Australian Football .. where in tokyo ?

[maruosan]

Hello!! Any Aussie guys here, I just have a question, there is a place in Tokyo were I can watch Australian Football?, last year I went to Melbourne And there I follow the final games of the AFL championship, it was very nice, the new season of footy started and I would love to watch some games, the only way that I can find to enjoy the games is subscribing to the video and audio services at the http://afl.com.au/default.asp?pg=audiovideo but would be nice if I can find a place where I can watch a games and drink some VB , thank you !

[Ol Dirty Gaijin]

The Clubhouse in Shinjuku,
http://www.clubhouse-tokyo.com/
Game times are here
http://www.clubhouse-tokyo.com/sportsE.html

Also the Narita Cup is on June 11 and 12 at the Radisson Hotel Narita.
http://www.jafl.org/narita2005info.html

[maraboutslim]

When ESPN first hit the air in the u.s.a. they didn't have all those talk/interview/special shows and had to show odd-ball (from the u.s. perspective) sports like Australian Football. I hadn't seen it for years but found it on tv in Japan while there a few weeks ago. But the referee guys weren't wearing their smart little sport coats and hats anymore! That was the best part. The way they'd go to attention and do that two armed motion to signify a score. Bummer to see them wearing something more modernish...

[GomiGirl]

Did you know that Tokyo has it's very own Aussie Rules team.

Tokyo Goannas

Good website that has a heap of information on it.

They say this about the Clubhouse in Shinjuku:
AFL at The Clubhouse

AFL is played on the TVs at The Clubhouse every Friday night and at other times throughout the weekend. Check out the map.

Also, you can subscribe to ABC Asia-Pacific via Muracam TV for direct satelite into your house.

Muracam TV English pages

The Japanese site has more information,

The English on the site is quite ordinary but the sevice is amazing. My parents have subscribed here in Japan for the last few years and Muracam offer great customer care. He will come to your house and sort it all out for you and he is a real sweetie.

Costs about Y3,000 a month which is not cheap compared to the 50 stations on the sky perfect but this is the only Australian service and of course because it is "Auntie" it is great.

[kurohinge1]

[SIZE="4"]Essendon looks for Japanese talent[/SIZE]

The Essendon Football Club is sending seven of its younger players on a personal development trip to Japan this week. As part of the trip, the players and coaching staff will hold clinics in Tokyo and Osaka on behalf of the AFL. Essendon's website also reports that the Essendon staff will be testing the local Japanese players to determine which two will join Essendon for 2007 preseason training.

High performance manager John Quinn, chief executive Peter Jackson and development coach Matthew Knights will accompany Essendon players Jobe Watson, Nathan Lovett-Murray, Angus Monfries, Jason Winderlich, Adam Ramanauskas, Jay Nash and Ricky Dyson on the trip that is designed to immerse the players in a foreign culture and challenge them to leave their comfort zones. It is a similar trip to that which Essendon's leadership group went to Japan for two years ago. The story can be seen on the Essendon website.

The clinics will be in Tokyo on Thursday, November 9 and Osaka on Sunday, November 12. JAFL President Hideki Miyasaka is expecting a good turnout of Japanese and expatriate players as well as boys and girls for both clinics.

Despite the fact that the Essendon website reports that the club will be inviting two Japanese players to its 2007 preseason training, Hideki says that this remains uncertain. He believes that high performance manager Quinn and development coach Knights will assess the players in the clinics and then make a judgement before inviting any players to Essendon's preseason training.

The JAFL, Tokyo Goannas and associated clubs invite anybody who is interested in attending to come along to either clinic. Contact and venue details for the Tokyo clinic are listed below.

The clinic will be held 3-5pm on Thursday 9 November:

Setagaya Ward Athletic Ground;

4-6-1 Okura, Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.

Location: 15 min by Bus from Seijyo-Gakuen Station, Odakyu-Line

Tel:03-3417-4276 Fax:03-3417-1734


Editor: Note there may have been a change in venue to Chuo Ward - see the note on the front of the JAFL website. Approximate English translation available via link at top right of their page.

[kurohinge1]

I have almost no interest in AFL but found this article a fun read:

[SIZE="4"]Japan learns Aussie rules[/SIZE]

TWENTY-ONE years ago I received a phone call in Tokyo from one of my bosses at the Sun News-Pictorial with what seemed a straightforward assignment.

Two Australian rules teams, Essendon and Hawthorn, were planning to play a promotional match in Yokohama. The newspaper had heard the organisers, Fuji TV, were going to hold a curtain-raiser involving Japanese players.

