have been forced into hosting a finals b-b-q any suggestions on how to cope with the excrutiating tedium of the whole thing?
I would like to, if not nominate, then applaud all those mothers like me. Mothers who (wo)manfully, against all odds, tried to bring up sons to play non invasive, hardly mentioned sports. Mothers who NEVER bought football paraphernalia, who NEVER encouraged watching/listening to all that dribble on radio and television..hey, I actually now have grown sons who can speak intelligently…and who encouraged them to have other role models.
3 cheers for us!!
I was a member back in the 1980s and am so glad to see the square again !!!!!
My husband follows Collingwood so the AFL was such a breath of fresh air for me back then and will be again.
Thanks
i just found you site as a teenager i was forced to get belted up each week on the football field in the name of sport and also belted by the pe teacher for not being interested in ball games..softball which hurt when it hit me… basket ball gravel rash… squash black eye…ban the ball thats what i say
Watched a segment on ‘Can We Help’. Thought, so glad there’s others so not interested in football. Even more excited to find a website. I’m tired of feeling like a freak. Keep up the good work.
Help! I live a stone’s throw from Alberton Oval in Adelaide. This is the home ground of a team playing in next weekend’s final. Why do I pay such attention to these details? Because last time they were in a final the whole weekend here was absolute hell. Mind blasting, throbbing noise was broadcast through loadspeakers from early in the morning on the Saturday until the early hours of the morning then again on the Sunday. This is for the fans who come to watch the game on big screens. Today I have phoned the local council inquiring the terms of the permit required. Guess what. They are quite free to do what they like “just like a having a party” - “its football and only happens once a year”. I pointed out that I don’t use an obscure interest of mine to keep the broader neighbourhood awake and prevent them from studying or just enjoying their lives… Apparently this year they aren’t starting till 10am and will finish at midnight!!
How long will it take Australia to evolve into a mature society and take a great as interest in all aspects of our culture as it does in sport?
Especially the dumbest, crudest and least intellectual of all games - football!
Had to travel into Melbourne CBD on the night of one of these silly finals (don’t know which, don’t care) at the MCG. The traffic was dreadful for kilometers out, parking nearly impossible (CBD pay car parks full).
I finally found a spot to park the car in a multi level car park, parked the car and found myself traveling down in the lift with a number of fanatics of the “the dreaded game”.
I was wearing my anti football badge the whole time and not one of them noticed.
Does your organization hand out bravery awards for services to the AFL?
I think you’ve just won one of them Eric. I will devise something shortly, -Ed
After growing up with a love of local (country) footy, meat pies, and Chryslers, I’m saddened at the way footy has gone, with all the gutter tripe analysis by BOYS in men’s skin! It’s painful to watch and this banter plus the fact it’s turned into a complete money sport has driven me away from “the game” and onto this website!
Today I received a flyer in my mailbox from Alberton(Owbn)Oval stating that as “a resident” of the area, the Power would like to inform me of the Grand Final celebrations for the coming weekend. I know they will be living at the oval for the weekend..but “a resident”?
JAN, I grew up loving football, and still do. I have two university degrees, am about to finish my postgraduate qualification, speak two languages, have lived on three continents, and of course could have an intelligent conversation with you and your sons. Actually, I bet they’re not as smart as you make out… we all know what mothers are like when they talk about their sons.
Enjoy Saturday folks, and could I suggest that some of you try to lose the bitterness.
And, by the way JAN, don’t you mean ‘drivel’ rather than ‘dribble’?. You don’t need me to point out how embarrassing that mistake is…
Why did you delete my post? I thought i raised a valid point. Once again, enjoy Saturday.
G’day James, we have to moderate our comments as we get some strong language. Regrettably, this may take a few days. Your full comment can be found above. Thank you for your contribution. I hope your Saturday is a hoot as well. -Ed.
Talk about the stolen generations, my whole family have been stolen and sadly afflicted by the Collingwood virus. A deadly hereditary and terminal disease. I tried to save my youngest born, by innoculation with the shopping and lunching virus administered every Saturday. But alas, in the prime of her life, she has been gripped by the deadly fingers and drawn into the vortex.
WOW I am thrilled to bits that there are others like me out there!!!! I feel like I am at home at last! I can not stand the domination of the football culture in our lives. There are so many people out there that would appreciate half the time & effort that goes into footbal. YAY for the come-back of a great part of history.
I’m totally with you guys! I was listening to one of the local (Brizzy) radios this morning when I heard about The Anti-Football League and must tell you: it made my day! I’m not alone Thanks heaps!
There should be a law against activities that every other day creates massive traffic problems like the football does. Is there an organisation against cricket as well?
Are my ears deceiving me or did I just hear that the State Government is offering our taxes to upgrade an Australian Rules Football Ground at Geelong?
I don’t know about others, but I consider that a gross waste of my taxes, taxes paid through hard work on my part.
Let the Australian Football League fund their own silly pursuits, after all they generate millions of dollars as a business, why should a government support them with our money. Perhaps the Anti Football League should apply for funds to support our cause, you never know.
In reply to Maryellen. I could not agree more. Let’s just make it and A S S L.(Anti spectator Sports League) If people played sport instead of watching it we would not have the obesity problem that we have now, but of course it suits governments to encourage this hysteria about sport to take our minds off what they are doing.
April 8th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Looks like this website is the only safe place to hide this winter. Keep up the good work.
May 4th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
this is the funeyist website i have ever been to and i will jion you in your concept that aussie rules is bad for children and adults alike. most of the kids in my class are football mad when they ask me what foot ball team i go for i say i hate football
May 12th, 2007 at 8:34 am
And heres me thinking I was the only Victorian who hated football. Thanks for bringing me out of the closet. *****Message censored -Ed
May 12th, 2007 at 8:49 am
I abhore the way the media overplays “football”. I cannot watch the news on the 3 main channels, they always put in stories, or even open the lead story with some boring football news. By the way, who is this Ben Cousins guy, he has no relevance to me.
