The site for Adelaide was chosen by Colonel William Light and the proclamation of the colony of South Australia occurred at Holdfast Bay on the 28th December 1836.
Following exploration, a Special Survey was gazetted in 1841 and the township of Strath Alben (Strathalbyn) was laid out on both sides of the River Angas.
The first recorded game of Australian Rules Football was played in Melbourne on the 7th August 1858 between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College at Richmond Paddock, which is adjacent to the Melbourne Cricket Ground of today.
The match was refereed by Mr Tom Wills and Mr. John Macadam.
Various historians claim that Marn Grook, a collective name given to a number of indigenous aboriginal “football games” using a stuffed ball, had an influential role in the formation of Australian Rules Football.
The oldest surviving set of rules for the game, was drawn up on the 17th May 1859 and appears to have been based on the rules utilised at the time by “Gaelic football, Association football, Rugby football and possibly Marn Grook”.
The formation of football clubs quickly followed, with Melbourne and Geelong (1859), North Melbourne (as Hotham 1860), Carlton (1864), Essendon, Hawthorn and St Kilda (1873), South Melbourne (1874), Footscray (1877) and Collingwood (1892) in Victoria.
In South Australia, the Adelaide football club was established in 1860 and Port Adelaide (1870), North Adelaide (1875), West Adelaide (1871), South Adelaide (1876) and Woodville (1877) soon followed.
The first inter colonial (interstate) match between Victoria and South Australia was played in 1879.
Matches between clubs were challenges, usually organised some weeks in advance due to communications and transport difficulties, and then the agreed rules were negotiated prior to matches getting underway.
The increasing requirement for uniformity of the rules, and their application by umpires, and for club structure, resulted in the formation of both the Victorian Football Association and the South Australian Football Association in 1877.
The inaugural VFA comprised of Albert Park, Carlton, Hotham, Melbourne, St Kilda, Geelong, Barwon, Ballarat, Beechworth, Castlemaine, Rochester and Inglewood clubs.
Organisational difficulties soon arose as new teams arrived and some disbanded and in 1897 the stronger clubs united to form the Victorian Football League.
The inaugural SAFA in 1877, comprised of South Park, Willunga, Port Adelaide, North Adelaide, Prince Alfred College, Gawler, Kapunda, Bankers, Woodville, South Adelaide and Victoria clubs.
Over time, new clubs entered the competition, while some left, and in 1907 the name South Australian Football League was adopted and changed again in 1927, to the South Australian National Football League of today.
As greater professionalism entered the game and more money was on offer, the best football players from S.A , W.A. and Tasmania were being recruited to the VFL which had a detrimental effect on the football standard in those donor states.
This lead, in 1987, to the formation of the Australian Football League of today and the VFA of the past has adopted the name VFL and comprises mainly of clubs aligned to AFL clubs, with only a few “stand alone” clubs.
The South Melbourne Football Club relocated to Sydney in 1982 and, in due course, adopted the name of the Sydney Swans.
The West Coast Eagles and the Brisbane Bears (based at Carrara on the Gold Coast) joined the AFL in 1987
The Adelaide Crows Football Club entered the AFL in 1991 and the Port Power Football Club followed in 1997 and today, both clubs have their Reserves teams competing in the SANFL.
The Fitzroy Football Club was amalgamated with the Brisbane Bears in 1997, becoming known as the Brisbane Lions and relocated to Brisbane.
The Fremantle Football Club joined the AFL in 1995 and the “expansion clubs”, Greater Western Sydney and the Gold Coast Suns joined in 2011 to make up the eighteen team competition, which is the AFL of today.
Interest in this new game quickly spread into the rural areas of both Victoria and South Australia in the 1870’s, with Strathalbyn being one of the earliest to respond.