AFL members will be no doubt blissfully ignorant to the recent developments at the MCG over Melbourne’s colder months. However, whilst attending a non-match at midnight, on Tuesday, we noticed a wonderful artwork adorning the newly refurbished Olympic Stand. Entitled ‘Kicking the Leather’, the sculpture incorporates the use of footballs, old and new, to create a collage that meanders up one of the structural supports.

Artist Penelope Lee has taken a leaf out of the Anti-Football League’s book and deflated, unstitched, and shredded several hundred footballs to create her masterpiece. Over the years, during Wilkie Award presentations, we too have put the pigskin through similar ordeals, but never have we created something as elaborate as this.

Here at the AFL we suspect the commission of ‘Kicking the Leather’ is part of a desperate push to breathe some life into the MCG stadium during its unfortunate winter periods. And so, football non-enthusiasts are encouraged to look out for this piece and marvel at this salute to our cause, next time they’re attending a non-match at the ‘G’.

Fellow anti-footballers,

In recent weeks we have been subjected to a different type of Football hubbabaloo. The soccer World Cup has been and gone and thankfully there will be no more talk of it for another four years. But has it been good for the Anti-Football cause? We can only conclude that it has a few more merits than the normal pigskin calisthenics we, the downtrodden and overburdened, are usually subject to.

Still, as ever, we have been required in our workplaces and public spaces to lend a polite ear to the tired remarks: ‘Did you catch the game? Geez, I tell ya, we was robbed’.
But as an upside, the soccer games have been played at a more civilised times of day –three in the morning, for example. If only the Aussie rules crowd would take a page out of the World Cup book, and play all their games in the dead of night. Just think, no more congested train carriages at Richmond station by gambrinous hordes. No more Punt road deadlock on Saturday afternoons and the television coverage would have the post-mortem-game-wrap-up all over by breakfast time. An ideal situation, you would have to agree.

But as members of the Anti-Football League, we should ask whether we should celebrate this recent distraction, or condemn the soccer World Cup completely? If they insist on calling the ball played with the round ball ‘football’ and not ‘soccer’ then should we consider fighting on another front? Presently, we are undecided.

Members, as ever, are invited to continue the debate by leaving a comment below.