Krasnoyrsk Footy has started

Australian Rules Football has started in Krasnoyarsk.  

A few years ago I was also living in Krasnoyarsk. I had an Australian Rules football with me. I had no intention of starting a team. But I enjoy sport and there's nothing like "having a kick of the footy". So I invited a Russian friend of mine to kick the footy with me. 

You can see the story here:  Footy in Russia, May 2008.

Then I returned to live in Australia to do further linguistics studies. I returned to Krasoyarsk to live in May 2010. I didn't feel like I had anyone to kick the footy with and so nothing really happened.

Coming into 2011 I have been feeling a lot more settled in here in Krasoyarsk. I wanted to be more active in the community so I decided that I might put some signs up around the local community to advertise Australian Rules Football. I still haven't got around to putting up the signs, but people have started coming.

What I have done is invite everyone I know, repeatedly. A neighbour (Oleg) took me up on this at the end of April. For three weeks in a row he was the only person who responded to my invitations. But we were having fun kicking the footy, so I was happy. Some of the young people watching on were curious and had a bit of a kick with us. Perhaps these people will join us at a later date.

Then in the fourth week Valera, (who I had met at the Bravo English School where I teach in Akademgorodok) also came along. He had wanted to earlier, but had been unable to. Three people, wow! I decided not to give up. Growth is growth.

I invited some other students I knew. The fifth week (May 21st) we had four people. We played a scratch game of 2 on 2. Hey, we were keen. Then after a little while, another three students turned up. It was exciting to have 7 people. I pulled out my umpire's whistle and we had our first semi-organised game.

I asked everyone playing what we should call the teams. One team (which I will claim allegiance to) was "Akadem" short for Akademgorodok, where we are playing and some of us live. The other team was called "Polytechnik" because all of the students on that team study at that institute (which is just a few bus stops away).

The scoreline ended up as:

Akadem 5.3.33  (That's 5 goals- worth 6 points each and 3 "behinds" worth 1 point each.)

Polytechnik 2.1.13 (That's 2 goals and 1 behind for a total of 13 points.)

Yevgenii and Michil compete for the ball up.

The ball has gone out of bounds.

Oleg, about to take a "mark".

The umpire (me) has just thrown the ball in, after it went out of bounds.