What is your first memory of football ?

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I remember snippets of the 1978 GF but the standout early memory was in 1979 about round 7ish. Carlton vs NM. I liked both clubs but chose Carlton on the day to support. Haven't looked back since despite losing that match. It was a great atmosphere, both clubs were undefeated. The last quarter was goal for goal and North got the last one to win by about 4 points. May have even been Blighty that kicked it?

I was hooked.
 
1975

I was a school kid growing up in New Zealand and playing schoolboy rugby union. At the end of the season on our muck up day the adults usually show a film to the boys of another great football final, usually it was the Superbowl or the FA Cup final but this year for some reason we had gotten hold of the official film of the 1970 GF Carlton v Collingwood.

Was absolutely gob-smacked, couldn't beleive a 'football game' could be so huge, so 3-dimensional, so long, so fast and so continously exciting.

Hooked ever since.
 

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wtaching a game on the tele when I was a kid - Richmond were playing & I remember Kevin Bartlett. Thats about all I remember of that game though.

Was not hooked until some considerable years later though. Kevin's hair style didnt do it for me at all.
 
June 14, 1976. Little 7 1/2 year old Master Ripper (then a nominal Carlton supporter
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but with no real interest in the game) is coaxed by Dad and Big Brother to attend the Queen's Birthday match at VFL Park between Essendon and Fitzroy. Roys concede 10 goals in the second quarter, but come from behind at 3/4 time to win by 10 points with Max George booting 5 on debut.

Little Master Ripper has a new love and is a Lion for life.
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August 4th, 1962. Alberton Oval.

Port 12.19 (91)
Torrens 10.11 (71)

Most of the star players from the two sides were missing that day because South Australia was playing Western Australia in Perth. S.A. won that match. It was S.A.'s first win in Perth for many many years apparently.

I was 7. I didn't really understand a lot of what was going on ... but I was hooked anyway. Port went on to win the premiership, losing only two matches for the season.

It's amazing how I still remember the score. In those days I had a great memory for trivial details. These days I just don't retain that stuff any more.

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**floreat pica**
 
Oh, by the way, ptw

I was at that 1976 Grand Final. Port started red-hot favourites. But Paul Bagshaw took us apart. Sturt really had the wood on Port in those days. Port hadn't won a premiership since 1965 and this was the 6th Grand Final we'd lost since then. I guess you could say that Port was going through its own version of the Colliwobbles.

But the drought broke the next season.



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**floreat pica**
 
My first memory of football was my late older brother telling me how good Sturt were after demolishing Port in the 1966 Grand Final. I loved Port. I was only six.

My first Grand Final attendance was hanging out of the Moreton Bay fig trees aside the old Score board at Adelaide Oval as North Adelaide demolished us in 1971.
The same thing happened again in 1972. I bawled my eyes out both times.

Went to the 1976 GF to watch Port get thumped again.

1977 ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! T win in a grand final after losing in 1966, 67, 68, 71, 72, 75.

PA1870
 
My first memory of football was my late older brother telling me how good Sturt were after demolishing Port in the 1966 Grand Final. I loved Port. I was only six.

My first Grand Final attendance was hanging out of the Moreton Bay fig trees aside the old Score board at Adelaide Oval as North Adelaide demolished us in 1971.
The same thing happened again in 1972. I bawled my eyes out both times.

Went to the 1976 GF to watch Port get thumped again.

1977 ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! T win in a grand final after losing in 1966, 67, 68, 71, 72, 75.

PA1870
 
Going to a final at Waverly with my Mums boss after my father died.
He was a Blues fan and it was me at 10 years old and a car full of Carlton supporters going from home (Moonee Ponds, deep in the heartland of Essendon) to Waverly. I was car sick and excited.
Got Alan Martellos autograph on the way inot the ground, can remember looking up and UP at this huge man, the biggest person id ever seen at that stage of my life (met Andre the Giant later, he was bigger lol)
The Hawks won and i was the only one happy on the journey home. Great memory to have as its the earliest and we beat Carlton in a final.
 
PA1870

that makes you 40 !!!

I had a picture in my mind of about 70 or 80 !!!

I thought you were going to say getting off the Ship at the Port and going to watch them play at Buck's Flat in 1872 !!

;-)

ptw
 

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Since so many of you are croweaters ..... and I'm a Brizzo ....

The first SANFL match I ever saw was a grand final "sometime" in the early-80s (didn't even know they played rules in SA back then!) as they used to televise the SA grand final on ABC a week after it had been played.

Now, details are sketchy, but it was one of the best knock-em-down, punch-in-backplay, all-in-stink, grubby and brawling games of any code of football I have ever seen !!! It was fantastic .... I think they may have even been at it before the first bounce.

