First exposure was VFL matches that were aired on ESPN here in the late '80s. I believe it was two years, but could have been just one, so either the only year or one of the two would have been '87 because I recall thinking Brisbane's logo was too "cute" for a pro football team. (The intro flashed all of the club logos on the screen.) I specifically recall watching Richmond because there was a Tiger at the time that had a last name that sounded like mine. (Caught my attention whenever he got the ball.) Loved the game from the start. Holding the ball was pretty confusing though. We don't have anything like that in our codes. Just the opposite. In every sport it's important to hold onto the ball.
Then they didn't renew which kind of bummed me out. (I've always been a night owl, and worked at home so staying up all night and watching a match wasn't any trouble for me.) No way to keep up on the sport, so I couldn't keep up with it really, and though I liked it, I didn't understand it enough to warrant going out of my way, which would have been pretty expensive to get satellite back then. So it wasn't until the internet age that I became reacquainted. Had pretty much forgotten all about it and stumbled upon Mero's site while researching some jersey history of some kind of another. Started watching a bit on youtube, started following the league through afl.com.au and was able to watch here on ESPN2 and espn3.com (i think it's espngo.com now, not sure), but that has since ended. Of course, in the meantime, I've gotten to meet some footy fans here and online, and it's been my favorite sport for at least half a decade now. All the sports I've watched over and over for years and years here got very quickly boring to me (if they weren't already) about that time.
I started by just enjoying and learning the rules fully, then strategy, etc. Over a couple of years (as I was able to watch full matches here online) I found myself wanting to see certain clubs win their matches. And when a couple of those clubs played each other, I would find myself taking one side and cheering them on. I guess it was initially the jumpers I liked, then the players and style of team play for each club that started influencing that. It was down to a few clubs (I won't say, ha), and one of them was the Pies. I really wanted to like them, but I knew they were one of those clubs everyone loves to hate, and I hate all those teams here. So I didn't want to like them because of that. I also didn't want to like them because the jumpers look like traditional referees' uniforms here. Malthouse, the quickness and ability of the small guys Didak and Davis, and the speed of the big man Harry O in the back, and one thing led to another and I realized they were my team.
Odd journey here, but I'm glad it happened.
Now, stand with me and sing, "Oh, praise the internet, let it be always and forever, a means to watch footy around the globe..."