The Auckland Australian Football League Official Site, begun in 1974, is an Australian rules football

Australian rules football

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

 competition in Auckland

Auckland

The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 and is one of the leagues governed by New Zealand AFL

New Zealand AFL

AFL New Zealand is the governing body of Australian rules football in New Zealand.AFL New Zealand currently has around 536 senior players. New Zealand, like Papua New Guinea and Queensland, has experienced a boom in junior participation in recent years with reports of as many as 10,000 junior...

.

An earlier league which existed in Auckland from 1904 until the outbreak of World War I was also known, for a time, as the Auckland Australian Football League.

Current Clubs

Club	Location	Formed	Website
Manurewa Raiders	Manurewa Manurewa Manurewa is the southernmost major suburb of Manukau City, one of the four cities that make up the metropolitan area of Auckland in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located 6km south of the Manukau City Centre, and 26km southeast of the Auckland CBD....	1991	Official Site
North Shore Tigers	North Shore North Shore, New Zealand North Shore City was the name of a city that existed in the Auckland region of New Zealand from 1989 until 2010. The city had a population of making it the fourth most populous city in New Zealand prior to November 2010...	1974
University Blues	University of Auckland University of Auckland The University of Auckland is a university located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the largest university in the country and the highest ranked in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, having been ranked worldwide...	1981	Official Site
Mt Roskill Saints	Mount Roskill	1991	Official Site
Takapuna Eagles	Takapuna Takapuna Takapuna is a central, coastal suburb of North Shore City, located in the northern North Island of New Zealand, at the beginning of a south-east-facing peninsula forming the northern side of the Waitemata Harbour...	1981
Waitakere Magpies	Waitakere Waitakere Waitakere City was the name of a city which existed from 1989 until 2010 in the Auckland region. It was New Zealand's fifth largest city, with an annual growth of about 2%...	1999	Official Site

External links

• Official Auckland AFL website
• Auckland AFL pages on New Zealand AFL site

Historic League

The 'Auckland Football Association (under Victorian rules)' was formed at a meeting at Foresters' Hall, Newton on 28 April 1904. The initial subscription rate was 2s 6d, and forty members were enrolled at that meeting. At the 1906 AGM, the name was changed to 'The Australian Football League of Auckland' in order to differentiate the league from Rugby Union and Association (soccer) football. After several active seasons which were covered in some depth in the local papers, the league went into decline around the end of the decade due to the departure of a number of the Australian players back home. In 1912 the senior competition was put on hold due to the lack of players, with only a junior competition continuing.

Clubs

Initially there were three teams in the competition; Auckland Imperial, Austral and Victoria Football Clubs. The Victoria Club changed its name to the Eden Football Club in 1906.

A fourth club, Newton, was formed in 1908.

Players

A number of the players in the league were immigrants from the southern Australian states. Regular mention was made in the newspaper reports of the arrival of these gentlemen and their intintions to play football in Auckland.

Four VFL players played for the league at various times, including Vic Cumberland

Vic Cumberland

Harold Vivian "Vic" Cumberland , also known as Harry Cumberland, was an Australian rules footballer in the VFL and the SANFL....

 who was rated one of the best VFL players of the day:

Player	Years in Auckland	VFL Club details
Ben Sandford	1904 –	St Kilda 1901-03
Vic Cumberland Vic Cumberland Harold Vivian "Vic" Cumberland , also known as Harry Cumberland, was an Australian rules footballer in the VFL and the SANFL....	1905–1906	Melbourne 1898-1901; St Kilda 1903-04 1907-08 1912-15 1920
Hughie Webb	1905	Geelong 1900-03
Hughie Callan Hughie Callan Hughie Callan was an Australian rules footballer who played for Essendon and South Melbourne in the Victorian Football League ....	1906	Essendon 1903-05; South Melbourne 1907-1910

Administrators

The inaugural president of the league in 1904 was a Mr McNamara. He was supported by a large committee that included 5 vice presidents; Messrs Hale, McKeon, Walsh, Kneebone and McVeigh. At the 1905 AGM, Dr Tracy Inglis

Tracy Inglis

Dr. Tracy Russell Inglis, M.B., Ch.B. , C.B.E., , was an Auckland medical practitioner, war surgeon and sports administrator. Sometime around 1916 he adopted the name, Russell Tracy-Inglis. He is the grandson of pioneering, Australian physician, Dr. Richard Thomas Tracy.-Early life:Dr Inglis was...

 was elected President, a position he held for a number of years. The league had a number of prominent people involved during it existence. Patrons of the league in 1905 included politicians George Fowlds

George Fowlds

Sir George Matthew Fowlds CBE was a New Zealand politician of the Liberal Party.-Member of Parliament:George Fowlds represented the City of Auckland electorate from 1899 to 1902, and then the Grey Lynn electorate from 1902 to 1911....

 and F E Baume

Frederick Baume

Frederick Ehrenfried Baume was a New Zealand politician of the Liberal Party.From 1902 to 1905 he was one of the three Members of Parliament representing the multi-member City of Auckland electorate....

.

Competition

The new leagues first game was a scratch match held on 30 April on the outer Domain. Several rounds of practice matches followed prior to the start of the competition. By the end of the 1904 season Austral and Imperial were "on a level footing", with Austral taking the honours, 29 to 18, in the final which was held at the Domain Cricket Ground.