I also totally avoid watching channel nine, this Eddie guy must be the centre of the universe, but once again, he has no relevance to me in my life.
Bring it on ABC TV.
May 12th, 2007 at 9:25 am
First of all, GLAD TO SEE YOUR BACK….
It was a sad day when AntiFL was disbanded in the late 90’s.
Got to say I’ve detested with a passion the 3 worst things about australian culture nearly my whole 50+ odd years…..bloody football, holden cars, and 4&20 puke pastries (pies).
Awesome..
May 12th, 2007 at 11:05 am
there is no respite, the cursed “thing” goes on all year, thanks to the media! no where else does anyone celebrate a total lack of ball handling skills, women’s netball/basketball players are far better at catching & handling the ball.
May 12th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Finally!!
A website after my own heart!!!
Go Baseball + Ice Hockey!!!!!
May 12th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
This may be a record.
I came from Tasmania in 1961 and as yet have not been to an AFL or other football match anywhere in 47 years. My first visit to the MCG was for one night of the Commonwealth Games 2006.
At school in Launceston I was forced to play football each winter which I hated and as you can see I have hated it ever since.
It is very disappointing to find the newspapers, the radio and TV obsessed with football - it appears like a religion to a lot of people.
May 12th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Glad to see it’s back - Keep it up.
May 12th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
i have no further comment !
May 12th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
So when will we have an anti football day were no media talks about football the news would only be about 10 mins long lol
May 12th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
I have been searching for something like the AFL all my life. My search is over.
May 12th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
If you don’t like football thats fair enough but keep your opinions to your-self, this sport is more popular than this anti fan club will ever be no matter what scandals you blow out of proportion .
May 12th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
you lot are the biggest losers that is going around long live Aussie Rules
May 12th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
ABOUT TIME! I have grown up bombarded with this stupid, pointless, thuggish game for far too long. The players are a disgrace to humanity, not just the professionals but from amatuer leagues as well, mostly being associated with alcohol abuse, drug abuse and general abuse of people in general. That event with that poor Jewish guy is just typical of football thugs in our communities but it’s all accepted because they’re footy players and they’re heroes…please…gimme a break…nothing but brain dead, meat headed thugs and I…as I’m sure a LOT of people are…AM SICK OF THEM. If any normal people behaved like these cavemen they’d be hung out to dry by the media, so should these ape-ish thugs.
May 12th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
My husband found your website and forwarded it to me, despite being a footy fan himself.
I was a member of the original AFL in its prime and am very pleased to see its return. Now I am married and, as well as my family of origin interested in football, they have managed to reach my husband and daughter as well. I really truly need you!
I’m glad you are supporting Villa Maria now, as we use their services for our sons.
Carmel.
May 12th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
I am a guest in your fair city and have been having a lovely cultural experience, I have been formulating positive points of order to put to SWMBO in a case arguing a move to Melbourne.
So as I walked along going over the arguments in my head working out counter moves to her counter points I decide it was time for some late lunch.
I walked into 4 cafe / restaurants in a row, they all had the bloody footy on so I walked straight out with the realisation that the dream had just died.
I love you city but until the people can put footy in perspective you will always have this cultural cringe to create awkward moments in your cities make up
I, like you, look forward to the day in september when all their melarchy is over for another year.
May 12th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
You have no idea how excited I was to read in the Herald Sun today of the re-establishment of the AFL. I immediately determined that I would certainly become a member, not having done so in the first iteration of the organisation.
Having been forced to play the ridiculous game at the tender age of 13, because it was ‘expected’ for boys in my small Victorian country town, even though I had absolutely no interest in it. I think I was scarred for life.
At 17 years, I ran away and joined the Army, only to be posted over the next 31 years, to various locations around Australia, finding that all the states either had the local Victorian version or their own even weirder version of the game. Also finding that the papers, the office conversation and even on field exercises virtually the only topic of conversation was football, with the ‘Boredom of the Day’ even being broadcast on the radio in the middle of nowhere.
May 12th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Is it wrong? To be a member of our League? Should we not be spending our time profitably - worshipping footy idols? The most upstanding members of our society(members alright!!) . I think not! Should we fear them? Perhaps. But we must band together to prevent them from infecting our next precious and vulnerable generation with their disease. At least we know that they will never be able to infiltrate our ranks. The fans are too busy sucking down beam & coke and smoking winnie blues to find a site on the net other than that of their favourite team. Not to mention that the players struggle to construct sentences using multi-syllable words let alone to figure out how to even turn a pc on. We may one day win our fight - it will be a long one but let us rely on our intelligence and their lack thereof… Let us all drink a toast each night to the Anti-Football League!
May 12th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I hate football.
After reading todays Herald Sun I could not get home quick enough to join the AFL and order three badges (I hate football so much one badge would not be enough).
Now I won’t have to explain when asked which team I barrack for, I can simply point to the badge.
I am an Electrician an cannot believe that at brew times my workmates read the paper starting at the back!. They can’t believe it when I take out the football section in the centre and throw it it the bin!.
Roll on September.
I really hate football.
Paul Taylor
May 12th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
At last you are back, a great way to encourage friends from far flung lands to be sane and not join in the Australian love of pigskin.
May 12th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Today I read the article in the Herald Sun about your anti football cult. You are un-Australian and un-human. You should be ashamed of yourselves and if you don’t shut the hell up i will lynch you. Football helps to encourage growth and development of team and social skills in young children. Many clubs put back into the communities that support them. You should go back into what ever hole you crawled out of.
Yours Joshua.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:55 am
Great to see it is back. I was always a bit annoyed that the “fooody mob” pinched the AFL name when it tried to hijack the rest of the country into to cult.
May 13th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Well done everyone. I’m sick and tired to AFL players being referred to a “heroes”. If I carried on like some of these so-called “sportsmen” in my job, I’d be out on my ear.
I admit that I used to follow football, when it was only 6 matches (12 Melbourne teams) played at 2pm every Saturday. and after the Grand Final we never heard from them again until the next April.
