Photograph: Provided by North London Lions.
This week I watched Australian Rules Football. As I walked around the pitch at the Oliver Tambo Recreation Ground on Saturday, it might have been easy to look at the groups of men running around in short shorts and tight vests as just the latest evidence of Australians taking over London.
You cannot leave the house without hearing the faint hum of a higher-pitched accent cutting through the air like the buzz of a bee. Clissold Park has turned into a hotspot for tanned, athletic runners to congregate and vent about Bazza, Chazza and Shazza. Clapham High Street has been transformed into downtown Sydney, with the nightclub Infernos acting as its sticky, sweaty gateway to Down Under.
After watching the first game of the day under the beating sun, I spotted a man, wearing the North London Lions jersey, sit down on the bench behind the rest of his team. He looked tired and hot under the thick mullet on top of his head. Recognising me, he smiled and said: “It’s great craic, isn’t it?”
Larry Cullen, vice-president of the club, had invited me to come and watch a game at the park in the shadow of the transmission mast at Alexandra Palace. ‘Big Lazza’, as he is nicknamed on the Lions website, is from Gorey, Wexford, and his Irish accent is enough to suggest maybe this is a sport which stretches beyond the southern hemisphere.
Earlier that morning, I watched an explainer video made by the AFL, the major league for the sport in Australia, about Aussie Rules. I had never watched the sport and I did not understand the scoring. It started to make more sense when I realised how similar it was to Gaelic sports.
Cullen laughed and knew instantly which video I had watched. “I grew up obviously with a very similar sport in Gaelic football being a huge part of my life. Once you get used to the tackling and physical side of the game there isn’t a part of it you can’t get [your head] around,” he said.
Even I could understand that the Lions had been in control of the first quarter of the Men’s Social division game and took an early lead over the Hackney-based London Swans. But the visitors pegged them back as the game progressed, kicking six goals (through the middle two posts, worth six points each) and five behinds (between the wider set of posts, worth one point each) to come back and beat the Lions, who scored just three goals and five behinds.
Despite the defeat, Cullen grinned as he recalled scoring one of the three Lions goals. He gesticulated his side-on kick through the posts, more in the style of a Gaelic footballer than the straight-on kicks typically seen in Aussie Rules. In spite of the obvious similarities with the Irish sport, I was curious as to how someone from the southeast of Ireland could be so besotted with Aussie Rules.
“I suppose the challenge of something so alien yet weirdly familiar really dragged me into it,” Cullen explained, having been exposed to the sport through playing International Rules Football against Australian teams in Ireland. “I was introduced by Connor Dunne, who represented Ireland at various AFL Europe tournaments, and he brought me to training with the South Dublin Swans.”
Whilst playing in the Movember Cup in Manchester in November 2024, Cullen met with some members of North London Lions for the first time. They told him that he was welcome to play with them if he ever moved to London. The next day, Cullen quit his job in Dublin and moved to London.
“A club member sorted me a room in her house in London,” he explained. “I don’t think I’ve ever set foot in a sports club setup that’s been so focused on striking the balance between sport and your life outside sport so well.”
The north London-based side were founding members of AFL London, the largest Aussie Rules league outside of Australia, in 1990. It has developed into a community club of three teams, two for men and one for women, filled with people from all over the world, not just the Australians in London.
“Whether it’s winning a game with your mates, just a few beers for a birthday or going away drinks for one of the club members heading back [home], you really see how much people in the club care about each other outside of the sport itself,” Cullen said.
The turnover of people in the squad is also high, with individuals returning home or moving to other countries on a regular basis. As vice-president, Cullen has to grow the club and maintain its community.
One of those he has brought into the club is his American girlfriend, who was warming up for her own game straight after the men’s match. “I remember bringing my partner to a session with me to train after dating for only a month. Her sporting background consisted mainly of cheerleading back in the US,” Cullen explained.
“Everyone put real time and effort into getting her kicking with proper technique and so many people in the club were so interested in how an American got into their local game. It was really lovely to see and something that just drilled into me about how special the club is.”
North London Lions would demolish the Swans in the Women’s Conference division tie, scoring 91 (13.13) unanswered points to more than make up for any fleeting grievances over the lower-scoring game earlier in the day.
The sport moves quickly and the oval ball can switch from one end of the vast field to the other in a matter of seconds. It is hotly contested and can be rough at times, but no different to rugby or Gaelic football.
Above all, you can tell immediately that it is a fun game to play and maybe the Australians were right to bring Aussie Rules to London. The British can be quick to be cynical about the Aussies, particularly when it comes to competition, but North London Lions and AFL London are proof that there is nothing that brings people together like sport – not even Infernos.
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Jack McRae writes... 