By Terence Brasch III
No one can argue with the passion that most Aussies have for their amazing sport, but around the world Australian Rules Football is mostly unheard of. I was about twenty-two when I first saw a match, and I can still remember it like it was yesterday.
I had just clocked out of my job at a local bar around 3:00 am, raced home, and turned the telly on. I flipped though a few late night television ads until I landed on some strange sport played in Australia on an oval field…
Now, this wasn’t just any game I had stumbled upon, it happened to be the 2010 Grand Final Replay. I was completely confused and thought to myself, “wait a minute… They just replay the whole match if there’s a tie? What kind of amazing sport is this?!?”. And to my surprise I found the sport a bit mesmerizing. Here was a game that requires endurance, strength, speed, and lots of coordination, and to top it off the crowd was going nuts as Collingwood won the match.
A few years had gone by, and I was away at Uni grabbing a slice of pizza one random day. As I shoveled pizza in to my mouth I noticed a community bulletin board with a flyer. The flyer had caught my eye because of a little man kicking a red oval shaped ball. I raced over called the number, and next thing you know it I had joined an Aussie Rules Football club! The next weekend the club met up for something called a “kick”.
There I was, kicking a footy for the first time, in a “real” footy club. Well that is, as real as a club with three members can be. There was me, the American dude, and two Aussies who happened to know way more about football then I did. We would meet up for a kick, drink tons of beer, and watch footy together. The club was great and all, but most the time it just left me wanting more. That’s when I found the Portland Steelheads.
The Portland Steelheads are an Australian Rules Football club in my hometown, Portland, Oregon. I found their website and read somewhere that they’d meet on Sunday afternoons to play football matches. I signed up for the league at that moment out of pure excitement, and committed myself to driving two hours back home every Sunday. I’d get there after a long drive, stretch, play for a couple of hours, and then drive two hours back to make it to my classes the next day. My parents thought I had gone mad when I finally had enough of the commute and decided to drop out of school to play more football.
Perhaps I had gone crazy, but in my first match I scored five goals, and I was absolutely determined to play more. A few weeks later I found out about a player exchange program. The U.S. national league, the USAFL, would find placements for players interested in playing with a local footy club in Australia.
So, I applied. Three times I applied, until I finally heard back from someone. They were a bit confused by my persistence since I had only been playing for a year. After they realized I was serious they asked me, where would I like to go, Western Australia or Victoria? Now, by this point I knew some of the history of the sport, and that Victoria had been where the sport had boomed for most of the history. I requested that I be placed in Victoria, somewhere in the country. It’s where I heard the tough, passionate, and gritty footy was played and that’s what I was looking for.
Two weeks later I had my placement in Dimboola… and three months after that I was on a plane headed around the world.
Now here I am. Gone away In a far away land playing a sport that I love. The trip has had its ups and downs, but I am so grateful to have had this opportunity.
If you’re now interested in my journey I’ve written a blog about it at www.FootyAbroad.com
TB III, Thanks for this terrific tale of footy. Would love to hear something about a game – this week’s? Yell out if you are in Melbourne.
Five on debut. ….that’ll make you chase that feeling again for life!
thanks for sharing your journey so far Terrence – Aussie rules & living in – certainly will test your resilience in many areas.
Ive checked out someof your blogs and the links and vids of the Steelheads in action – definitely the game is coming along Stateside, tho seemed to be quite a few Aussies living their dream of being intrnational athletes players :-)
Look forward to reading more.
PS Did you watch the movie Dimboola before heading over ???