Oh dear, according to Josh, it appears we are all “un-Australia and un-human”.
I don’t acually think the term “un-human” exists meathead!!
May 13th, 2007 at 11:51 am
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhh this is so pathetic!
May 13th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Finally the original AFL has returned. I have just turned 40 and have never been to a football match in my life and don’t plan to. It is to expensive to get into the ground, food and drinks are over priced and I really don’t want to have to put up with a bunch of drunken idots carrying on like there is no tomorrow (Collingwood supporters are the worst) if their team loses. Just because we don’t like football doesn’t make us un-Australian.
If anything we realise there is more to life than sport, sport and more damn sport.
I don’t like sport and never have, it just makes me wonder where my eleven year old son gets his interest in sport from because my wife is not into sport either.
At least I was able to talk him out of playing for the local football team this year.
May 14th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Had a few laughs at the comments,good to see some balance with Josh.
The media has got me down,and the tv is football and more football,and then the radio,has anybody ever had a earfull of that screaming moron on 3AW.
I do not know if i fit here as i like to watch the AFL final once a year and i was a member of Carlton (long time ago) i left after a leader of business (JOHN) used it as his personal play thing.I am sick to death of interstate football,and i did like the VLF,and i feel money has ruined the game.I might join up,thinking,thinking.cheers
May 14th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Why would anybody in their right mind waste their time watching a number of deadheads chasing a piece of leather around a paddock, and then to pay ripoff prices for food and drink , I can only assume the spectators are deadheads like the ones chasing the piece of leather, my brother and sister inlaw and my daughter inlaw do nothing during the so called football season but go to, talk, eat and sleep footbRawl ,I just hope my 3 grandchildren do not catch this bug . I am joining up, thank god your back. ***Message censored at this point, -Ed
May 14th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Bit the bullet,joined up,and will try my best to become one eyed like the rest of you.cheers
May 14th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Was a member last time. Glad that you are back.Can not stand football, most players have sand between there ears.What a waste of TV and Radio air time,also to much print media. I dread the football season some of the players actions off the field are a disgrace,they are no heroes just idiots.Why would you want your young children calling them “Heroes”. The players are paid far to much money and it quite often go’s to there head with what they get up tooff the field.I say BBFB (Ban Bloody Foot Ball )
May 15th, 2007 at 1:46 am
I have heard some crazy stories about the different ways that AFL members have destroyed footballs in the past. I would love to hear more, or better yet, see some photos of their humours and creative attempts. Any chance of adding a gallery to this fine site?
Fantastic article in the Saturday Herald, great to see that word is getting around. May I suggest trying to get some coverage from a hip and happening online magazine called 3000? They are AWESOME!
A proud new member
May 17th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I belive that it’s only a matter of time before technology provides us with a buffon or bozoid filter that will instantly detect cromagnon voice inflections (talking ‘foopy’) and automatically switch radio or TV stations to a non-offensive AV signal. Utopia will be when these detectors can be fitted to one’s person so that any such cretin detected within a metre of the wearer will be instantly teleported to the closest foopy oval, thereby providing relief to both parties.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Hello all!
May 19th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
just to rub salt in the wound, ch 7 has cut V8 supercar race coverage this weekend to 3 hours to allow the the “footy morons” the overdoses sat & sun. i hope the V8 supercar execs get a good kick in the balls for allowing ch 7 to take the program from ch 10.
May 21st, 2007 at 5:25 pm
When I read that you were back I dug out my Antifootball windcheater and wore it with pride much to,the disgust of my grandson who was visiting. Alas he is a promising 17teen year old footballer who aspires to play AFL.. My agony and worry will be with me for a long time , but with the help of the Antifootball League I will survive.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:34 pm
would just like to renew my membership foom the 70’s
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:48 am
I find it is interesting that if the football hero coaches have their way it will destroy it self by flooding and even football followers will be turned off.Three cheers for the flooding tactics.
I am also upset by channel 7 lack of V8 supercars coverage on Saturday,the camera was not on the leader enough times also.Cheers
May 24th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Why is the TAC allowed to spend money on football sponsorship, the money comes from motorists pockets to fund accident victims medical treatment. It is compulsory (government regulations), so there is no need to advertise. Do we need to see a bunch of clowns running around with TAC logos on their guernseys? They are not good models for anyone. Drugs, alcohol abuse, bullying is their motto/aim.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
haha, just read the article in the sun. fantastic lads!
May 25th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
I would quite like to sign up to your anti football league. There’s one small problem; signing up to your site and receiving occasional emails will only help to remind me of AFL - something which I’m actually trying to avoid. Kind of self defeating isn’t it?
Maybe if you changed your site to only feature non AFL things like kite flying, go-karting, rock climbing, pinball, break dancing, heavy metal music, carpet weaving, french comedians, knitting, ham radio broadcasting, chess, cooking, dog breeding, home brewing, coin collecting, hats, hacky sac, snowboarding or gin rummy it would be more effective.
May 25th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Have been wondering if footy fans and/or players will be seen as a distinct species by archealogists hundreds or thousands of years from now? Surely the way that they hold their slack jaws and drag their knuckes on the ground will be evident?? Not to mention their significantly smaller brain size. Would welcome other members views on this theory.
May 26th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Thank heaven the REAL AFL is back. I joined the original version and was mortified when it vanished.
I still have my poster that announces a ban on talk about footbrawl withing 30 feet of it… perhaps you ought to re-release that item as well as the beloved badge.
And how about a campaign to raise a bronze statue outside the MCG of our founding father, Keith Dunstan, clutching a square footy and staring scornfully at the others?
May 26th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Last night I bottomed out on football culture for the final time. I dragged my 5 year old son to his fifth session of Aus Kick where he was slung to the ground twice whilst standing in line and pinched hard enough on the arm to end up with a bruise. I left early with him whilst he was crying from the third attack, vowing never to return to not just to Auskick, but to all forms of football. I should add that my boy doesn’t have these sort of things happen to him at school.
