Dave’s Football Blog

Apparently, Kevin Sheedy proved to be very popular in Louisville last weekend. Reports are that the mayor gave him the key to the city. Granted, that’s kind of like giving someone the key to a Mercury Topaz, but let’s not dwell too much on the negative here.

He also told reporters that not only was he surprised by the enthusiasm for Australian football among the Americans, but he thinks there could be an American-born footy star in the AFL within a decade — and it will most likely come from Minnesota.

Sheedy, as always, was on the lookout for an international recruit. He said Minnesota has the best young talent.

“A couple of the local boys have been over to Fremantle and they have a very good program in Western Australia, which has been very beneficial,” Sheedy said. “There is plenty happening over here and it has come a fairly long way to be honest. The enthusiasm by the Americans is quite amazing and we are getting more and more of them behind it.”

It’s kind of hard for me to imagine Minnesota as a footy stronghold in America, but it seems they have a pretty strong program up there. They’re even talking about expanding their Metro Footy program enough to create a local league that can play every year. Whether that’s enough to produce a home-grown AFL player within a decade remains to be seen, but stranger things have happened.

It’s kind of funny to compare and contrast USFooty with Gridiron Australia, isn’t it? No matter how popular one form of football may be in one country, there will always be people who find someone else’s form of football more interesting. The AFL seems to be taking better advantage of that than the NFL these days.

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