How did Australian rules footballs get their distinctive oval shape?

THE erratic bounce of the Sherrin has delighted and sometimes confounded us for more than 100 years. But how did the Australian rules footy get its shape?

Sherrin football factory worker Bobby Fisher with some of his factory’s finest footies in 2012. Picture: News Limited

THE erratic bounce of the old Sherrin on footy grounds around the country has delighted up and sometimes confounded us for more than 100 years.

It seems fitting that Australia’s indigenous football code should have its own ball, but how did it happen? Who invented the Aussie rules football and why?

The grand-nephew of its inventor, T.W. (Thomas William) Sherrin, says necessity was the mother of invention and turned a Collingwood saddler and his flattish oval ball into Australian sporting legends.

Syd Sherrin said round balls and rugby balls were used in early Australian rules matches, with English rugby balls becoming more popular by the 1870s as the game developed.

But the free-running Aussie code meant more loose balls bouncing around the grounds.

“The rugby balls used to get worn out at the ends because of the pointier ends,” Mr Sherrin said.

“Old Tom used to repair them as part of his job as a saddler, but Tom was a bit canny and he knew football pretty well because he was with the Brittania Football Club (a forerunner to Collingwood).

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Syd Sherrin in his workshop. Picture: Nick Clayton

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“He used to play the game and loved Australian rules football, and started wondering what it would be like if there was a football with blunter ends.”

In 1879, the Aussie rules football was born.

“He made a ball and created the ball that had less pointy ends. It was still able to bounce unpredictably but it was a little more consistent in its movements,” Mr Sherrin said.

“He made a couple up and took them to the Brittania Football Club and they just loved it. They thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.

“Soon everyone was saying they wanted a Tom Sherrin football.”

T. W. Sherrin, the inventor of the Australian rules football. Picture: Supplied

In 1880, T.W. Sherrin branched out from his saddlery at 30 Wellington Street, Collingwood, leasing houses at 32 and 34 Wellington street to make sporting goods including cricket balls, boxing gloves and punching bags.

By 1888, he won a series awards for the quality of his sporting goods at a centenary of Australian manufacturing exhibition at the Royal Exhibition Building.

T.W. Sherrin cricket balls were used in first class cricket from the 1880s and his boxing gear appeared in top bouts in Melbourne but footballs were the company’s mainstay.

Old Tom Sherrin was a director at Brittania and helped to form Collingwood at a meeting at the Grace Darling Hotel in Smith Street in 1892.

An early newspaper advertisement for the mighty T.W. Sherrin “Kangaroo” brand. Picture: Supplied

By 1897, TW Sherrin was the official manufacturer of the brand new Victorian Football League and remains the supplier to the AFL today.

“I admire Tom Sherrin for starting a business virtually from scratch and was winning awards after less than 10 years of manufacturing products,” Mr Sherrin said.

“Obviously, he knew exactly what he was doing and he promoted his business in a was that is unrivalled today.”

Other ball-makers, quick to see an opportunity, started producing their own versions of Old Tom’s footy but his Sherrin was the benchmark for leagues around Australia.

T.W. Sherrin’s death in 1912 did not stop the family legacy. His brother Syd — Mr Sherrin’s grandfather — took over and by 1927, the company was punting 20,000 balls a year through the factory doors to eager customers.

Footies weren’t the only sting to T.W. Sherrin’s bow. Picture: Supplied

In 1938, the Australian National Football Council formally adopted the size and shape of Sherrin’s design as the national standard for senior football.

Time and technology have improved the balls.

“Leather stretches. If you look at all the AFL and VFL clubs and their trophy cases, you’ll see footballs that look very, very round and old that were used many years ago, and that’s simply because the ball started out a certain size but they stretched because the game is very hard on them, especially when it’s wet,” he said.,

“Manufacturing has improved immensely. In the 1950s they started putting a canvas liner inside the ball to stop it stretching and I must compliment the tanneries because they were able to reduce a lot of stretch in the leather.”

The Sherrin football factory in Scoresby. Picture: News Limited

“Over the years, the balls that once might have blown out like a balloon in the early part of the last century, by the 1950s the balls became a much better product because they were manufactured much better and the tanning was better.“

Mr Sherrin started with T. W. Sherrin in 1970, two years before his father Tom sold the company to American sporting goods manufacturer Spalding.

Russell Athletic took over in 2003, and still makes footballs at a factory in Scoresby.

He left the company in the 1980s and became a real estate agent in 1989, but footballs are still in his blood.

Mr Sherrin hand-stitches a handful of custom footballs a year in his spare time.

“I think it’s a tremendous thing from our family’s point of view,” Mr Sherrin said of the Sherrins’ pioneering role in the game.

Originally published as How did Australian rules footballs get their distinctive oval shape?