Today I came across a great quote from Noam Chomsky that I feel is relevant to this site:
The real mass media are basically trying to divert people. “Let them do something else, but don’t bother us (us being the people who run the show). Let them get interested in professional sports, for example. Let everybody be crazed about professional sports or sex scandals or the personalities and their problems or something like that. Anything, as long as it isn’t serious. Of course, the serious stuff is for the big guys. ‘We’ take care of that.”
I say it’s time everybody took their eye OFF the ball and started looking at the real world.
May 27th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
It’s always a worry when the media portray these Neanderthals that are modern football players, as heroes.
Great role models… bash each other up, brawl in pubs, drink drive, do drugs, carry on like morons.
As proud as I am of being an Aussie.. I’m afraid that if and when I have kids.. I shall not be pushing them towards the great Aussie sport of Gay F L.
May 27th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Thank you Chris Howie, this was what I was on about with my letter in the member’s letters section of this website about parents who do not want their kids involved with competitive sport. I have not been successful in finding an Australian based website by parents who do not want their children playing competitive sport, be it AFL, rugby or anything else. I want to put forward the idea of adding a section to the anti-football league’s website for parents who want to their kids not to play body contact competitive sports.
May 28th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
you guys are the biggest ****heads i have ever seen. why the **** would you call your piece of **** organization the AFL when you are against the AFL you *****. how bout you put your energy towards sumthin positive instead of wasting your time complaining all the time. what the **** is wrong with u. footy is an australian tradition. get off your fat **** filled **** and stop playin counter strike and hacking in internet dating chat rooms. the computer is not your friend, no body loves u.
May 30th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Football – Mass Hysteria
I am baffled as to how this silly game of kicking a ball full of wind around an oval park generates such hysteria.
The corporate magnates have become so imbedded in the control of “the game” that they have taken control of peoples emotions.
Personality changes based on whether your team wins or looses is the ugly side of this business and the very reason why I cant stand it.
Wake up football fans– you are being manipulated by corporate people who want to make you believe that “the game” really is an important part of life, and why shouldn’t they - its to their financial advantage to do so.
I am sure that if it were financially viable we would see “the game” played every day of the week.
Its not too late - join the anti football league and regain control of your senses and lives.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Thank Goodness, I was so pleased to see the report in the paper that the true AFL had returned, I have been wearing a badge in the Operating Theatre of The Royal Children’s Hospital (a hotbed of footy talking) for thirty years and really need the support of like-minded people!!! I too have a grandson named Jack and hope to protect him and his twin Will from the mindless drivel. ( They are three and already have clothing I refuse to put on them) I am ordering a badge for a retirement present for the greatest footy addict of all time!!!!!!!!!! Hope he will find something else to do when he no longer works with me.
Keep up the good work Jack!!!!
May 30th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
After years of suffering ‘Footy Talk’ at various workplaces of mixed gender, I made a career change to work in libraries, with its predominantly female workforce. I thought I would be free. I thought I would be safe from the ‘Footy Tipping’ competitions, the inane discussion of who beat who on the weekend (who cares?), BUT I WAS WRONG. Even the most mild-mannered and ladylike of my work colleagues appears to follow someone-or-other. Their quiet and mundane lives are punctuated by a successful punt in the tipping comp. They are more likely to know all the players in such-and-such team, than what is going on in World News. Sadly, I am now minding one lady’s budgie (whilst she is on holidays) and that budgie’s name is ‘AJ’ apparently named after some footballer or other (oh, dear…).
May 31st, 2007 at 3:41 pm
4 elliot harvey
poor elliot. jus remember u come lookin n that n got on our site n that. we neva made ya.
NB: I have dumbed down above comment for the benefit of Elliot should he return.
May 31st, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Can we Anti-Footballers identify all sponsors of teams/players/whatever and then boycott their products? Watching tv earlier today there was some talk of the game and I noticed the following sponsors: Addidas, Wizard, and Emirates. At present I don’t need any sneakers, home loans or international flights so feel I am doing my little bit for the cause already!
June 1st, 2007 at 9:42 am
maybe the village idiot (elliot) should have a look at the “AFL” the Anti-Football League was the AFL well before the afl (the large corporate bloodsuckers) came into existence. the so-called afl is a misnomer, the two teams north of the Murray river are relocated victorian teams. both teams were pretty well finished here in victoria, the afl has profited by sending them interstate. the spin involved in tricking people into this mindless “footy fever” is too easy when the locals believe all the lies out of afl house & of course the press makes a huge profit out of footy histeria. it is hardly a national game.
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
I also hate football. I live across the road from a footy ground and me and my friend put up a massive poster on the big grandstand saying “i wish you were a tv so I could turn you off” and it stands out a lot. It was just our little bit to try and make Australia a football-free nation.
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
hey i hate football dont u just want to turn it off. well i liove near the”mcg” so every weekend i go and start a protest that a small child like myself should not have that raket going on near me i live in echuca which is really close to the mcg i hear all the raket it seems to go throught the tv. byebyebye im in love with u xoxoxoxo
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Why would anybody in their right mind waste their time watching a number of deadheads chasing a piece of leather around a paddock, and then to pay rip off prices for food and drink , I can only assume the spectators are deadheads like the ones chasing the piece of leather, my brother and sister inlaw and my daughter inlaw do nothing during the so called football season but go to, talk, eat and sleep footBrawl ,I just hope my 3 grandchildren do not catch this bug . I am joining up, thank god you’re back.
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Elliot Harvey you’re a loser.
June 5th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
I’ve been searching for this webstie for a long time. It has always been a distant dream for the anti-football legue to come back. and finnally it has! good on you!
A few years ago my school had a “football colours day fundraiser”, in slight annoyance I decided ill come with a home-made anti-football badge. Now i can get the real one! hehe how my friends will loath me. I’m fine with rough sports… but football takes it too far! it is time for the rebellian to fight back! we will not be defeted!!!
June 5th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
elliot harvey’s comment should be deleted. i think its ok for a different opinion but not a stupid one.
