AFL Krakow / Futbol australijski Kraków

Super news from Fort Nysa - the first Australian Rules football oval in Poland and the third in Europe!

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We are giving a big shout out to our great mates up the road at Fort Nysa who introduced over 100 students to Aussie Rules in a single session and setting what is believed to be a European record for the highest number of U18 players participating in an Aussie Rules training session.

Getting stronger every day and setting the scene for the decades to come 💪🏉🤎🧡🇦🇺🇵🇱🇪🇺

Great to see Queensland's Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk MP, sharing the spoils of the AFL Women's Premiers, the Brisbane Lions, and showing her support for her Polish heritage 🏉🏆🇦🇺🇵🇱

So proud of the Brisbane Lions Women's team. Two Premierships in three years! Congrats on the win and thanks for stopping by to show me the Cup.

Our friends at Fort Nysa are again hosting the Nysa Cup on 26 August 2023.

2023 also sees the city Miasto i Gmina Nysa celebrating its 800th anniversary. Sto lat!

We encourage all friends of Australian football to get along to the Nysa Cup and indulge in the amazing Nysa hospitality, history and sites around this great town.

165 years ago, not long after Strzelecki had passed through Melbourne, Australian Rules football kicked off between two of Melbourne’s prominent schools.

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Kicking goals in Australian Rules football since 1858! 🏉

Students from Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar went head-to-head in several footy matches. These are credited as the first organised games of Australian Rules football.

The next year a set of rules was drawn up and regular games became a feature in parks around Melbourne. By the 1870s, crowds of 10,000 people were attending games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to watch this uniquely Australian game.

Read more about this Defining Moment: https://bit.ly/3q37ybt

Image: A football match: Carlton v Melbourne, The Australasian Sketcher, 18 June 1881. State Library of Victoria

For those seeing National NAIDOC being celebrated in the AFL and are uncertain of what it relates to, NAIDOC is a week of celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples' history, culture, and achievements over tens of thousands of years.

And there are Aboriginal connections to Krakow worth celebrating in the past few centuries.

Theodore Krakoer, born in Krakow in 1818, later moved to England via Berlin, Germany. After some indiscretions with the English law, he was transported to Australia in 1851. Here he would become the forefather of the AFL's famous indigenous Krakouer footballing family.

Jimmy, Phil and Andrew Krakouer all donned the Kraków PL city colours at North Melbourne FC Kangaroos 💙🤍 where they demonstrated some electrifying exploits on the field. After eight years and a final season that included their younger brother, Andrew, in 1989, Jimmy and Phil both departed for two seasons with the St Kilda Football Club and Western Bulldogs respectively while Andrew played on for one more year at the Kangaroos.

The next generation of Krakouers saw Jimmy's son, Andrew, make an impact in the AFL with Richmond FC and Collingwood Football Club whilst his cousin, Nathan, did so with the Port Adelaide Football Club and the Gold Coast Suns's inaugural team.

Between the Krakouers, they have achieved greatness in the AFL including:
Jimmy - Indigenous Team of the Century; North Melbourne FC Team of the Century; Syd Barker Medal 1986 (North Melbourne FC Best and Fairest); North Melbourne FC leading goalkicker 1983 (shared with Phil), 1986 and 1988.
Phil - AFL Goal of the Year 1986; North Melbourne FC leading goalkicker 1983 (shared with Jimmy), 1985 and 1987.
Andrew - AFL Mark of the Year 2011.

We also acknowledge and celebrate in this Poland.pl Year of Strzelecki, being 150 years since the death of Sir Pawel Edmund de Strzelecki, the role of Gundungurra man, Charley Tarra, in securing safety and survival of Strzelecki's groundbreaking explorations across the so-called Colony of New South Wales in 1840. In modern-day Gippsland (named by Strzelecki), Tarra sourced kangaroos and koalas to ensure their survival given limited rations after abandoning their horses in thick scrub. This ensured they were able to return to what the Kulin nations know as Naarm and what was then a freshly named Melbourne, home of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and Australian football which takes much influence from the Aboriginal game, marngrook.
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On this journey, Strzelecki named what he understood as being Australia's highest peak as Mt Kosciuszko for it reminded him of Kosciuszko Mound from his time in Krakow. He also wanted to honour Polish national hero, Major General Tadeusz Kosciuszko, with a prominent landmark. Here he also picked a native daisy and sent to his love back in Poland. The Kosciuszko name was later transferred to the adjacent peak being the highest on the lands of Ngarigo people who are in the process of a dual name rather than removing the Kosciuszko name given all for which he stood and fought for.

