information about AFL in light of this weekend's 'grand final'

(note: all of this information could be totally wrong)

in australia, the national sport is commonly acknowledged as AFL, which stands for 'australian football league'. (actually when i say, 'in australia' i mean 'in victoria', even though the league pretends to be national. you will see what i mean)

18 players from each side are on the field at any given moment. there are four goal posts. you score 6 points for kicking the ball through the middle two posts or 1 point for the others. i think the players have different positions like 'fullback' and 'ruck' and probably 'captain' but that is all i can remember. plus they basically run all over the field like you do in basketball anyway, positions seem like a non-issue. games are played in quarters and last for about two hours overall, but they can go into overtime for reasons which are unclear to me.

in the australian football league there are 16 teams. but this year a new team called 'sunshine something' or 'gold coast suns' probably was created, because they wanted the football teams to represent the states better. this has happened before to my knowledge, specifically with the fitzroy lions and the brisbane bears. they became the brisbane lions. there is always talk 'off season' about spreading the teams more evenly across the country: most of the teams are based in victoria. this is a list of the teams that exist and the states they are based in, and some of their slogan or commonly referred to names if i can remember them. also they all have songs, i will write some of the lyrics if i can remember them

collingwood magpies (vic) "caaarn the pies". song goes "good old collingwood foreverrrr, they know how to play the game. side by side they stick together.. something something" etc. at the moment on the collingwood town hall there is a big ass banner that has the first line of this song on it. lol

geelong (vic) called the cats, or more accurately "catters!!!!"

fremantle (WA) they are called "dockers", which seems arbitrary, but i think is derived from the fact that fremantle is a port town, ports - docks. maybe? nobody goes for this team idk, but as a girl i liked them because one of their colours is purple

west coast eagles (WA) usually known as "west coast"

port adelaide (SA) known as "port power"

adelaide crows (SA) sometimes people from south australia are called "crow eaters".

western bulldogs (vic) known as "doggies"

carlton (vic) known as carlton, traditionally a crap team. used to be called "carlton blues"

melbourne demons (vic) their song goes something like "it's the team for me and for you...the red and the blue"

essendon (vic) known as bombers. song goes "see the bombers fly up, up!" traditionally collingwood and essendon fans hate each other. also a tradition is for these teams to play an 'anzac day game' (april 25), i think it has something to do with how many of their players were in the first world war. one thing that really annoys me about bombers fans is that they always refer to their team as "essedon". srsly guys there's an N in there

st kilda (vic) "SAINTERZZZZZ"

hawthorn (vic) "hawks!!!!"

richmond (vic) "tIgErZ"

sydney swans (nsw) seems like an elegant animal. maybe ask james about them

north melbourne (vic) somebody from my hometown used to play for this team, his name was shannon something or other. i do not know much about this club now

brisbane lions (QLD) these guys were really good for a while there, winning that cup on the reg. think they are just called "the lions"


this year's grand final is between geelong and collingwood. last night on 'the footy show' the hosts said that they thought geelong would win, that they were ready for the win or something

i was watching that programme because my mum was watching it. she has been an avid afl fan since she moved here with my dad. he went for collingwood. collingwood used to train at the football ground right near my house, which is still painted black and white in their colours. it is tradition in the anderson family to go for collingwood, which accounts for how i know the song so well. when i moved into my place i told my mum it was close to victoria park and she said that dad took her to see a game there when she first arrived.

last year collingwood and st kilda played two grand finals because there was a tie in the first. i remember i was meeting up with some friends at 'crown casino' to hang out after the game and people were just leaving the place really dejected, weird vibes. then somebody told me that it was a draw and i found it really funny. collingwood won the second game which was their first grand final victory in about 18 years. i felt pretty happy about this in a way because i have emoshunal feelings about that team re: my dad. we have this video of the last time they won the grand final in 1991. i think it would be nice if they won again this year, i do not want 'the footy show' people to be right about geelong being ready to win it, because even though cats are my favourite animal the geelong team has always seemed really snarling and horrible. plus it's really nice saying stuff like "caaarn the pies!" cause pies are yummy