The centre square in Australian football

June 14, 2008 ·  

There’s a great yarn by Jon Anderson in the print edition of the Herald Sun about the introduction of the centre square to Australian football, including a terrific photo.

It was June 5, 1971 when Carlton and Fitzroy played at Princes Park they experimented with a one-off trial using the centre square.

The concept was adopted as a diamond in 1973 and became the square we know today in 1975. That’s the year I started playing football as a junior, so I’ve known it all my life.

The square keeps players who aren’t followers out of the centre when the umpire bounces the ball after a goal or to begin a quarter.

It stops an ugly scrum developing around the ruck contest and creates space for running players to join the contest and clear the ball.

Anderson’s story includes interviews with four players from the 1971 match, none of whom I had ever heard of.

I recognised some names from the two teams, more from Carlton because they were between premierships that year. Warwick irwin was playing for Fitzroy and continued for many years.

The photo shows the wonderful alliterative banners that used to adorn boundary fences before advertising took over: Courageous Carlton” and “Lusty lively leaping Lions”.

Football was a different game then, just semi professional. Fitzroy wingman David Rhodes was quoted in the article saying it was a good time.

“I can remember our ruckman Russell Crow having a fag at halftime and a nip at three-quarter time,” he said.

I can imagine what a modern coach would do if one of his players fuelled up during a break!

Similar articles

Tags: , , ,

Bookmark and Share

« We have a puppy  » Lions lose the marketing plot


Comments

Leave a Reply




    Search


  • Random posts

    • Archives



    Useful stuff