by Sue Langeder

Created on: February 20, 2009   Last Updated: March 02, 2009

Whether its watching your favorite team play from your living room couch or being amongst the action every week surrounded by the roar of the stadium, Australian Rules Football for eight months of the year plays a huge part in popular Australian culture.

Even if you don't watch it religiously, or keep tally of the scores, Australian Rules football impacts an Australian's life somehow over the season.

The professional AFL season is 22 weeks of games plus 4 weeks of finals. There is also a pre-season game (the NAB cup) that adds another 6 weeks of football to the calendar.

For the Australian who is not into football, you can guarantee there is a football tipping competition in the office, school, the local paper, the daily paper or even your cell phone website that will entice you into the season's action. Some people will say that they don't barrack for any team, but once you prod and poke them a few times, they'll say that they have a soft spot for one of the teams.

For the average Australian, who doesn't mind hearing the scores on the radio or TV in the evening news, they will generally sit down to watch one game in the year - the Grand Final. Football is a great water-cooler conversation to get to know your workmates. You have a team you've liked since you can remember, or there's a cute footballer in tight thigh-hugging shorts that plays for your team - you'll always be able to strike up a conversation about something in a football match.

The teams can be bitter rivals, and the supporters even more so. Some teams, like Collingwood and Carlton have a huge number of members that support them. Colllingwood is the arch enemy to all other teams, where as Carlton is usually supported by the European community of Australia. St Kilda has always been the underdog team - only ever winning one Grand Final in its 110 + year history. Essendon and Hawthorn are regulars at the top of the ladder. Western Bulldogs, formerly known as Footscray, are considered to be dirty players. Geelong, North Melbourne, Melbourne and Richmond are all good middle ground teams, that sometimes shine and sometimes lose sight of the shiny brass cup at the end. In the mid 1980s, South Melbourne became Sydney and the game went interstate and an onslaught of new interstate teams came on board - West Coast Eagles, Brisbane Lions, Adelaide Crows, Port Power and now there is talk of a Tasmanian team and a Gold Coast team. The interstate teams have create intense rivalry between the states.

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