1877 South Australian Football Season Records and Statistics

A comprehensive description of the 1877 South Australian Football season with overview of the Association and clubs. Detailed match reports and results, player details for each match, photographs and season profiles all contribute to make this the most comprehensive documentation of the inaugural Australian football season ever produced.

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An Excerpt

The 1877 football season was nothing short of a revolution of the South Australian game. A new system was established, with the formation of a code of rules, together with the oversight of an Association. As a result, play was vastly superior to that of 1876.

The commencement of an organised interclub competition in South Australia, through the formation of the South Australian Football Association (SAFA) in April, facilitated the first managed and structured football season in the growing young colony. This positive initiative resulted in a quantum leap in the development of the sport. The historic season gave the game much more impetus than it ever had before and during the season the game progressed rapidly and uninterruptedly.

At the end of the season there would have been plenty of satisfaction amongst the football community, as the game clearly took its place as a popular sport in the colony, because of the success of the SAFA. The season demonstrated that football could have a future as the great national game, with the first intercolonial matches conducted.

Football in Adelaide had previously been played under a variety of rules and conditions. The formation of the SAFA improved the game significantly, from its rough and ready situation, where there were a number of disputes, due to different rules for the matches played. A uniform approach to football was achieved, as the member clubs agreed on a common set of playing rules, based on those used in Melbourne. The new rules allowed all men with various talents to use them and the old feature of play, where a few men, possessed of great physical attributes, had matters all their own way, was replaced with a far greater range of expertise required throughout a team. Each member made a unique contribution to the team’s performance. This created a much more common sense of achievement from all members. The running men of the team played a role, as did the heavy men with their strength. Youngsters had a chance to dodge and elude opponents and the placed men each had particular requirements of judgement and positioning necessary for the team.

The adoption of a common and new set of rules in itself had a great deal to do with the massively increased popularity of the game from the previous season and the attendance of respectable citizens was considered an important element for success. The games of 1876 had 50/60 spectators and this was transformed into hundreds for the matches of 1877 and even thousands for the intercolonial matches. The number of spectators always included a number of ladies. The sport of football was acknowledged as worthy of the patronage of every citizen and a number of prominent supporters of the game served to boost the acceptance of the sport in Adelaide society’s ruling class.

Over fifty matches were conducted between the eight member clubs during the season and it was predicted that football would overtake cricket as the most popular sport in the colony, given the enormous increase in attendances that occurred.

In the season prior to the SAFA, the matter of which was the best team for the year was something that was left to the opinion of supporters and newspaper reporters, because matches had been conducted by individual clubs in negotiation with each other. Players moved freely between clubs, often playing with different teams in the same season. This all changed with the organisation of the SAFA.

The Register newspaper reporter Nomad in his preview of the season, on Monday April 9, suggested that the first step for the advancement of football in the colony should be the formation of an association, along the same lines as the South Australian Cricket Association (SACA). Club meetings, in and around Adelaide, brought a significant influx of new members and indicated a strong groundswell of support for an organisation of football through an association of clubs.