Strzelecki also dedicated an entire chapter to Aboriginal peoples in his 1845 book, Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, which detailed a broad range of matters from this 1840 journey and included a recommendation to provide freedoms and protections for all of the traditional custodians of the lands.
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Polish involvement in Australian football is not a new thing. And 75 years ago is not the earliest example of this. But knowing busloads of footballers traverse Poland and Europe for games, we were fond of this article about multiple busloads of Poles who saw North Hobart Football Club take on Clarence Football Club in the Tasmanian Football League in 1948.

While there was an upset in the results on the day with Clarence winning its first match that season, the real winners on the day were the 240-strong Poles who took away a couple of Aussie Rules footies and were united in declaring to start footy practice "the next day." 🏉🏉

You can see the full article from The Mercury Newspaper 👇

Poles Like Australian Football
Recent arrivals in Tasmania, 240 Poles were guests of the Tasmanian Football League at the North Hobart ground on Saturday, and declared that the Australian code was a great game.

Six buses brought the men to the ground from Brighton camp, and after meeting league officials they were taken in hand by spectators.

Most of them understood English and were able to follow the basic principles of the game, and after meeting some of the players they seemed to have an added interest in the play.
They were amazed at the pace, which they considered much faster than rugby, and the long kicking principle appealed to them.

They took two footballs back to the camp and declared their intention of starting to play the Australian code "the next day."

It is that time of year again to head a bit north to Nysa for the II Nysa Cup - Międzynarodowy Turniej Futbolu Australijskiego

A great tournament in the year hosted by the good crew at Fort Nysa. Better still, 2023 sees Miasto i Gmina Nysa celebrating its 800th anniversary and it has plenty of amazing history associated with the region.

Our friends are encouraged to get along and no doubt that there will be spots on a few of the men’s and women’s competing teams should anyone be seeking to lace up and have a kick with teams from Poland, Austria, Czech Republic and Germany getting amongst it.

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Wiele osób pyta się kiedy ogłosimy uczestników II Nysa Cup - Międzynarodowy Turniej Futbolu Australijskiego 🙌

Chyba już najwyższy czas aby to zrobić ☺️
Z wielką przyjemnością informujemy, że podczas drugiej edycji Nysa Cup, która odbędzie się 26 sierpnia zobaczymy zarówno męskie jak i kobiece zespoły.

W rywalizacji męskich drużyn zagrają Fort Nysa, Prague Dragons - SKPŠ Praha, Vienna Galahs Australian Football Club oraz Heildelberg Knights.

Natomiast wśród kobiecych drużyn zobaczymy zawodniczki Fort Nysa, Vienna Galahs oraz Heildelberg Knights wzmocnione zawodniczkami Prague Dragons oraz AFL Warszawa Bisons.

Zapowiada się świetny turniej! Dołączajcie do wydarzenia i śledźcie najnowsze informacje 🙏

Ministerstwo Sportu i Turystyki i Andrzej Buła obejmą Nysa Cup patronatem honorowym 👏

Futbol Australijski w Polsce - AFL Poland
AFL Europe
AFL In Europe
Git around it - AFL in Europe Podcast
Usługi Remontowo Budowlane "Ekipaa" Maciej Szulc
Szkoła Policealna Vademecum ECN

The 2023 Reclink Australia Community Cup was held at the historic home of Collingwood Football Club, Victoria Park, on the weekend.

This 30th edition of the Community Cup again raised funds for Reclink to deliver its community art, recreation and sports programs to disadvantaged persons through the efforts of radio personalities lacing up for the Megahertz versus the musicians of the Rockdogs infused with music, antics and hotly contested footy throughout the day topped off with legendary Aussie punk rockers, the Cosmic Psychos.

Ensuring a great Polish flavour was had at the event, Melbourne's famed Pierogi Pierogi delivered a great taste of Poland's favourite parcels of goodness enjoyed by the thousands in attendance complete with pickles, sour cream and dill.

The winners on the day? Of course it was the team sporting Poland's national colours, the Megahertz ❤️🤍

🇬🇧 The second edition of Nysa Cup will be held under the patronage of the Marshal of the Opole Voivodeship Andrzej Buła ! 🥳🇵🇱 🥳
We are pleased to inform you that the second edition of the Nysa Cup - the Australian International Football Tournament, which will take place on August 26, 2023, will be under the honorary patronage of the Marshal of the Opole Voivodeship Andrew Buł która
It's worth reminding that we recently mentioned to you about the honorary patronage of Ministerstwo Sportu i Turystyki 🙌
4 men's and 4 women's teams from Fort Nysa and foreigners will compete for the Nysa Cup 🏆
Put this date in your calendars and book your hotels, as on 26 August Nysa will become the capital of Australian Football 🧡🤎

🇵🇱 see below.

This is a great event and Nysa is a wonderful part of Poland with some amazing architecture and history worth engaging with in its 800th year.