June 7th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I kinda aggree with elliot. its our choice 2 like football and its not like u guys r made to support a team. its not a stupid comment its just sum 1 speaking his mind and i agree with him. though i dont care weather u like it or not, im not gonna bag u 4 tht (like he did). GO ST KILDA!!!
June 8th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
How wonderful that the A.F.L. has been resuscitated after all these years !!!! I have still got my badge and intend to wear it every ” Saderdee” till the end of the ,what ever they call it .
Now people will understand me when I proudly declare “I am a member of the ANTI-FOOTBALL LEAGUE !!!!!!” in answer to the ubiquitous question “whoodyabarrackfor ?”
June 10th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
another two hours (minus many two minute ad breaks) of V8 supercars today. then more of the mindnumbing afl football. ch 10 certainly gave the V8’s more airtime.
June 11th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Dear Elliot,
I read your post with some amusement. Maybe you could start………….Oh is there any point? GO AFL!!!
June 11th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
I know punctuation and grammar are not really important in a places like this. However, just try to read the few posts supporting football above. And when I say read, of course I mean decode or interpret. I tried some online translators. They were no use.
I suppose requiring people to read your opinion several times to get the “hidden meaning” is almost as good as actually having an opinion worth reading. Almost but not quite. Now I have a headache.
June 12th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Shame ! Shame! You DISCRIMINATE! What about those other games which we are cursed with in Queensland and NSW ? I refer of course to Rugby League and Rugby Union. Why are you so fixated on Aussie Rules? Sure, it is dreadful, and it is spreading like a malignant tumour into other states. But compared with Staterforigin … Those ‘accidental high tackles’ repeated endlessly on the telly showing one hoon trying to decapitate another hoon. Those ‘careless tackles’ in which a hapless player is driven like a star picket into the ground head first. Aussie Rules is cultured and civilised by comparison. Thank God no gridiron yet . Come to think of it, cricket is not the gentleman’s sport it used to be.
June 17th, 2007 at 10:27 am
hi, josh again
At first i thought this was just a fad, but i’ve noticed this website is still up and still abusing our national sport. I’ve grown tired of this ‘concept’ of yours and have decided enough is enough. You should all be deported to a warzone, hopefully that will be far enough away from football for you. You should all listen to elliot harvey he is the only one on this website with any sense . Anyone that joins this should go and play in the traffic it is about the only thing you are good for you inbred moronic, chromosome missing **** heads. You should do the human race a favor and kill yourself.
June 17th, 2007 at 10:31 am
i have read over my comments and have decided to apologise… the smiley face was a bit much
June 18th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I was prompted to find you after being confronted by requests to buy raffle tickets in support of an AFL football club today - this organisation turns over 10s of millions of dollars! Your article about Harold Holt caught my attention especially when you described him as more of a ”doer” than a spectator. I have no problem with people playing football, no more than I have with flower arrangers, bushwalkers or authors. If people are doing something it is all good with me … What I do have a problem with is the endless discussions about and promotion of this multi million dollar industry at the expense of actual participation in anything. I consider that I am lucky to live at a time when there is a fabulous diversity of entertainment and many amazing human achievements to celebrate. To me AFL represents a very small part of the entertainment spectrum and none of the human achievements that I think should be celebrated.
I suggest that you shouldn’t just focus here on the negatives of AFL but also celebrate the many alternatives - which are many and wonderful. Clebrate all of the “doers”. Make a list. The “other things that are going on in Australia List” perhaps ABC radio and TV might be inspired to promote this as much as it does football.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
This is great, a place where I can feel like I’m not a pariah for not supporting the game. The game itself has its merits, but the incessant glorifying just bores me.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Lachlan has a good point. A newsletter with anti-football activities would be wonderful.
June 25th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
If you want to have a good laugh people, type this into your search engine:
http://www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/FINALMAVERICK1.doc
It’s a short script that sends up the opening scene from Reservoir Dogs. There’s a good anti-footy spiel in it. Enjoy.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I received the badge on Friday and will have great pleasure wearing it to my veterans golf club on Tuesday as most are footy mad I am looking forward to their reaction.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Is there someone missing the point? I have always had a problem with the hysterical and adverse emotional responses to these “major sports”, be they AFL, Rugby or whatever. Over exposure to these sports appears to me to generate hostility in people’s lives towards others. You only have to take a look through some of the comments above to see what I mean. What better justification is there for an anti football league.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
tonight i started to try to compile the list of which i have spoken previously. i don’t know if i have the energy to create it. not only do i have to visit the official site of each “club” (and this pains me enough) but i can’t live with the knowledge of the NUMBER of sponsors involved. having looked at the sites of just 3 clubs i managed to compile a list of no less than 25 sponsors. a lot of major coporations. i had no idea that “footy fever” had travelled so far into our lives. i have been unwittingly supporting it. banks, australia post, tourism, car and food manufacturers. the only way i can see to avoid supporting these people is to move to a far off country. but then no doubt will be supporting another ‘league’ of sorts. there is no escaping it!!!!!!! what hope does the human race have…
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:21 am
Someone needs to do a Michael Moore style documentary which separates the reality of football from the hype surrounding it. As for me, I’ve chosen to give footy the flick this year, but it’s been hard to break free, because the team I’m trying not to follow is kicking butt and everyone I know keeps trying to talk to me about them. When I tell them that I think football is a vice and I’m trying to kick it,-no pun intended- they look at me like I’m crazy or think I’m joking. There’s a lot spoken about footy but I’m yet to hear anyone explain why it’s taken so seriously and treated with so much importance, because at the end of the day all it really does is distract people from engaging in more worthwhile pursuits.
July 9th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
How refreshing to see and dread that democracy IS alive and well in Australia.
Why does society make tin gods out of sports people and elevate their status ? Let’s not forget those after-footy season trips to country towns where slobbo Aussie males really show their team colours and destroy hotels, chuck bown-eyes in the back windows of coaches to all and sundry, bash innocent folk up in pubs and clubs, only to be revered in the weekend press..get real Australia.
