Can anyone tell me the actual name of the Font that is used for the guernsey numbers and when they were first used. Has there been other fonts before the current one or has it remained the same since numbers were first used on jumpers?
Before the wider prevalence of the PC in the early 1980s what we today call fonts were typefaces.
There were thousands of typefaces.
Some have been converted to PC based fonts, others have not.
Numbers in the earliest days were made of felt and sewn onto jumpers.
Traditionally most manufacturers used Helvetica as the standard font for numbers.
Although some manufacturers would simply cut the number by machine, based on a hand drawn template.
This might roughly have been close to Helvetica, or another typeface, but was effectively what we would call a custom font today
With the advent of fonts, and printed numbers, came fons.
Helvetica has been used by some clubs, more recently Impact and Helvetica Condensed as well.
As far as the AFL number font, I believe it is custom made for the AFL, who hold the licence to print the numbers with the AFL logo on them.
They are designed to look like the old school footy numbers based on Helvetica, but are slightly different.
The only way to get these numbers on your PC is to trace them or make copies from photos footy jumpers. Or buy every single number from an AFL supplier and scan them.
(or if you have graphics software you can lift them from the pdf catalogues of AFL suppliers)
There are also version of these numbers with an outline.
Some clubs use the outline in the same colour as the number, thus making the number Bold.