Denmark Vikings

VIKING LAUNCH RAID ON OZ
Danish junior development program among best in the world.

Australian Football kicked off in Denmark back in May 1989. Mick Sitch, an Australian resident living in Copenhagen, placed an advertisement in a local newspaper asking if anyone would like to meet him under a tree in a public park to partake in one of the great traditions of Australian life - a kick of a footy. Two other people turned up and things grew rapidly from there.

Over the next 18 months regular training sessions were held, and towards the end of 1990, three founding clubs were formed - the Amager Tigers, the Copenhagen Crocodiles and the North Copenhagen Barracudas. These became the founding members of the Danish Australian Football League (DAFL), and still exist today.

Australian Football has been played competitively in Denmark since 1991. From the humble origins of the three Copenhagen-based social teams, the game now has senior and junior clubs from as far wide as Jutland and across to Skane in southern Sweden. Every year, over 300 seniors and 100 juniors play Australian Football in the region.

As the sport developed through the mid-1990s, clubs from around Denmark and beyond were formed and joined the league. The Aalborg Kangaroos (1993), Helsingborg Saints (1994), Farum Lions - now Cats - (1995) and Arhus Bombers (1997), along with the three founders, made up the Danish Australian Football League of 2002.

Since 1998, junior development has been a significant part of footy in Denmark. Predominantly played in the Copenhagen suburb of Farum, junior matches take place every week, and this has proved one of the most developed junior football programs outside of the original birthplace of the game, Australia.

The Farum Lions have twice sent junior teams to Australia, in 2000 and 2003. Additionally, over 100 boys and girls from ages seven to 15 currently play every week, both outdoors in summer and indoors through the cold Danish winter.

The DAFL has now been split into three divisions, with a league in the north, a league near Copenhagen and the competition in Sweden playing 12-a-side football.

The Denmark national team, appropriately nicknamed the Vikings, had its origins in 1992, when the North London Lions from the British Australian Rules Football League made the journey over to Denmark to hand the DAFL a football lesson.

Official internationals began in 1994, when Denmark played a game in England for the first time, and unfortunately the result was not much better than two years earlier, with the Vikings losing again. In 1995, the DAFL took the decision to exclude ex-pat Australians from its national team, and this has resulted in a rather more rewarding period since those early days.

The International Cup held in Melbourne in 2002 was a successful outing, with the Vikings finishing fourth out of 11 teams, headed only by Australia's neighbours New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, along with Ireland, where the similar code of Gaelic Football is so popular.

The Vikings for the 2008 Australian Football International Cup are being coached by Jim Campion, assisted by Gavin Hollingworth and managed by Chris Little, and hope to again provide stiff opposition.

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