Enjoy the finer points of skill on the field but why be so obsessed and tolerate the sub-culture that goes with it ? Why don’t you mention the broken fingers, missing teeth, sprains, strains and fractures, the buggered up knees that cripple former players when they reach their 40’s or so…? Why foist this obsession so frequently upon a public whose composition doesn’t necessarily like or appreciate football ? Give it brief exposure but why the fanaticism ?
It’s not just inflated prices to see the game and the food/drink prices but also the crazy demands upon the road and public transport system, the police, council and so on. Want to lift your game…? Then lift your mind.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I was at a function on the weekend and the subject of football came up.
I made it clear that I was not interested in football and that I was a member of the anti football league (complete with badge).
At that point I copped the stock standard response that I was “un Australian” for having no interest in the “game”.
To my great delight three others in the room, also admitted to being anti football as well – I am pleased to say that we now have three new members for the movement.
July 13th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
This site is just pathetic. No-one is asking anyone to like AFL and its a hobby that brings joy inio the lives of so many people. Why dont you show this site to my footy mad cousin who is ten years old and currently fighting for his life in hospital. the happiest times of his life was seeing the bombers players come in and say hello to him and he makes me come in and watch every essendon match with him. You people are obviously intelligent (or seem to think you are anyway) so why worry about it? Let people do what they want to do and just chill out!
July 21st, 2007 at 10:23 pm
James, I am very sorry to hear about your cousin. But, shame on you for using him to further your “pathetic” point. You are clearly intelligent (or seem to think you are) so why worry about this site? Why drag your cousin into it? If football makes him happy that is fantastic. Sick kids need all the help they can get.
However, not everyone shares YOUR views on football. If you haven’t already, then read what this “pathetic” site is actually about. Then, try to imagine that there are people in this world who are not interested in YOUR hobby. Then, try to wrap your mind around the concept that some people derive no joy what-so-ever from YOUR hobby. If you can do that, then try to accept that not everyone wants to hear about YOUR hobby all of the time. Then, ask yourself “Why am I worried about this site? Why did I try to use my sick cousin to further my argument? Why don’t I let people do what they want to do and just chill out!?”. Then James, you can turn on the TV. Watch a match. And with an enlightened mind never post YOUR opinions here ever again.
I truly hope your cousin recovers and leads a long and happy life. If you care to post the name of a charity that supports research or care for children with his illness I promise that I will make a donation to them.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
lolz u pplz that made/ support this site basically dont like any sport full stop. am i correct?
im not sayin that i am, im just highly opinionated. anyweyz, so wat if the majority of Melbourne are sport induced and most hav a particular sport they favor. obviously members of this site dont like any sport or anything too physical becos maybe, just maybe, ur parents wrapped u up in cotton when u were kids and neva wanted their little babies to get hurt, and rite now my guess is ur life is more of the ps/xbox type that cant get enough of halo or counterstrike or sumthin, but u dont see others making a hate site for gaming consoles do u? so jus giv it up, Melbourne will always be the Aussie rules capital whether u guys like it or not. btw congrats to browny, he slotted thru 10 on the weekend
August 9th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
My goodness what was that all about – perhaps we need to acknowledge the link between the dreaded game and alcohol?
August 20th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Sam Newman you are a hypocrite, a narcissistic ********** and a fool. Despite your childish delusions I can assure you that no-one has done less for football in their life.
September 4th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Finally a website that understands my resentment towards sport. Which reminds me im currently writing an article on sport title: The Pointlessness Of Sport by James Sutcliffe. sounds interesting doesnt it
September 9th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
everyone is entitled to enjoy any sport they wish ! it does not have to be 24/7. i know the afl caters to the lowest common denominator, their attention span is terribly limited so the afl has to run the mind numbing brainwashing constantly to prevent anyone discovering that there is more to life than fumbleball
September 14th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
It is interesting to read through the comments. In doing so it quite easy to sum up the mentality of the pro foolsball brigade. Maybe foolsball is the only thing they can comprehend. Because they have no idea when it comes to the english language. GO THE ANTI FOOTBALL LEAGUE!
September 14th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Well done (the real) AFL.
I work in Brisbane but the office is infested with Victorian refugees who somehow reconcile a dislike of all things “Qld” with actually living here. They drink VB for heavens sake.
The constant Aussie Rules worship I have to hear suggests some form of creeping mental disorder.
More power to you!
September 14th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Well done, it’s about time we speak out against this so called sport. Actually is it realy a sport? Let see, you can have a the sport of track and field, the sport of cycling and the sport of swimming. None of these we say I going to watch the swimming game or the cycling game but we can say we are going to watch the footy game. There fore footy must be a game and I thought games were played by kids. Well at least they were when I was young. Imagine grown men play games and getting paid for it. What has this country come to.
September 14th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I was terribly excited to see your organisation featured on Can We Help. I thought I was the only person in australia who couldn’t stand that thing those men do with the funny shaped ball. Of course I had to join immediately!
September 14th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I’m a sports fan but after living in N.E. Victoria for 15 years, I was so relieved to get away from the mindless prattle of what was referred to as football. I promise to buy the first tickets when they hold their first “World Cup”
September 14th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
I also saw the feature on can we help. I do not understand how 36 grown men need to chase after a ball that is not even round. Surely the balls are not that expensive that they could by one each for all 36 and save all the hassle !
September 14th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Aghh! Home at last.
So nice to be amongst like minded re detestation AFL.
Quite like sports per se, is simply the overload and hype associated with AFL that has put me off forever. Plus maybe the likes of Sam Newman and Eddie whats-his-name.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
I find football a discraceful thing. Imagine the hospital bills a footballer gets from all the injuries in one game! Dislocated knee, broken arms. What is so exciting about seeing a whole bunch of guys running around a feild chasing a ball anyway? Im sure the half a million fans sitting in the audience will have a ball to spare and save the hospital coverage.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
That was a fantastic feature on Can We Help. Sport in moderation and for entertainment is fine (ice hockey fan myself) but when it is shoved down your throat for almost half of any news program on any network it is crossing the line. The fervor for this mindless, skill less sport needs to stop. No wonder why the sport has got a bad rap when its fans are rabid and its players are drug addicted and constantly assaulting people.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
As a petrol head the lack of motor sport news and the excess of AFL news is disgracefull. We have a young Australian on the edge of becoming the world champion in moto GP and all we hear about is Ben Cousins. How do we convince the media that there is life outside of AFL?
