• Contact
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
  • Magazine
    • About Forty South
    • Print magazine subscription
    • Advertise
    • Print magazine archive
    • Editorial policy
    • Complaints policy
  • Publishing
    • Publishing
    • Book submissions
  • Shop
    • Books and DVDs
    • Print magazine subscriptions
    • Current and back issues
  • Writing prizes
    • Tasmanian Writers' Prize
    • Young Tasmanian Writers' Prize
  • The Van Diemen Decameron
  • Environment
  • Wilderness
  • Events
    • Stories of Tasmania BOFA
  • Science
  • Epicure
  • Young Tasmania

  • History
  • The Arts
    • Books & writing
    • Portfolio
    • Poet's Corner
    • Artists and Artisans
  • People
  • Travel and tourism
    • Towns of Tasmania
  • Business
  • Voices
    • Tasmanian Voices
    • Young Tasmanian Voices
    • Blogs
    • Columns

  • Environment
  • Wilderness
  • Events
    • Stories of Tasmania BOFA
  • Science
  • Epicure
  • Young Tasmania

  • History
  • The Arts
    • Books & writing
    • Portfolio
    • Poet's Corner
    • Artists and Artisans
  • People
  • Travel and tourism
    • Towns of Tasmania
  • Business
  • Voices
    • Tasmanian Voices
    • Young Tasmanian Voices
    • Blogs
    • Columns
  • Environment
  • Wilderness
  • Events
    • Stories of Tasmania BOFA
  • Science
  • Epicure
  • Young Tasmania
  • History
  • The Arts
    • Books & writing
    • Portfolio
    • Poet's Corner
    • Artists and Artisans
  • People
  • Travel and tourism
    • Towns of Tasmania
  • Business
  • Voices
    • Tasmanian Voices
    • Young Tasmanian Voices
    • Blogs
    • Columns
  • Contact
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
  • Magazine
    • About Forty South
    • Print magazine subscription
    • Advertise
    • Print magazine archive
    • Editorial policy
    • Complaints policy
  • Publishing
    • Publishing
    • Book submissions
  • Shop
    • Books and DVDs
    • Print magazine subscriptions
    • Current and back issues
  • Writing prizes
    • Tasmanian Writers' Prize
    • Young Tasmanian Writers' Prize
  • The Van Diemen Decameron
AFL Aspirations
Tasmanian Voices

For Tasmanian kids, footy is a long-distance love affair

by Saul Eslake
22 Jun 2021

In the absence of a truly national competition, I have been an Essendon supporter since I was first asked, as a kid at Smithton Primary School in the mid-1960s, who I barracked for. At the time, the only place in Melbourne I’d ever heard of (apart...


Tasmanian Voices

Treated with contempt

by Saul Eslake
15 Apr 2021

The game we now know as “Australian rules” football has been part of life on this island for as least as long as it has been called Tasmania. The Hobart Town Daily Courier of Friday, August 5, 1853, informed its readers that, on the following Wednesday, the Cessation of Transportation to Van Diemen’s Land would be celebrated at Richmond by, among other things, “Games … of Foot-ball”.



Become a Forty South Insider

sign up



We pay our respects to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people as the traditional and original owners and continuing custodians of lutruwita, and acknowledge elders past and present.

Shop

Print subscriptions Books and DVDs Back issues

Connect

Advertising Contact Us About Forty South

Policies

Editorial policy Complaints policy

Sponsorships

Theatre Royal RHH Research Foundation
© Copyright Forty South 2025
DESIGNED AND POWERED BY PAGEMASTERS PUBLISH
Join our newsletter
Our love letter
– your newsletter –
on all things Tasmanian
Our love letter
– your newsletter –
on all things Tasmanian
sign up