Chelsea Roffey
AFL website
09 May, 2008
THE FORMATION of an Australian football league in Finland is a tale not unlike the story of the game's conception itself by Tom Wills and his mates in a South Melbourne pub 150 years ago.
Take a bar in Finland, a few Aussie expatriates and the decision to go and have a kick of the footy in a local park.
The kick-to-kick quickly caught on and evolved into the formation of the Finnish national side, the Lions, in 2005. Three years later, Finland has fielded its first International Cup side, the Icebreakers.
While Australians are blessed with open space and can usually find a sports ground within a stone’s throw of any suburban block, Finland Australian Football League board member Fredrik Romar says the most challenging aspect of learning the game comes down to the fact that Finland doesn’t have ovals.
"I don’t know especially that it’s skills so much as just to be able to read the entire game, because we have no ovals at all," Romar says.
"No-one has ever played an 18-a-side game so we have no idea what that will be like.
"We actually practice in a public park so we haven’t got any goalposts at all. We just use shoes or shirts or other footies as markers for goal kicking practice."
The first time he showed up for training, Romar was told that if he knew the game was played with an oval ball, he knew more than most others.
"As much as we can, many of us follow the games on the internet but it’s very seldom that we actually get to see a game live," he says.
But before dismissing the Icebreakers on the premise that they lack training facilities, resources, and their ability to even watch a game of Aussie Rules at the top level, consider the gusto with which they’ve attacked their newly-found love.
They’ve got the same competitive spirit as any group of Australians and, according to Romar, regularly mess about and give each other grief about how their respective AFL clubs are travelling in the AFL.
Then there’s the old rivalry with neighbouring Sweden, who they compete against each year in a series of "friendlies".
"There’s the whole ice-hockey history between Sweden and Finland so I think it’s sort of a natural choice for us to have Sweden as a main rival," Romar says.
"No one’s out to kill anyone, but we always want to win."
And if the on-field spirit isn’t enough, the post-match celebrations would surely gain the approval of any sceptical Australian.
"We play hard but after the game we have a barbecue and have a few beers and so on," Romar says.
Finland’s four-team league (a nine-a-side competition) begins its season mid-May with a clash between Helsinki and newly established club, Espoo. Most of the Icebreakers hail from Helsinki, and are likely to make up numbers for the new side.
How the Icebreakers will fare in Melbourne and Warrnambool later in the year is anyone’s guess. But they’ve played in the Central European Championships twice, winning both times, and finished sixth in the last EU Cup, a nine-a-side competition played in Europe.
If there’s one advantage of inexperience it’s that the Icebreakers keep improving every time they play.
"Every time we go onto the field it’s always better than the last time," Romar says.
They bring hand-eye coordination from playing volleyball and basketball, and the running and zoning skills learned in soccer.
Combine that with an Aussie coach in expat Simon MacGregor, who has been with the team since December, and the Finns are sure to be throwing few shrimp on the barbie for some time yet.
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