Despite football fans rarely agreeing upon anything, there is one belief that we all hold – Australian Rules Football is the greatest sport on earth.
With its laws forged from the Anglo-Celtic ethos of a fair go and its expansiveness born from the indigenous game of Marngrook, our game is more than simply entertainment – it is a true expression of identity.
It is quintessentially Australian, so why wouldn't we want to share it?
Due to this common agreement of sporting superiority and in an effort to spread the good word, we have seen our code exported to various far-flung locations around the globe.
Although these excursions may have ultimately proven futile, it is worth remembering the endeavors all the same.
As none of us will be able to jet off internationally any time in the foreseeable future, here is a list you can live vicariously through, comprised of the eleven countries Aussie Rules has officially been played in.
7.
Canada
At the same time that the VFL was trying to crack the American market in the late eighties, the league brass also scheduled exhibition games further north.
The first game in front of our Commonwealth cousins was in 1987, with the rising Demons taking on the Sydney Swans.
Played at Vancouver's B.C Place on the 9th of October, the record for an international Aussie Rules crowd was set, with a whopping 32,789 British Columbians claiming tickets.
Strangely, when the Demons again ran out onto the same venue against North just nine days later, only 7,890 people were in the bleachers.
This decline in interest was perhaps the reason why the pair of Canadian clashes for 1988 were fixtured across country in Toronto.
Although a brilliant crowd of 24,639 saw Melbourne take on Geelong under the roof of the Toronto Skydome on the 12th of October, this troughed to 18,500 four days later at Varsity Stadium for the Magpies and Hawks clash, despite the latter being played on a weekend.
Despite averaging just shy of 21,000 spectators across the four games played in the Hockey mad nation, the plug was pulled after just two years and has never been reattached.