PS it would be clearer if you label the email box as email rather than Mail.
September 14th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
I think this is a great idea and am surprised I have never heard of it before. I’m not a fan of football (to be honest I really find it quite boring. I once went to a game on our classes year 11 trip, if it wasn’t so loud I probably could have drifted off to sleep :D), but I respect other peoples choice to enjoy it.
It’s also great to see that this isn’t a “footy-nazi” site or something, saying that all footballers should be impaled or something. Congratulations on founding a good-willed, good-fun organisation that knocks footy in unique, harmless and humerous way.
This is what it truely means to be an Aussie…not a fanatic footy fan Josh, elliot and others.
All the best,
Jordan Smith
September 14th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
P.S. Are you guys similar to the Freemasons(organisational wise)? If so, that is so cool.
Jordan Smith
September 15th, 2007 at 10:10 am
You think AFL is bad? Come to Newcastle where the Knights and Rugby League are king. How can we ever hope to convince people that there is more to life than football?
September 15th, 2007 at 11:39 am
another weekend of V8 supercars this time at Sandown, a major event, ch7 gives it the barest coverage. Let’s hope that whomever was responsible for taking the event from ch10 gets what he/she deserves.
heraldsun reports that afl stars are overseas behaving badly ? what’s new ??
September 15th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
I am hoping that this Movement includes all the various forms of rugby
football or whatever its called, (the distictions between which I am
unclear- it is very vague and hazy, but my understanding is that there exist
various forms of this game). So I hope this is not just a website for
opposition to one manifestation of Gross National Stupidity, in support of
some other weird form of the idiot game. I am hoping that this site opposes
ALL forms of this jaqueoph waste of time! I am so completely uninterested in
this pathetic phenomenon. Having said all of that I must confess to watching
some of the matches (sp?) of the World Cup Soccer game a year or so ago…
it was, fortunately, a passing daliance, but intertesting at the time,
nonetheless. But the hideous spectacul of a neighbourhood dividing against
itself for a game is onanism in the most manifest!
September 15th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
peter costello looks like being the best liberal “premier” victoria has had in years.
todays heraldsun reports that he (p.c.) is going to upgrade geelong football club grounds.
i always thought that the position of prime minister (at least in the liberal party) was decided by the party, not the outgoing pm ?
September 15th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Whatya got against football?
September 15th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I can under stand woman watching.
But men watching other men running around in short shorts they should be hung up
September 15th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
if football stopped tomorrow it would only increase the joy in my life.
September 15th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
With an absence of Football what would be left would be a powerful celebration of the ARTS.
Inspiring and aspiring to a higher pursuit, and appreciating, as Richard Wagner said;
“The highest purpose of mankind is artistic.”
I wonder how far will Football suck and continue to attract to the lowest common denominator of Australia?
Will the Mozart’s of 2007 compose an Opera heralding the beauty, the divine, the romantic, or the comic of Football?
Why bother?
I might think of going to a Match if Football was considered to be an accepted form of “Therapy” - safe and holistic, with a Medicare Rebate.
HANG ON A MINUTE
NO I WOULDN”T!!
Silly Me, what was I thinking??
God gave people the gifts of Art to lift people up, out of the ordinary into the extraordinary.
No one has to win, and no one has to lose.
Imagine that!?
September 15th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
I found out about this place by “chance”. Wish I’d known about it before - At one time I was fairly tolerant of AFL football until it reached saturation level and then it became intolerable. Football seems to take precendence over every other piece of news happening anywhere in the world. Religion is said to be the opiate of the masses - I tend to think football has replaced it - or maybe not after all AFL has so many devotees
September 17th, 2007 at 12:13 am
I was a member in the back in the 1990’s and I will gladly be a member a again!
A football free media is Nivana!
All hail the AFL!
September 17th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
You say at the top of the screen that there are only “12 more days until the end of the Australian Rules football season”. Are you sure? The football season never ends? ITs continuous, all year long!!!
And if its not footy, its full-on fanatic sport on all free-to-air TV, all year long. Am I treading on dangerous ground here mentioning that I’m not too fond of cricket or tennis either. If people like all these sports so much why not just go and watch them live, not inflicting the torture on the rest of the population who have higher interests.
Its so good to hear that the Anti-Footie League is alive and well. Lets hear more the AFL exploits. Shall we also start an ACL?
September 19th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Hi Jack,
Feel free to include my letter to The Courier in your comments section. It may encourage others to have a go at the media too.
September 20th, 2007 at 11:41 am
How refreshing to find out that my family are not the only ones who couldn’t give two hoots about football. We will gladly join you with the rebirth of the AFL!!
September 20th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
While everyone’s looking at the football they may not notice the erosion of our quality of life issues and our civil rights. ‘Bread and Circuses’ from the Roman days, thigs don’t seem to have changed. Are human beings still that shallow.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
I applaud you for being the voice of all of us football haters.
I would like to submit that the
leage should extend to holding bloody rugby league football in it’s contempt as well.
Living in NSW and not following (or even being remotely interested in) this pathetic “sport” is horrible. It seems to dominate television etc… without end.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
In this ‘More sport, more often’ country anything that gives relief from the never ending banal braying of anything to do with sport is to be encouraged.
Count me in - x 10
kate
September 20th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
As a child I was forced to attend football matches with the family every Saturday. I was supposedly kept amused with colouring-in books. Suffice to say I grew into an adult with a passionate distate for football,its machoistic, misogynist culture and colouring-in books. Subsequently, I determined never to give a child of mine a colouring-in book or to marry someone who liked watching football. I was successful with my fisrt determination, but failed on the second, my husband lied - he’s nuts about football…
P.S. As I don’t live in Vic.(S.A. is even worse) so can’t attend your luncheon and have been forced into hosting a finals b-b-q any suggestions on how to cope with the excrutiating tedium of the whole thing?