I was the local correspondent for the Sun-Pic, now the Herald Sun, so I called Fuji TV. Their idea was to put on a game between Keio and Waseda universities, the most distinguished of the nation's 600 private universities. Sporting contests between them are like Oxford-Cambridge matches, so Fuji TV was sure they would get plenty of local attention.

"But can they play?" I asked the producer handling the match.

"Umm ... no, not yet," he said.

"Well, who will teach them?"

"Will you?" he asked.

His strategy for finding Aussie rules coaching talent was to ask the first person he came across with an Australian accent. Sadly for him, that was me.

I laughed and told him even though I was from Melbourne I could barely play the game, let alone teach it. Oddly enough my sport as a kid had been judo . . .

. . . Some of the other volunteers [players] had played soccer and a few had been on a rugby field, but Aussie rules was totally exotic. That novelty was the attraction, along with a chance to get on television, which they figured might help them with girls.

So we had a coach who could not coach, players who had never played and no common language to talk footy. . .

. . . So my family sent me a coaching manual for teaching primary-school players and Hiroshi set to work translating terms such as torpedo punt. I found two Australian bankers who knew how to umpire and convinced a mate who could play the game to come over from Hong Kong for our first training session, a two-day camp at the base of Mount Fuji.

. . . They put on a good show at Yokohama baseball stadium in front of about 15,000 people and a decent TV audience. In fact Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy and Hawthorn's Alan Jeans seemed pleasantly surprised by their performance. They both remarked that our best player, Katsutoshi Ishibe, had real talent.

That was supposed to be the end of my lost Saturdays but something unexpected had happened. These guys had become my friends and by now I had learned it was hard for foreigners to make genuine friendships in Japan. I had found that bonds of friendship in Japan rely on sharing some defining link, such as working for the same company or coming from the same village or school, rather than simply meeting somebody and finding that you like them.

That makes Japanese society a series of tight social circles. And if people are always insiders or outsiders, then foreigners are the ultimate outsiders. More often than not, foreigners are treated as if they are more charming and interesting than they really are, but I was sick of always being treated as if I was special and different.

To have normal friendships I needed a circle or bond of my own, and I had stumbled into one with Aussie rules. I decided to keep at it.

For the next three years I would be dragged out of bed, exhausted and hung-over, for the long Saturday morning drive into the suburbs to lead training sessions or matches against teams of Australian bankers and language teachers. Somehow we even ended up with an Irish team made up of Gaelic football players who had been lured to Tokyo by the strong yen of the 1980s.

. . . I left Japan at the end of 1990. On grand final day five years later, I had another of those "is this really happening?" moments. I had returned to Tokyo for Iida's wedding at the Hotel Okura.

After his bride, Akiko, had changed from a kimono into a Western outfit, they entered the ballroom to the applause of 500 guests. The music then started up for the bridal waltz, sending my table of footy old boys into cheers but leaving me laughing. Never before had Up There, Cazaly featured in a traditional Japanese wedding.

. . . Teams are now spread across Japan and sides tour Australia each year. Two Japanese footballers even play semi-professionally in Australia . . . more

[Ol Dirty Gaijin]

Not much has changed 20 years on.

[FG Lurker]

Okay, not Aussie Football but...

[Greji]

[quote="FG Lurker"]
Okay, not Aussie Football but... ]

How about the Aussie Ski Team. I can't quite identify the girl sitting next to him, but I think I saw her on the powder in Hokkaido.....

[kurohinge1]

. . . I can't quite identify the girl sitting next to him, but I think I saw her on the powder in Hokkaido...

That dangler looks like he/she's been "doing some powder"!

What did they think they were doing???

The trees suggest it's northern hemisphere - is it from Japan?

[GuyJean]

.. The trees suggest it's northern hemisphere - is it from Japan?

Vail, Colorado..

Hey, isn't Taro currently in Colorado?..

GJ

[GomiGirl]

That dangler looks like he/she's been "doing some powder"!

What did they think they were doing???

The trees suggest it's northern hemisphere - is it from Japan?

Actually the fact that the safety bar is not down suggests Japan. Many lifts don't have them or if they do, thye don't come down automatically.

BTW That is NOT me in the pic despite the rumours that Greji is trying to start. My spiffy new ski jacket is orange.

Plus me smells a photoshop job.

[Greji]

BTW That is NOT me in the pic despite the rumours that Greji is trying to start. My spiffy new ski jacket is orange.

I thought that was you hanging down. It is in fact Vail and Taro is suspect. It is also courtesy of Smoking Gun....