You mob will know for sure exactly which year it was .... as for teams .... I'm thinking three .... Port, Centrals or Glenelg?

I distinctly remember the commentator saying something to the effect of "if this is football, then I want nothing to do with it" .... something along those lines.

And the first players I "recognised" as being something of stars ....

VFL - Jezza (taking "that" mark)
SANFL - Bomber Clifford (in a blue of course!)
QAFL - Owen Backwell (yes, young Backwell's old man!)

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Anyway, that's what I reckon ........

mud n blood
 
Sitting on the grass hill at Bassendean oval watching Swan Districts in the early-mid 80's. Think I spent more time playing dolls and running around with the other little kids than actually watching the game though!
 
On a Friday night in the mid-1980s, hanging out on the couch with my older brother, staying up late on our childhood caffeine buzzes looking for something to watch on TV.

What's this? Australian Rules Football? Holy cow these guys kill each other, with no pads. Look at them jump for the ball like that. Look at them be able to punt a ball through goal posts from 50 m away. Look at those umpires!

I always made it a point to watch whenever it was on late night cable. It was like no other sport I'd ever seen before. I admit, I always giggled at the umpire gestures in the white psychatric-hospital looking coats and hats. But I loved the sport.

I loved the names. Swans. Magpies. Kangaroos. No domestic sports teams would ever name themselves those!

Little did I know that so many years later I would have events in my life bring me to the ground zero of where it all happens and be able to see it take place with my own eyes.
 
My first memories are of Dad sitting down every weekend, Coke and peanuts in tow, to watch the Bombers. For the longest time, I didn't know any other team existed!!!!!!!!
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LOL. Also my very first awareness of football for myself was watching Alastair Lynch play for Fitzroy, lots of big marks and stuff. He was the reason I really got into football, and the Roys, in the first place.
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great post Stealth Bomber...

thought I would add my first game in Victoria.

I moved to MLB in 1993 and on a Friday night in round 1 walked down to that sacred ground, just to have a look.

It was Collingwood v Footscray (I think), but I was more impressed by the 'G...at night...73000 or something like that. I sat on the top deck of the Southern Stand and soaked it up.

I am as South Aussie as you can get...but nothing beats football in Melbourne in the middle of winter.

ptw
 
Like many on this post - for me it was also a Sturt vs Port match, a seond semi-final I think, brilliant sunshine at Adelaide Oval in about 1969. (Sturt later went on to defeat Glenelg for the premiership - their 5th in succession).

I was about 9 yrs old and near the boundary line. A Port wingman with flowing blonde locks tore past (Bruce "fastas" Light) and sent a long left foot bomb to the goal square where a wall of players appeared and a Port player seemed to soar over it ball clasped in outstretched hands. The jam-packed old ground erupted in black and white ... and I was hooked. But it was the silky skills and pin point passing of Jack Oateys Double Blues, resplendent in their sky blue in the spring sunshine that really won me over as their supporter.

I was at the '76 GF between Port and Sturt too. Like 70,000 other sardines in a half built stadium that now seats 47,000.

Stealth Bomber - that's a wonderful description of how good our game can be to others grown up on more restrictive sports. Let's hope the AFL strike a better deal for Nth America in the TV rights for 2002 and beyond.
 
Originally posted by ptw:
PA1870

that makes you 40 !!!

I had a picture in my mind of about 70 or 80 !!!

I thought you were going to say getting off the Ship at the Port and going to watch them play at Buck's Flat in 1872 !!

;-)

ptw


Get it right PTW ! 1870 .................

That GF in the early eighties was between West Adelaide and NorthAdelaide


Blood bath........


PA1870
 
Would've been when my old man took me out to a wet and miserable junction oval in either 83/84 to watch Essendon and the Roys. From memory Essendon won.

Think I was about 5 at the time.
 
I remember being at Marnoo wearing a Nooers guernsey #31, with a mate who wore #22, dunno how old, these numbers referred to the May brothers.

First match I remember seeing any play of was at Navarre, Marnoo getting thumped as per usual.

First VFL/AFL match I went to was a practice match between South Melbourne and Collingwood at Ararat, once again I dunno when.
 
I can clearly remember my first VFL game - it was about 1977, and my parents took me to Arden Street to watch the Roos. I had the fold up little chair which I stood on so I could see. The match was Essendon v North, and the Roos were behind and had about 17 fit men on the ground, and they got up and won.. It was a memorable day.
 
1978 cold, wet and raining at Waverley.
Footy trip for the under 12's (i would have been 6), Hawthorn v Melbourne, Robbie Flower burnt on a wing, Maccas on the way home (we didnt have one within 200 odd kms back then!)
 

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