Boys and Their Balls - Part 23

 Australian Rules Football

Australian rules football evolved from rugby, not American football.  It's played on an oval field, like cricket, and to score a goal you have to kick the ball through the goalposts, not just run it over the line like American football.  Throwing the ball is not allowed, but tackling is.

Aussie rules football, also called footy, is the most popular sport in Australia.  Above are members of the Victorian Football League, the association of professional teams, photographed in the shower by Australian photographer Rennie Ellis in 1982.  In 1990 the Victorian Football League was renamed the Australian Football League (AFL).  All of the professional Australian rules football teams belong to the AFL.

Some AFL players become celebrities, like some NFL players do in the U.S.  AFL player Ryan Fitzgerald appeared on the 2004 TV show Big Brother Australia, above, and went on to a career in radio and TV.

Former Collingwood Football Club player Brodie Holland did some modeling.

Anthony Koutoufides played with the Carlton Football Club and was considered one of the most powerful and athletic players of all time.  This 1997 photo was captioned "the Greek Adonis."

Travis Cloke, left, and Dane Swan, players for the Collingwood team known as the Magpies, congratulate each other after a victory.  In 2016, both of them got catfished into sending naked selfies to women (or people who said they were women) on Instagram.  The photos then got published in a magazine, but I could only find censored copies online.

However, I did find this photo of Dane Swan displaying a tattoo of Sam Newman, host of the Australian TV program "The Footy Show."  In 2014, Dane bet Sam on the show that the Magpies would make the finals, or else he would get Sam's face tattooed on his bum.  He lost the bet, and he appeared on the show (above) to prove that he had kept his word.

Lachie Keeffe, a player for the Greater Western Sydney Giants and former Collingwood player, got similarly catfished, but his uncensored photos are online, including the one above.

Other nude photos are all in good fun.  Here's the North Melbourne team in 1999 after winning the premiership, which is kind of like winning the Superbowl in U.S. football.

Speaking of fun, we end with a short video of Adelaide Football Club members Scott Thompson and Rory Laird at the beach.  They're wearing budgie smugglers, the Aussie term for a skimpy swimsuit that accentuates a guy's bulge, looking like someone might have stuffed a budgie in there.  Watch what happens when Scott puts a live crab into Rory's budgie smugglers.