September 21st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I would like to, if not nominate, then applaud all those mothers like me. Mothers who (wo)manfully, against all odds, tried to bring up sons to play non invasive, hardly mentioned sports. Mothers who NEVER bought football paraphernalia, who NEVER encouraged watching/listening to all that dribble on radio and television..hey, I actually now have grown sons who can speak intelligently…and who encouraged them to have other role models.
3 cheers for us!!
September 21st, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I was a member back in the 1980s and am so glad to see the square again !!!!!
My husband follows Collingwood so the AFL was such a breath of fresh air for me back then and will be again.
Thanks
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:20 pm
i just found you site as a teenager i was forced to get belted up each week on the football field in the name of sport and also belted by the pe teacher for not being interested in ball games..softball which hurt when it hit me… basket ball gravel rash… squash black eye…ban the ball thats what i say
September 24th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Watched a segment on ‘Can We Help’. Thought, so glad there’s others so not interested in football. Even more excited to find a website. I’m tired of feeling like a freak. Keep up the good work.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:18 am
I just read the ’scandals comment’. I hate football because of scandals??? Hello????
September 24th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Help! I live a stone’s throw from Alberton Oval in Adelaide. This is the home ground of a team playing in next weekend’s final. Why do I pay such attention to these details? Because last time they were in a final the whole weekend here was absolute hell. Mind blasting, throbbing noise was broadcast through loadspeakers from early in the morning on the Saturday until the early hours of the morning then again on the Sunday. This is for the fans who come to watch the game on big screens. Today I have phoned the local council inquiring the terms of the permit required. Guess what. They are quite free to do what they like “just like a having a party” - “its football and only happens once a year”. I pointed out that I don’t use an obscure interest of mine to keep the broader neighbourhood awake and prevent them from studying or just enjoying their lives… Apparently this year they aren’t starting till 10am and will finish at midnight!!
Somebody help!!!
September 24th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
How long will it take Australia to evolve into a mature society and take a great as interest in all aspects of our culture as it does in sport?
Especially the dumbest, crudest and least intellectual of all games - football!
September 24th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Hi, was wondering if there is an event in Adelaide on Grand Final Day to celebrate life without football??
September 25th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Had to travel into Melbourne CBD on the night of one of these silly finals (don’t know which, don’t care) at the MCG. The traffic was dreadful for kilometers out, parking nearly impossible (CBD pay car parks full).
I finally found a spot to park the car in a multi level car park, parked the car and found myself traveling down in the lift with a number of fanatics of the “the dreaded game”.
I was wearing my anti football badge the whole time and not one of them noticed.
Does your organization hand out bravery awards for services to the AFL?
September 26th, 2007 at 10:56 am
After growing up with a love of local (country) footy, meat pies, and Chryslers, I’m saddened at the way footy has gone, with all the gutter tripe analysis by BOYS in men’s skin! It’s painful to watch and this banter plus the fact it’s turned into a complete money sport has driven me away from “the game” and onto this website!
September 26th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Today I received a flyer in my mailbox from Alberton(Owbn)Oval stating that as “a resident” of the area, the Power would like to inform me of the Grand Final celebrations for the coming weekend. I know they will be living at the oval for the weekend..but “a resident”?
September 26th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
your all ******* pompous losers! get a life you ****** sad *****! go and relax in the australina equivalent of buckingham palace you filthy *********!
September 26th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
theatre and fine wine for me - rah rah
September 26th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
FOOTBALL IS THE GREATEST THING EVER!
September 27th, 2007 at 12:23 am
JAN, I grew up loving football, and still do. I have two university degrees, am about to finish my postgraduate qualification, speak two languages, have lived on three continents, and of course could have an intelligent conversation with you and your sons. Actually, I bet they’re not as smart as you make out… we all know what mothers are like when they talk about their sons.
Enjoy Saturday folks, and could I suggest that some of you try to lose the bitterness.
And, by the way JAN, don’t you mean ‘drivel’ rather than ‘dribble’?. You don’t need me to point out how embarrassing that mistake is…
September 27th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Why did you delete my post? I thought i raised a valid point. Once again, enjoy Saturday.
September 27th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Talk about the stolen generations, my whole family have been stolen and sadly afflicted by the Collingwood virus. A deadly hereditary and terminal disease. I tried to save my youngest born, by innoculation with the shopping and lunching virus administered every Saturday. But alas, in the prime of her life, she has been gripped by the deadly fingers and drawn into the vortex.
September 27th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
WOW I am thrilled to bits that there are others like me out there!!!! I feel like I am at home at last! I can not stand the domination of the football culture in our lives. There are so many people out there that would appreciate half the time & effort that goes into footbal. YAY for the come-back of a great part of history.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:40 am
I’m totally with you guys! I was listening to one of the local (Brizzy) radios this morning when I heard about The Anti-Football League and must tell you: it made my day! I’m not alone
Thanks heaps!
September 28th, 2007 at 11:55 am
There should be a law against activities that every other day creates massive traffic problems like the football does. Is there an organisation against cricket as well?
September 28th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Are my ears deceiving me or did I just hear that the State Government is offering our taxes to upgrade an Australian Rules Football Ground at Geelong?
I don’t know about others, but I consider that a gross waste of my taxes, taxes paid through hard work on my part.
Let the Australian Football League fund their own silly pursuits, after all they generate millions of dollars as a business, why should a government support them with our money. Perhaps the Anti Football League should apply for funds to support our cause, you never know.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
In reply to Maryellen. I could not agree more. Let’s just make it and A S S L.(Anti spectator Sports League) If people played sport instead of watching it we would not have the obesity problem that we have now, but of course it suits governments to encourage this hysteria about sport to take our minds off what they are doing.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
I so agre