History
When the ANUAFC was established in 1961, the team was referred to as “University” or the “Students”. Over time this became the “Blues”, until in 1976, the Committee decided a membership badge should be struck for the ANUAFC. Eric Martin, an architect and regular ANUAFC first’s player, suggested a Griffin would be a suitable emblem for the Club given tradition considered the Griffin to be king of the beasts and the location of the ANU campus on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin. The Committee at the time was largely comprised of economics, law and political science students and graduates so they readily deferred to Eric’s superior knowledge of matters artistic, heraldic and mythical, and endorsed his proposal. Badges were struck and from that day the “Blues” became the “Griffins”.
50th Anniversary Toast
ANUAFC is saddened by the passing of Professor John Molony, celebrated Historian, ANU Academic, and lover of Australian Rules Football. Professor Molony was President of ANUAFC in 1978, and contributed widely to the spirit and growth of the ANUAFC and AFL Canberra more widely. Professor Molony delivered the toast to the ANU footy club at our 50th anniversary celebrations in 2011. No words sum up the purpose for and community nature of our game and our beloved club better than John’s own. From his address: “Surely I do not need to stress the fact that our game uses every gift and quality of the whole human person, including the head to think with rather than to butt a ball. That combines with quickness, strength, courage, instinctive reactions and often breathtaking skill to give us at times a glimpse of perfection so rarely met in human endeavour. Our game is at heart always a contest, not a pretty little form of keepings off. Furthermore its fluidity demands a contest if the whole event is not to degenerate into a series of aimless stops and starts…In Aussie Rules the primary purpose is to attack rather than to defend. Friendships that have endured…[were] made real in the formation and development of the ANU Australian Rules Football Club.” The full transcript can be read here.
Club song
The Club song was devised by Jim Bradshaw and others during the infamous Perth Intervarsity trip in 1964. Based on the Neapolitan classic “Funiculi, Funiculi”, the song replaced the resounding refrain “let’s go to the top” with repeated references to self abuse and triumphalism. The song quickly became a Club favourite and, just as quickly, provided proof to CANFL heavyweights that the ANUAFC was a bunch of undisciplined degenerates. As a result of repeated requests from the League to not sing the song, it became a symbol of defiance, lustily rendered upon the slightest pretext, and now song on the oval following each win. The women’s song was updated in anticipation of season 2018, to bring the women’s song up to date with the iconic style of the men’s songs.
Men’s Song
(On oval, to the tune of Funiculi, Funiculi)
This is the song of the ANU
You pull your pud, you pull your pud
This is the song of the ANU
You pull your pud, you pull your pud
Smash it, crash it, bash it on the floor
You jump on it, you stomp on it, you nail it to the wall
You pull, you pull, you pull, you pull, you pull, you pull your pud!
Forty inches on the slack, what do you think of that?
Hey!
(In change rooms, to the tune of Botany Bay)
If I had the wings of an eagle
An a***hole as black as a crow
I’d fly to the top of the goalpost
And s**t on (opposing team) below
Oh Uni, oh Uni, you beauty! (you f**king beauty!)
The glory, the honour, the bliss!
By day time we go out and f**k ‘em all!
By night time we suck on the piss!
Women’s Song
(In change rooms, to the tune of Botany Bay)
Lions heart, wings of an eagle
We’re brave and we’re proud and we’re bold
We rise from our fortress South Oval
To fly like the Griffins of old
Oh Uni, oh Uni, you beauty!
The glory, the honour, the bliss!
Onwards to victory we’re soaring
And on to the premiership!