Australian rules football in Scotland describes the sport of Australian rules football being played and watched in the country of Scotland. It is a minor, relatively unknown sport, currently played at amateur level by five clubs spread across the regions of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Fife and West Lothian. The Haggis Cup, a major invitational tournament hosted in Scotland, has been run annually since 2004.
The sport has a long history in Scotland but with extended periods of inactivity.
Scottish involvement had a big influence on the sport's development in its earliest days, coordinating the very first competition and trophy, the Caledonian Challenge Cup in 1861, establishing Australian rules football in Queensland in 1866 and one of the game's earliest and most successful clubs, the Essendon Football Club in 1872. The game was first established in Edinburgh in 1888 by students from Edinburgh University.
Edinburgh has hosted the EU Cup, including the 2012 tournament and most recently in 2022. The national men's team best result is 5th in 2009, the women's team's has achieved 3rd in both 2014 and 2022. In all other international tournaments including the AFL Europe Championship and Australian Football International Cup, Scotland competes as part of the combined Great Britain men's or women's side.
Scottish players have featured in the Australian Football League as early as 1897, its first year of competition.
History
Scottish involvement in early years of Australian rules in Australia
Scots were playing forms of football during the Victorian gold rush in the 1850s contributing to the early mix of rules played that eventually morphed into Australian rules. Scots living in Melbourne and Victoria in the mid-19th century were greatly involved in the formation of the rules of the game, as well as the formation of a number of early clubs.
The very first competition and trophy in 1861 was the instigation of the Royal Caledonian Society and known as the Caledonian Challenge Cup. Among the members was George Frederick Bowen who born in Sydney to Scottish immigrants who founded the Carlton Football Club.
David Watterston of Balgone Barns, Haddingtonshire learned the game upon migrating to Melbourne, but importantly was founder of the Brisbane Football Club which commenced Australian rules football in Queensland in 1866 the second British colony to take up the sport.
One club formed by Scots was the Essendon Football Club (participating in the elite Australian Football League) formed in 1872 which was founded by Robert McCracken, born in Ayrshire who emigrated at the age of 28. The now-defunct Glasgow Redbacks wore black jumpers with a red diagonal stripe across the front, the same as worn by Essendon Football Club said to recognise the Scottish roots of Essendon.
First introduction in Edinburgh: 1880s
As early as April 1888 students at Edinburgh University (mostly Australian) had formed a team. The team contested a match in England against London University on 14 April 1888. Reports in July 1889 from Australia appear to indicate that the sport continued for a time in Edinburgh, but that the Edinburgh team "wiped out every competing team". Records of any team beyond this appear not to have survived.
Rumoured River Clyde competition: 1900s
There are rumours of a competition near the River Clyde during the early 20th Century, referred to in Geoffrey Blainey's A Game of Our Own, where a number of expatriate Australians were based in Scotland either as Ship Workers or Soldiers. Had this league existed, and there is no proof it ever did, then it had died out around the time of the First World War.