How+did+the+AFL+start?

How the AFL started off!

Eight clubs left the original Victorian Football Association to form the Victorian Football League on 2nd of October, 1896. These clubs (Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, South Melbourne and St Kilda) formed the basis of the league, with further teams joining in later years. By 1925 Victoria boasted a 12 team competition widely acknowledged as the strongest state league in Australia. Known as the VFL, it remained in this format until 1982, when the South Melbourne Football Club relocated to Sydney. A new era of expansion came as more teams were admitted, however, these teams were from other states than Victoria. The VFL changed its name in 1990 to become the Australian Football League (AFL). Since then, we now have 16 teams, with a seventeenth (Gold Coast Suns) in 2011, and an eighteenth (West Sydney), likely to come in 2012!