Copying Beethoven

Happy Australia Day! :)

This year is the year of sports – there will be the Euro Cup in June & the Rio Olympics in August is on the cards.

Therefore, for this Australia Day – I would like to pay tribute to the West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Football Club which are part of the Australian Football League.

The Australian Football League (AFL) is the highest-level professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body, and is responsible for controlling the Laws of the Game. The league was founded as the Victorian Football League (VFL) as a breakaway from the previous Victorian Football Association (VFA), with its inaugural season commencing in 1897. Originally comprising only teams based in the Australian state of Victoria, the competition's name was changed to the Australian Football League for the 1990 season, after expanding to other states throughout the 1980s.

The league currently consists of 18 teams spread over five of Australia's six states (Tasmania being the exception). Matches have been played in all mainland states and territories of Australia, as well as in New Zealand. The AFL season currently consists of a pre-season competition (currently branded as the "NAB Challenge"), followed by a 23-round regular (or "home-and-away") season, which runs during the Australian winter (March to September). The top eight teams then play off in a four-round finals series, culminating in the AFL Grand Final, which is held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year. The winning team in the Grand Final is termed the "premiers", and is awarded the premiership cup. The current premiers are Hawthorn.

The current 18 teams are based across 5 states of Australia. The majority (10) still remain in Victoria, including nine teams located in the Melbourne metropolitan area. The states of New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, and South Australia have two teams each. In 1990 the national nature of the competition resulted in the name change to the Australian Football League. Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory, and Northern Territory are the only states or mainland territories not to have AFL clubs.

The West Coast Eagles are an Australian rules football club based in Perth. The club trains and plays its home games at Subiaco Oval (Domain Stadium) in Subiaco, having previously also played matches at the WACA Ground. The club was founded in 1986 as an expansion team and entered the competition the following season, along with the Brisbane Bears, making the finals series for the first time in 1988. West Coast won its first premiership in 1992, after being defeated in the grand final the previous year, winning two more in 1994 and 2006. The club's current coach is Adam Simpson, and the current captain is Shannon Hurn. From the 2014 season onwards, the East Perth Football Club, playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL), has served as West Coast's reserves team, with West Coast players previously distributed among all WAFL teams.

The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers is based in the port city of Fremantle at the mouth of the Swan River in Western Australia. In1995 it became the second team from Western Australia to be admitted to the national Australian rules football competition, honoring the rich footballing tradition and history associated with Fremantle.

Matthew Pavlich has been club captain since the beginning of the 2007 season. High profile players since the club's inception include Pavlich, 2015 Brownlow Medallist Nat Fyfe, the league's tallest ever player Aaron Sandilands, former captains Peter Bell and Shaun McManus, former number one draft pick Clive Waterhouse, winners of the AFL Rising Staraward Paul Hasleby and Rhys Palmer, Jeff Farmer, Luke McPharlin and Hayden Ballantyne.

The club is coached by Ross Lyon following the sacking of Mark Harvey at the end of the 2011 AFL home and away season. Fremantle has not won a premiership during its time in the AFL, however it did win the minor premiership in 2015. Their most successful season to date was the 2013 season in which they finished runner up after losing in their first grand final appearance.